Ugh. As annoying as it is when conservatives rant ignorantly about “judicial activism,” I think it’s even more annoying when Obama does it. Because he should know better. But here he is, making the exact same stupid argument made by the right every time a court does something they don’t like:

“Ultimately I’m confident 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,” Obama said at a Rose Garden press conference. “And I just remind conservative commentators that for years, what we’ve heard is the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint. An unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example. And I’m pretty confident this court will recognize that and not take that step.”

Say what? It would be “extraordinary” and “unprecedented” for the Supreme Court to overturn a law passed by a strong majority? In what universe would that even be slightly unusual, much less unprecedented? Not only does it happen regularly, it is exactly what the Constitution gives them the power to do. The ability of an “unelected group” to overturn laws passed by the legislature is a feature, not a bug. Without that feature, Alexander Hamilton said in Federalist 78, all of the effort to create individual rights “would amount to nothing.”

And Obama damn well knows this. How do we know? Because in lots of other cases, he has explicitly demanded that the court do exactly what he is now condemning, overturn laws that were passed by the legislature. Like DOMA. And Prop 8. The court may well be wrong if it chooses to overturn the individual mandate, but it won’t be wrong just because it’s overturning a democratically-passed law.