The Right To Arm Bears

By Cernig

And just like that, pfft goes the Right's newly minted meme that the current Supreme Court has a liberal majority hellbent on left-wing legislating from the bench and on radically re-interpreting the Constitution. They have struck down Washington D.C.'s gun ban as unconstitutional:

The justices voted 5-4 against the ban, with Justice Antonin Scalia writing the opinion for the majority.

At issue in District of Columbia v. Heller was whether Washington's ban violated the right to "keep and bear arms" by preventing individuals -- as opposed to state militias -- from having guns in their homes.

"Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security and where gun violence is a serious problem," Scalia wrote. "That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct."

And also, just like that, Obama's campaign comes out with another Blairism.

the Obama campaign is disavowing what it calls an "inartful" statement to the Chicago Tribune last year in which an unnamed aide characterized Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as believing that the DC ban was constitutional.

"That statement was obviously an inartful attempt to explain the Senator's consistent position," Obama spokesman Bill Burton tells ABC News.

The statement which Burton describes as an inaccurate representation of the senator's views was made to the Chicago Tribune on Nov. 20, 2007.

In a story entitled, "Court to Hear Gun Case," the Chicago Tribune's James Oliphant and Michael J. Higgins wrote ". . . the campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said that he '...believes that we can recognize and respect the rights of law-abiding gun owners and the right of local communities to enact common sense laws to combat violence and save lives. Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional.'"

As John Cole wrote yesterday:

No, I don’t have buyers remorse, yes, he still is better than Hillary or McCain, no, I am not disillusioned (I never thought he was a flaming liberal in the first place). I am, however, disgusted, and I will caution the Obama campaign that “better than McCain” is not much of a rallying cry. We all remember how “anything is better than Bush” turned out in 2004.

I've written much the same a few times now.

Indeed, Bush ran successfully twice on a no-U-turns basis of "you may not like him, but you know where he stands", something McCain is emulating with his wholly fictitious "Straight Talk Express" narrative. In today's political climate, flip-flops and smarmy attempts to spin now-abandoned positions of principle as "inartful" are are more harmful than just going against the national grain might be. I understand that Obama wants to move toward the center now that the primary is over and the general must be fought, but inartfully doing so won't help. He needs to redicover his spine.

Comments

[American Pundit Fighting]

This is a good line: "Indeed, Bush ran successfully twice on a no-U-turns basis of "you may not like him, but you know where he stands". But as always its in the eyes of the beholder and dependent on the memes that stick once they get past the media noise.

It's funny how a 'no u-turn' policy reads as "conviction" and resonates well with voters during election season. But the same 'no u-turn' policy reads as stubbornness when it's time to govern. There are a lot of things bot have flip flopped on, but come November only the political wonks will be able to remember and list them. The average voter will decide based on the prevailing perception of the day. Right now McCain's doing the better job.