The Emperor Barack

By Michael Reagan

1/18/2012

Much like one of his predecessors, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Barack Obama has all but declared war on the United States Supreme Court.

It will be remembered that in 1937 FDR was angry over the high court's refusal to put a stamp of approval on much of his New Deal agenda, and sought to bend the court to his will by adding new members to the existing court membership.

Contemptuously calling the court's members a collection of "nine old men," FDR sought to "pack" the high court with up to six additional members more likely to do his bidding. The proposal lost steam and, thankfully, failed.

Mr. Obama has not gone quite that far -- yet. But he's getting close. Like most U.S. presidents who chafe under the high court's authority to rule on the constitutionality of aspects of their agendas, Obama is unhappy with the court's failure to recognize the divinity of his proposals, if not that of his personhood.

Too bad. As we are often reminded, "Into each life some rain must fall."

Thanks to the high court, Mr. Obama has been much in need of an umbrella of late. The president's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was correctly overruled in a case involving religious freedom. The court clearly stated that the First Amendment protects churches in their decisions regarding workers with religious duties, a "ministerial exception" to employment-discrimination laws. This exception had already been supported by lower courts and many states.

Tragically for Mr. Obama and his vastly elevated ego, choirs of angels singing of the glories of his agenda cannot be heard. Despite the frantic efforts of his captive media to tune them in, the president remains a mere mortal, subject to all the slings and arrows that always target any holder of high office.

Soon the issue before the court will be Mr. Obama's health care program, rammed through Congress despite the widespread opinion that it was, and remains, nothing short of an opening to national socialized medicine. A ruling is expected by early July.

The question is whether the Constitution's Commerce Clause can be stretched beyond recognition to reach into everyone's pocketbook with the Obamacare mandate. We pray that the Supreme Court will put the question to rest with an emphatic rejection.

The notorious failings of Britain's socialized medicine have not failed to diminish the hopes and plans of our own fans of socialized everything -- of a government so big and so powerful that nothing can resist its meddlesome reach.

That is a lesson Barack Hussein Obama has yet to learn. If he doesn't learn his lesson by July, he will certainly learn it in November.