Professor Barack Obama

NOTE: During the first seventy days of the Obama administration, some troubling signs began to show indicating that, even with the qualifications and concerns expressed in this post, I was way too optimistic about Barack Obama's dedication to the constitution. The old historical enemies of freedom, liberty and constitutional democracies-- bad economy and populist demagoguery changed the equation.

I have a lot of problems with some of Barack Obama's positions (especially his economics), but there is one thing I really like.

While the Billary hacks are correct in saying it is a stretch to call him a constitutional scholar, it sure would be nice to have a president, who spent the years before his fortieth birthday studying and teaching constitutional law, rather than blowing coke and getting pissy drunk—or for that matter, a corporate lawyer who insisted her husband appoint an attorney general who led the charge at Wacco and Ruby Ridge.

Obama studied under Professor Lawrence Tribe, and collaborated on a law review article, with him. I saw Professor Tribe endorsing Obama in campaign ads. So I suspect he has a similar view of the constitution as Tribe.

While it is a loosey goosey leftie interpretation, at least there is significant gray matter involved, and Tribe does know there are some rules. For example, he has angered liberals by recognizing that the Second Amendment establishes an individual right to bear firearms. It is not just the National Guard Enabling Act.

I can not imagine any professor of constitutional law ever ignoring and gutting the document in the manner Bush and his two bit attorney, Alberto Gonzales, did. As astonishing as it is, with that crew, John Ashcroft was the odd man out, being the big crybaby civil libertarian.

With Obama there are even signs of a strict constructionist.

As a professor (actually he was listed on the faculty of the University of Chicago as a “lecturer”) his students were surprised and dismayed he did not see a constitutional basis for such things as gay marriage. I am also surpised that it seems he totally misses the equal protection problem here.


However, as much as enthusiastic law students, and leftists (and recently, social conservatives), want to think otherwise, it is not, and never was, the function of the federal constitution to cover every aspect of life, or right every perceived wrong and injustice. In fact the most ignored portion of the document is the Tenth Amendment which provides that anything which is not specifically addressed is reserved to the states or the people.

For example, the idea that the founders wished the federal government to regulate abortion is absurd. Abortion existed at the time of the drafting of the constitution. They knew it was a crime under common law and the statutes of the colonies. And it never occurred to any of them that it might be the federal government's business.

Some things they never could have contemplated, such as telephones and automobiles. So it is necessary for the courts to interpret how the constitutional requirement of warrants and probable cause applies to wiretapping and traffic stops. But abortion is not in that category..

A great deal of our freedom has been lost through the wildly expansive interpretation of the Interstate Commerce Clause by Congress and the courts.. Congress, and the bureaucrats, can now regulate virtually anything and everything.

And then there has been the wholesale gutting. The FBI and IRS can break into our homes and plant a listening device without getting a warrant. Or they can turn on your cell phone and make it into a listening device.

While it was never the intent of the Constitution to make the states into little independent nations, such as some of Ron Paul's wackjobs believe, the drafters thought the states should be the primary governmental authority.

There is no constitutional basis for the Federal government to get involved in education except where racial inequity is a problem, micro manage the economy, convert any behavior they wish into a federal crime nor to be stewards of the nation's health.

Despite what I have heard Hillary Clinton say—there is no right to health care, and even more, as Obama recognizes, the federal government has no authority to force people to participate in a compulsory healthcare program. Our current healthcare woes are largely the result of federal tinkering (along with the liberal idea, initially pushed by the unions, that everyone is entitled to employer-sponsored health insurance).

It is hoping too much to think Obama would be as scrupulous with the constitution as he should be. I would be surprised if he was. That is not how Lawrence Tribe teaches his classes at Harvard. Besides, the Democrats would drum him out of the party, and he would have to hang with libertarians like me.

But at least he has respect for the document—something that has been non-existent in the Clinton-Bush era.