Newt Gingrich: I would ignore supreme court as president

Gingrich has said before that he regards the president as above the court when the two branches have fundamentally differing views but he went further in committing himself to setting up a constitutional crisis on his first day in office.
The Republican candidate cited what he said were precedents, including Abraham Lincoln's refusal to accept the Dred Scott decision denying that former slaves were citizens.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/19/newt-gingrich-ignore-supreme-court-president


Without knowing the details of the US system, can't comment too much on what consitutional grounds a president has to ignore the courts, but regardless of the particular setup, in general it sounds pretty terrible. One can only imagine how Putin or Ahmadinejad would be described if they made a similar promise.
Though of course in principle  courts are to interpret law made by congress, not to make them, and so they are of course not omnipotent. But the point of a complicated and interconnected judicial and congressional system is specifically to avoid the power being given to one individual, who could dictate at will. Laws and their interpretation is something which is culture based and on which culture is based, and must thus change direction slowly, as the result  of deliberation and discussion. If every 4 years one person  can have ultimate control on what they are allowed do, and not just how to do it, then it's not just republicanism, but banana republicanism (as even Bush's attorney general has callled it ("President George W Bush's attorney general, Michael Mukasey, has said that a president selectively ignoring supreme court decisions would turn the US in to a banana republic.")