The sober, sprawling State of the Union address that President Obama delivered last week was marked by one extraordinary moment. It came when the president looked down at six robed members of the Supreme Court, seated directly in front of him, and criticized their recent 5 to 4 decision that he said ‘will open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections.’ While Democrats stood applauding his call on Congress to pass legislation narrowing the impact of the ruling, the TV cameras caught Justice Samuel Alito, one of the two George W. Bush appointees who made the reversal of precedent possible, apparently mouthing the words ‘Not true.’ Such direct confrontations between the branches of the federal government are almost unprecedented, and they set the stage for what ought to be a serious debate. The day after, much of the discussion was focused narrowly on the question of whether Obama was correct in saying that foreign corporations would be unleashed on American elections by the justices’ decision. The dissenting opinion of Justice John Paul Stevens had put the proposition more carefully. It said that the reasoning behind the majority opinion, […]