Time to revisit Marbury?
Is it time for America to revisit Marbury v. Madison?
The appeals court just gave President Trump a huge, although hidden, victory. For the first time on over 200 years, we are about to nationally ask the question: just who determines what is constitutional and what is not?
Until now, it was the "grandeur" (yesterday's N.Y. Times comment) of the courts. Of course it was, because the courts will enact for liberals what the legislature will not. How grand! But trees do not grow to the sky, and today, an appeals court, backing up a liberal Seattle judge, clearly usurped the singularly most distinct executive prerogative: national security. This was the step too far.
Certainly, it will play out over the months ahead in a way that will work out best for the country. Somehow, unknown today, the executive will again be able to make all national security decisions unfettered by liberal courts.
But there is a much bigger story here. For the first time in our history, not just in a generation, America will learn Civics 101. Americans, long taught nothing about the Constitution, will start to learn not just what the separation of powers is, but why it is important.
And Donald Trump is going to teach that lesson.
There is no way anyone can read the statutes surrounding the president's power to limit the entry of any alien group into the country and come to the tortured conclusion a Seattle judge and the "9th Circus" found. All the better, as this will make this fight one the left cannot win.
The president takes an oath to uphold the United States Constitution. How can he uphold it if the courts, due to a liberal, not constitutional test, stop him?
Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson both took on the courts and prevailed. When you see Trump in the Oval Office, the picture over his left shoulder is of Jackson.
In any other area than national security, this argument would be academic and hard to understand. But in national security, there is no room for any interpretation other than that the courts have vastly overstepped their bounds. Thus, perhaps, an opening exists for Congress and the executive to question Marbury, because the liberals have just gone too far.
And The Donald is the person to stand up to them.