Listen like a well trained lawyer

Presidential candidates talk a lot. Eventually, something they say is bound to reveal more about their views than they realize…or intend.

Law professor Gerard Bradley caught Sen. Barack Obama making a statement that was utterly revelatory.

Barack Obama has just handed a great gift to conservatives.  He is now on record (with Wolf Blitzer, if that counts) as saying about the Supreme Court that in “5 percent of cases or 1 percent” the law won’t be clear.  Obama is thus conceding that there may be as few as one case each term in which a Justice would have to resort to his or her own “moral bearings” to decide the matter. ONE CASE!!!.

As opposed to the “living, breathing Constitution” philosophy.

This gigantic concession to law’s determinacy will shock the consciences of Obama’s teachers at Harvard Law School, who surely gave much wider berth to the vision thing in matters constitutional.

Bradley’s colleague in law and at the NRO, Ed Whelan, sees it as more deceptive campaign spin, and no concession at all.

Both seem to make good points. Whelan’s right about the spin, but as Bradley points out, a statement on the record can and will be used in final arguments.