Listening to the latest paranoid political fringe of Teabaggers and Birthers discuss the Constitution I find that I share some of their constitutional views. I support judicial review, that ultimate negation of the purported popular will by judicial fiat by unelected life time justices of the Supreme Court. It's not always perfect (see. e.g., Dred Scott), but it has proven effective in preserving individual liberties in the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment contexts. The Teabirthers seek the judicial nullification on constitutional grounds (Article 2 sec. 1) of the democratic decision of the People as to their President. This is the ultimate act of judicial review. The Teabirthers want the Supreme Court to rule that the sitting President of the United States must step down. Radical. You don't get a more expansive view of judicial review than that. Too expansive for my tastes. Makes Roe v. Wade's judicial review look insignificant. Of course the Teabirthers ultimately fail because their view is unconstitutional under an unavoidable textualist reading of the Constitution. The Framers clearly intended the power to remove a President to reside with the People's representatives, not the judiciary. The power to remove a sitting President is solely vested in Congress through impeachment (Art I, secs. 2 & 3) and is not an Article III power delegated to the judiciary. This betrays the Teabirthers ignorance of the Constitution they so jealously guard. But I share their fervor for the Constitution.
I take solace that the Teabirther crowd is so angry that constitutional blasphemy is afoot. At least they are not citing biblical blasphemy (at least not all of them). I share their fervor for all things constitutional and their belief that the Constitution is what the living people say it is and not necessarily what the Framers allegedly said it was. After all, if they were textualists they'd have a hard time saying government health care or emergency (hopefully temporary) nationalizations of key industries and financial institutions are unconstitutional when the first sentence of the Constitution says one of its purposes is to promote the general welfare. And if keeping people from dying and preventing economic collapse isn't promoting the general welfare well let me know what is. But if you take a more plastic interpretation of the Constitution, one unmoored from its text, you could plausibly argue that some sort of liberty interest was being violated by government healthcare and industrial and financial nationalization. This view, however, is similar to the logic of Roe v. Wade and Miranda, decisions the teabirthers abhor. Thus goes the cognitive dissonance of their Constitutional theory.
