. . . had Roberts not been so politically insightful and purposeful, Republican chances in 2014 would be non-existent . . . no inevitably disastrous roll-out . . . no chance for Republicans. That is the basic conclusion of this article by Bill Dunne in American Thinker titled: The Roberts Trap Is Sprung. Read the entire article and then consider the many respondents who excoriated its reasoning and implications.
The article at first seems intended to rehabilitate Chief Justice Roberts by suggesting (fancifully) the most incredibly inappropriate political purposes to his decision to despoil the Constitution as an effort to save the Republic. If as the article suggests, Roberts found (invented) a way to support the legality of Obamacare in an effort at political manipulation, believing its implementation would assuredly lead to big government health care’s demise, it is as much an indictment of Roberts as a jurist, as anything critics say about his Constitutional reasoning.
However, we think the article could be used to suggest that there existed mature political insight on the part of Washington establishment Republicans, to justify their efforts to undermine conservatives Cruz, Lee and others to stop Obamacare and head off the continuing forced march destruction of the American healthcare delivery system.
Certainly we heard the contentions of Belt Way conservatives — “don’t shut down the government and embarrass the Party . . . keep the focus on Obamacare.” But it is clear to us that the efforts by Cruz, Lee and company were the superior way to focus attention on Obamacare to the benefit of Republicans, by juxtaposing Republican efforts to Democrat efforts i.e. “keep the contrast alive.” The same pundits and political operatives who criticized the Tea Party / Cruz effort in essence were protecting the Republicans who were helping to smooth out Obamacare, thus reduce its impact as an issue in 2014.
From Dunne’s article:
The thing is, however, that the decision has spawned another Great Awakening, because ObamaCare is a civics lesson from hell, with vast implications for America’s future. This would not be happening if the law had been squelched in the cradle. People who ordinarily couldn’t care less about wonky debates over federal power now see that the law has less to do with insuring the uninsured than with one political party’s lunge for unprecedented power and control over people’s lives.
The efforts of Cruz and company were spark plugs to that awakening, serving to expose, highlight Democrat’s death grip attachment to Obamacare. Cruz and company disallowed that Democrats merely voted for something they thought would help. They exposed that Democrats would not lesson their grip. Now the positioning of Republicans generically is enhanced because of the efforts of Cruz and company.
Applying credit to Roberts for that result is ridiculous. He paved a way for Obama to destroy our healthcare system. It is like giving honor to Hirohito for authorizing the attack on Pearl Harbor because it “lead” to America’s emergence as a preeminent world power.
The article is specious but served to instigate some truly useful commentary in the response section. We may extend this article with some more of that insight.
R Mall
