Obama on SCOTUS and Constitution

Quote from President Obama concerning the Supreme Court and the Constitution as said in a Chicago radio interview in '01:

"The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent as radical as I think people trid to characterize the Warren court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers and the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted. Warren court interpreted itin the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you. But it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf...

And that hasn't shifted, and one of them I think the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change, and in some ways we still suffer from that."

(source)

Still in the same interview:

A caller then helpfully asks: “The gentleman made the point that the Warren Court wasn’t terribly radical. My question is (with economic changes)… my question is, is it too late for that kind of reparative work, economically, and is that the appropriate place for reparative economic work to change place?”

Obama replies:

"You know, I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. The institution just isn’t structured that way. [snip] You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues, you know, in terms of the court monitoring or engaging in a process that essentially is administrative and takes a lot of time. You know, the court is just not very good at it, and politically, it’s just very hard to legitimize opinions from the court in that regard.

So I think that, although you can craft theoretical justifications for it, legally, you know, I think any three of us sitting here could come up with a rationale for bringing about economic change through the courts.”

(source)

"Separation of powers issues"- maybe that's why he is wanting to bypass Congress and possibly the courts through the use of more Czars (36 and counting) than Communist Russia had? How can America support someone who clearly believes America is a bad country?

Are you concerned yet? This man is our President!