Oh, for Some Kennedyesque Grace

Peggy Noonan writes in The Wall Street Journal:

The other day an experienced and accomplished Democratic lawyer spoke, with dismay, of the president's earlier remarks on the ObamaCare litigation. Mr. Obama had said: "I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress." He referred to the court as "an unelected group of people" that might "somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law."

It was vaguely menacing, and it garnered broad criticism. In the press it was characterized as a "brushback"—when a pitcher throws the ball close to a batter's head to rattle him, to remind him he can be hurt.

The lawyer had studied under Archibald Cox. Cox, who served as John F. Kennedy's Solicitor General, liked to tell his students of the time in 1962 when the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Engel v. Vitale, a landmark ruling against school prayer.

The president feared a firestorm. The American people would not like it. He asked Cox for advice on what to say. Cox immediately prepared a long memo on the facts of the case, the history and the legal merits. Kennedy read it and threw it away. Dry data wouldn't help.

Kennedy thought. What was the role of a president at such a time?

And this is what he said: We're all going to have to pray more in our homes.

The decision, he said, was a reminder to every American family "that we can attend our churches with a good deal more fidelity," and in this way "we can make the true meaning of prayer much more important in the lives of our children."

He accepted the court's decision, didn't rile the populace, and preserved respect for the court while using its controversial ruling to put forward a good idea.

It was beautiful.

One misses that special grace.