For a president to criticize a supreme court decision in fromt of Congress while members of the court are required by decorum to sit motionless is at the very least inappropriate and more likely bullying and demagoguery. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs picked up the criticism last week, “what is troubling is that this decision opened the floodgates for corporations and special interests.” At least Gibbs didn’t repeat Obama’s misinterpretation of the Citizens United v Federal Election Commission.
As Stephen Law pointed out last week in the WSJ (Organized Labor and Citizens United) the president is being more than a bit disingenuous in his silence as to big labor’s benefit from that very decision. “Unions were the big winners in the “corporate” free speech case.” Law points out that it is the unions who are the big political spenders. They have virtually no restraints on how they use the members money. Corporations have shareholders who expect them to earn profits for dividends and appreciation. Unions have no such constraints. They aren’t held to any financial performance standards. SEIU boss Andy Stern admitted that he had taken out tens of millions in loans last year for political ads, “we maxed the credit card and now we’re paying it off.” Law notes, “what corporation could get away with that.”
The other unstated beneficiaries of the decision are the “corporations” that own newspapers. These entities are exempt under the statute that Citizens United declared unconstitutional and are now therefore included in the decision. The main stream press is fawningly liberal in its Obama adulation, so let’s not criticize that part of the decision.
Even the New York Times op-ed contributor Jeff Shesol pointed out yesterday that Justices Will Prevail. His article cautions Obama on going overboard, as Roosevelt did, in his rants against the court. He suggests that Obama is piling on because of a Washington Post poll suggesting that 80 percent of the public were against the decision. Shesol neglected to mention another poll showing that 60 percent of the public favored the decision. This, an example of the main stream press at work.
It is hard not to conclude that Obama seeks to control only opposing speech and is apparently working with his Democratic congressional majorities to do so. What a shame. Freedom of Speech is the very foundation upon which our Republic is built.
Tom Motherway