LAST EDITED ON 04-07-12 AT 01:12 PM (EST)Like I said, Obama's buddies are trying to find ways to paper over his ignorance.
"But there's no reasonable basis for seeing in the president's comments either a challenge to the court's authority as an independent branch of government or a clumsy attempt to pressure it politically or to influence its deliberations."
I agree with both prongs of this statement. Because the court has already voted on the case, attempts at political pressure are futile. I also agree that Obama wasn't trying to challenge the court's authority; he was just showing that he didn't understand that it frequently uses that authority.
"No one in the world -- certainly none of the justices -- can have been surprised to learn that Obama believes his signature domestic achievement fully complies with the Constitution and ought to be upheld -- or that the Supreme Court has a decades-old tradition of treading lightly when major regulations of interstate commerce come before it."
Again, two prongs. Tribe is certainly correct that no one should be surprised about any Obama belief. For all we know, Obama believes that the world is flat and that the moon is made of green cheese.
Tribe is less correct on the second point, though. I think most health-care spending is intrastate spending, and the Constitution doesn't give Congress any authority over intrastate spending. Congress's authority over intrastate spending comes entirely from the Supreme Court decision in Wickard v. Filburn, which I firmly believe to have been wrongly decided (as did at least four different Supreme Court justices within the last decade).
Basically, this prong of Tribe's argument comes down to: "Judiciary branch, you've rolled over for the executive branch in the past, so keep rolling over." I doubt the Supreme Court is likely to do that, especially when supporters of Obamacare (such as Charles Fried) point out that a yes vote on Obamacare equals agreement that there are no limits on federal power to mandate commerce.
Personally, I'm waiting for Obama to force everyone to buy his last crappy book.