Legal Commentary

Justice Obama?

By Jonathan H. Adler

GWU law professor Jeffrey Rosen suggests Barack Obama may have the wrong job.

He?s too detached and cerebral . Too deferential to Congress. Too willing to compromise . And he?s too much of a law professor and not enough of a commander in chief, as Sarah Palin recently admonished.

These are some of the qualities for which the president, rightly or wrongly, is criticized. They are also the qualities that make him well suited for another steady job on the federal payroll: Barack Obama, Supreme Court justice.

Think about it. Though Obama has struggled to find his footing in the White House, his education, temperament and experience make him ideally suited to lead the liberal wing of the court, especially at a time when a narrow conservative majority seems increasingly intent on challenging progressive economic reforms for the first time since the New Deal. Obama is clearly eager to take on the four truly conservative justices ? Samuel Alito, John Roberts, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas ? as his State of the Union smackdown suggests. But as president, he?s constrained by that pesky separation of powers. So what better way to engage the fight than to join the bench?

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on February 21, 2010 (boomark / email).