Grassley, Axelrod resort to name-calling on Twitter over Obama court comments

Shown here are President Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod, left, and Sen. Chuck Grassley. (AP)

The scholarly legal dispute over the Supreme Court's review of the federal health care overhaul took a turn into the Twitter gutter Saturday, as one senator called President Obama "stupid" and a top adviser fired back by effectively calling the lawmaker a 6-year-old.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, took the first shot on Saturday, when he tweeted about the weeklong flap over Obama's Supreme Court comments. The president had said Monday that it would be "unprecedented" for the justices to overturn his health care law, prompting a cascade of criticism from conservatives and requiring the Justice Department to clarify that the administration respects the ability of the courts to overturn laws.

On Twitter, Grassley wrote: "Constituents askd why i am not outraged at PresO attack on supreme court independence. Bcause Am ppl r not stupid as this x prof of con law."

David Axelrod, a former White House adviser now working on the Obama reelection campaign, quickly retorted.

"Heads up, Sen. Grassley. I think a 6-year-old hijacked your account and is sending out foolish Tweets just to embarrass you!" he wrote on his Twitter page.

Axelrod was likely referring not just to Grassley's taunt, but his sentence structure. Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is known for his typo-happy tweets. This one was no exception.

But in a recent interview with Legal Times on that very topic, Grassley explained that he sometimes lets his thumbs get ahead of himself -- hence, the typos.

"I think there are a couple of factors involved. I suppose a lot has to do with the automatic correcting done by my iPhone. Second, I love Tweeting, but I don't like to type. So, I probably type and hit send a little too quickly," he said.