It's Obama vs. the Supreme Court, Round 2, over campaign finance ruling

President Barack Obama and the Supreme Court have waded again into unfamiliar and strikingly personal territory. When Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. told law students in Alabama on Tuesday that the timing of Obama's criticism of the court during the State of the Union address was "very troubling," the White House pounced.

It shot back with a new denouncement of the court's ruling that allowed a more active campaign role for corporations and unions. On Wednesday, Senate Democrats followed up with pointed criticism of Chief Justice Roberts, and at a hearing on the decision, a leading Democrat said the American public had "rightfully recoiled" from the ruling. The heated rhetoric has cast the normally cloistered workings of the court into a very public spotlight.