Having read scores of opinion pieces from across the political spectrum, from George Will, John Yoo, Peggy Noonan, Roger Simon, various columnists from The Nation, Huffington, Weekly Standard, et al and etc, your resident crank feels compelled to offer his modest, or not so modest, observations.
Virtually every writer has tried to discern the intent, strategy, or motivation behind Chief Justice Roberts stunning and decisive and rather weird, opinion.
Some prevailing views see it as Justice Roberts’ attempt ” to restore the Court’s reputation for “impartiality”, lost with the Bush v. Gore decision (at least the left strives mightily to convince Americans that decision was based on crass partisanship) or the recent Citizen’s United case. This view is, of course celebrated by the left, and, curiously, as a forgiveable rationale by some on the “moderate” right.
Another popular view, regarded as all too common by conservatives and cynical by the left, is that conservative jurist Roberts has been afflicted with the Beltway disease of responding to the adulation of the New York Times and the DC liberal and GOP establishments for having “grown” during his court tenure.
Another take on the Roberts opinion is his deeply held belief that such momentous judgments should be made in the political process by “the people”.
Outliers, like Michael Savage, suggest that the Chief Justice may have suffered from brain dysfunction as a side effect of his meds.
Whatever, it seems nearly everyone agrees that the reasoning behind Roberts decisive opinion was unexpected and a little bit “off”. It seems obvious that he realizes that O’Care is a terrible and destructive piece of legislation and that the government’s principle defense of it was nconstitutionally expansive. But the fact that he then went in a desperate search for some rationale to uphold it is inexplicable.
Whatever happened to the dispassionate umpire? In this case, he didn’t just “call the balls and strikes”. He took away one of the team’s bats. (OK,OK…a bad analogy). Nevertheless, The Court’s role is not to let bad law stand until “the People” change it. It falls to the Court as “the People’s” last line of defense against unconstitutional legislation imposed by a wouldbe dictatorship.
There are those who think that Justice Roberts hopes that his deciding vote in this case will secure his place among history’s greatest jurists…like Chief Justice John Marshall with his Marbury v. Madison decision, creation the doctrine of judicial review.
Or maybe Roberts was reaching for greatness alongside the Founding Fathers.
Get ready. Here’s the punchline(s):
I believe Chief Justice Roberts may have achieved his place among “famous” jurists…but not great ones. Unlike Marshall’s Doctrine of Judicial Review, we now have Roberts’ “Doctrine of Judicial Capitulation” .
And to the citizen’ s historic question? “We have given you a totalitarian dictatorship…if you can keep it”.
Conservatives…let’s make sure in November that they “can’t keep it”!!!!! DLH
* The Choom Gang is of course the name given to themselves by the druggie friends group Obama was part of in his youth . . . all part of Obama’s “auto”biography dontcha know.
