DeMint calls Obama a 'bully' on healthcare

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) called President Obama a "bully" Wednesday for his suggestion that it would be "unprecedented" for the Supreme Court to strike down his signature healthcare law.

The senator added that the law would "force people to buy things they don't want," and said the president and his administration "believe Americans are stupid," according to the Rock Hill, S.C., Herald.

DeMint is the second prominent Palmetto State politician to brand the president with the "bully" tag in recent days. Gov. Nikki Haley, a prominent surrogate for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, echoed the charge Tuesday.

"What is amazing is what a bully President Obama has suddenly become," Haley told Fox News. "Here was a man that came in with 'hope and change,' and now he's bullying his way. He's bullying his way on [Wisconsin Rep.] Paul Ryan [(R)], saying that he's not coming up with an adequate budget. Now he's bullying the Supreme Court, saying, 'No, they won't reverse this, they won't go against us on this.' That's not how things work. He has to lead. He's shown no sort of leadership when it comes to balancing the budget. He's shown no leadership when it comes to allowing the states to do the will of the people. He continues to say no. To everything."

The White House was forced to play defense Wednesday after Republicans accused the president of attacking the Supreme Court in hopes of intimidating the justices — and suggesting that the Supreme Court did not have the authority to invalidate the law. White House press secretary Jay Carney maintained that was an unfair characterization of the president's remarks.

"He's simply making an observation about precedent and the fact that he expects the Court to adhere to that precedent. It's obviously, as he made clear yesterday, up to the Court to make its determination. And we will wait and see what the Court does," Carney said.

But Mitt Romney told Newsmax Wednesday he thought Obama's characterization of the Court was "a purposeful distortion."

"Well, the whole idea of the Constitution and the courts that apply the Constitution is to have the capacity to ensure that Congress and the president do not pass legislation that violates the Constitution,” Romney said. “So the president suggesting that somehow the court would be violating its duty by applying the Constitution to test the validity of a piece of legislation is an extraordinary reach and a misunderstanding, and I think a distortion — a purposeful distortion — of the role of the judiciary.”

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