Obama Snipes at the Court

President Obama’s criticism of the Supreme Court, and Justice Alito’s reaction, have received a surprising amount of attention—given that Obama had thousands of words, widely broadcast, and Alito had a headshake and two words, unheard, possibly “that’s wrong.”

Linda Greenhouse — Linda Greenhouse , of all people—writes for the New York TImes that Alito is actually right, and Obama wrong, while over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr remarks: “I image a collective bubble over the Justices at about the 25-second mark, representing their thoughts, with the text, ‘We are so not coming to this next year.’”

The criticism that Obama is politicizing the Court, however, needs to be approached carefully. One of the arguments the pro-life movement has long held is that the Court is, with cases such as Roe v. Wade , a political actor. It’s a little late in the day to attack Obama for acting on an idea on which the more conservative have long been insisting.