You're all wrong. And I mean those of you who claim that Justice
Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s "not true" during the State of the Union
Wednesday night constitutes a "Joe Wilson moment."
And I'm also talking about those of you who argue that the president
was out of line with his in-your-face (almost literally) criticism of
the Supreme Court's decision last week that wiped away long-standing
prohibitions against certain types of corporate political expenditures.
Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald is the most off-base when he argues
that Alito's behavior is worse -- that's right, worse -- than the "you
lie" outburst of South Carolina Republican Rep. Joe Wilson during
the president's address to a joint session of Congress last year.
Wilson's shocking breach of decorum interrupted the president
mid-sentence and was clearly heard by most people in the chamber and
watching on TV. Remember the death-ray glare shot by House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi?
Contrast that with Alito's head shake and his mouthing of what appeared
to be "not true" when Obama asserted that the Supreme Court had wiped
away "a century of law" that "will open the floodgates for special
interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our
elections." No one except those sitting immediately behind Alito likely
would have been aware of the justice's response had TV cameras not
focused on him at that moment. (So much for cameras in the courtroom!)
Greenwald gives Wilson some slack because he's
a politician and is expected to engage in the rough and tumble world of
politics; by "flamboyantly insinuating himself into a pure political
event, in a highly politicized manner," Greenwald says, Alito has
damaged his credibility and that of the court.
Should Alito have refrained from even this modest display? Yes.
Should he have been savvy enough to know that cameras would turn to the
justices when the president addressed the recent decision? Absolutely.
But does this lapse, as Greenwald argues, amount to "a serious and
substantive breach of protocol" and prove that Alito is a "politicized
and intemperate Republican" partisan? Of course not -- except in the
eyes of those so hopelessly stuck in their partisanship that a sneeze
would have been interpreted as "blowing off" the president.
I don't know which part of the president's explanation Alito was
objecting to, but as Linda
Greenhouse rightly notes in The New York Times, the president was
less than precise in his description the decision. It did not, as the
president asserted, throw out a century's worth of precedent, and it did
not disturb a law on the books since the early 1900's that prohibits
corporations from directly contributing to a candidate's coffers. It's
at least plausible -- I'd say probable -- that Alito wasn't expressing
partisan rancor as much as intellectual disagreement with how the
president characterized the opinion.
Nevertheless, the president was well within his rights to refer to
and slam a decision he believes -- and I agree -- could further corrode
and corrupt politics by giving more opportunity to corporate and union
behemoths. I'm sure it wasn't the most pleasant moment for the Supreme
Court justices who voted to strike down the campaign finance
regulations, but I strongly disagree with Georgetown Law Professor Randy
Barnett -- with whom I often agree -- when he writes
that the president engaged in a "truly shocking lack of decorum and
disrespect towards the Supreme Court for which an apology is in order."
An apology? I don't think so.
Obama expressed disagreement and outrage with the decision when it was
issued. What the justices and the country heard on Wednesday night was
nothing new. I also did not hear the president call for Congress or the
states to disregard the case; I heard him challenging his base to come
up with other legislative approaches to address concerns about the
corrupting influence of big money in the political system. And guess
what? The justices would ultimately have the last word on whether this
new plan would pass constitutional muster.