Reply #85: There are exactly 4 quotes from Obama in the article. [View All]

[sinkingfeeling]

1. “It used to be that the notion of an activist judge was somebody who ignored the will of Congress, ignored democratic processes, and tried to impose judicial solutions on problems instead of letting the process work itself through politically,” Mr. Obama said.

2. “And in the ’60s and ’70s, the feeling was — is that liberals were guilty of that kind of approach. What you’re now seeing, I think, is a conservative jurisprudence that oftentimes makes the same error.”

3. He added, “The concept of judicial restraint cuts both ways.”

4. In his book, “The Audacity of Hope,” for example, Mr. Obama suggested that “in our reliance on the courts to vindicate not only our rights but also our values, progressives had lost too much faith in democracy.”

Opinions by the authors:
Mr. Obama’s comments, which came as he prepares to make a Supreme Court nomination, amounted to the most sympathetic statement by a sitting Democratic president about the conservative view that the Warren and Burger courts — which expanded criminal defendant rights, required busing to desegregate schools and declared a right to abortion — were dominated by “liberal judicial activists” whose rulings were dubious.

Still, his statement seemed to call into question subsequent liberal legal victories.