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Never Assume anything By Bob Jentges

April 7, 2012 by
Filed under: Uncategorized 

canstock0179531 Never Assume anything By Bob Jentges

By Bob Jentges (Editor Emeritus, Clarion Advisory) 4-7-12

Some of President Obama’s remarks over the past few days have me scratching my head. 

As 1) editor of the Harvard Law Review, 2) graduate of Harvard Law School, 3) Law Professor or Law Lecturer—take your choice—at  the Chicago School of Law, 4) U.S. Senator and 5) President of the United States of America, Mr. Obama should certainly be knowledgeable about the balance of powers set forth in the Constitution, and the United States Supreme Court 1803 landmark decision, Marbury v. Madison.

In Marbury, the High Court established the precedent that it could declare acts of Congress null and void if they violate the Constitution.  The Supreme Court has done that over 150 times since 1789. 

I for one believe Mr. Obama does know as much. 

For me that begs the question why he recently said: “I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress”.  (My emphasis) 

I have too much respect for President Obama’s intelligence to think he said that with the idea he might coerce a majority of the Court to rule Obamacare constitutional.  I do not want to think he said it for political reasons i.e. to mislead those who have no clue what the facts are.

So to be generous, maybe he simply misspoke during an impromptu answer to a reporter’s question.  But to the credit of the media, FactCheck.org has determined what the President said was wrong! 

During another recent speech criticizing Paul Ryan’s budget proposal, President Obama used the metaphor: “I am my brother’s keeper.  I am my sister’s keeper”.  The “brother’s keeper” quote comes from the book of Genesis.  But I think he used the quote out of context.  After Cain killed his brother Abel, the LORD asked Abel’s whereabouts.  Cain replied he did not know: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  The quote had nothing to do with the liberal philosophy of wealth redistribution, which was President Obama’s central point. 

President Obama say’s he is a Christian—I take him at his word.  But the speech where he used the “brothers keeper” quote was not impromptu—it was from a prepared speech and probably read from a teleprompter as most of his prepared speeches are. 

We should not necessarily expect our Presidents to have a theologians knowledge of the Bible.  But if Mr. Obama’s “brother’s keeper” quote was written by a speech writer, its meaning and context should have first been researched.  

My point is: Never assume anything.

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