Obama unfazed by Justice Alito’s televised dissent
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There are no cameras in the federal courts -- and that may have lulled Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito into a false sense of security.
Alito was caught Wednesday night mouthing a harsh dissent to comments made by President Obama in his State of the Union speech. Obama took the rare step of publicly criticizing the high court’s ruling ending restrictions on corporations who finance political campaigns.
“With all due deference to the separation of powers,” Obama said, the court last week “reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections.”
Cameras caught Alito scrunching up his face, shaking his head repeatedly and seemingly mouthing “not true” after Obama complained. Alito, a conservative, voted with the 5-4 majority.
Such a demonstration by a Supreme Court Justice is a rare public rebuke to the president, but Obama was unfazed, deputy press secretary Bill Burton told reporters on Air Force One today. Burton was with Obama heading to Florida for a town hall-style appearance.
“One of the great things about our democracy is that powerful members of the government at high levels can disagree in public and private,” Burton told reporters. “This is one of those cases. But the president is not less-committed to seeing this reform.”
-- Michael Muskal
