Mr. Marbury's Commission* UPDATED

"I beg your pardon,I never promised you a rose garden."

Today, President Barack Obama delivered a late amicus curiae brief with the US Supreme Court, from the Rose Garden of the White House, in support of the law colloquially known as "Obamacare." In it he implicitly urged the justices to overrule a case he evidently considers ancient, overreaching, and poorly written titled William Marbury v. James Madison. A little background is necessary.

On March 3, 1801, President John Adams, just before his term expired, signed a series of commissions, appointing members of his party to a variety of judicial offices. One William Marbury, a native of Maryland and a prosperous financier, was active in Maryland politics and a vigorous supporter of the Adams presidency. His office was to be justice of the peace in the DC District.

On the following day, Marbury's appointment was approved by the Senate; however, to go into effect, the commissions had to be delivered to those appointed ("Signed, sealed and delivered, I'm yours"). Delivery to Marbury did not take place prior to Adams' exit from office, and the commission expired.

Mr. Marbury sued, taking his case directly to the Supreme Court on the basis of a jurisdictional law passed by Congress. Here is where it gets interesting.

Forty-eight year old Chief Justice John Marshall, a Revolutionary War veteran (Valley Forge survivor) and friend of George Washington, wrote the opinion for the court, a decision now widely known as Marbury v. Madison. How widely known?

A Bottle In Front of Me

"A citation to authority may only mean you've found someone else who is wrong and agrees with you."*

Nothing hits the snooze button quite as hard as a tiptoe through some arcane corners of the US Constitution, especially when writing a general interest blog. For all of its majesty, its appeal to better angels, its beautiful (if sometimes impenetrable) eighteenth century prose, to anyone other than a constitutional scholar a discussion of the minutiae evokes a gush of sleep-inducing melatonin so powerful as to induce Van Winkle-caliber slumber. Forgive me.

Our poor constitution had a miserable week. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in an interview in Egypt, seemed to suggest it was dated. Administration officials largely dismissed First Amendment concerns in the roll out of an administrative rule concerning contraceptives. And a group of county sheriff's met to discuss their constitutional duty to defend their jurisdictions against Federal Government Tyranny.

Wonderful.