Chip Bok's Bokbluster

Chief Justice Roberts bestowed the burden of victory on the president by calling the individual mandate a tax.

The dissenting minority accuse Roberts of rewriting the legislation. Well, can’t say we weren’t warned of conservative judicial activism.

The Hammer thinks Roberts heroically twisted and turned through narrow legal fissures to restore the integrity of the court, in the eyes of his enemies on left. Those enemies think the court soiled itself by putting George W. Bush in office in 2001 and that it has been illigit ever since.

But even as he saved Obamacare, Roberts found the use of the commerce clause to justify the mandate to be unconstitutional. So he rewrote the bill to save the bill, calling the mandate a tax. I guess we can all agree that anyone can be bludgeoned to do anything with a tax. Mission accomplished:

“Law upheld, Supreme Court’s reputation for neutrality maintained. Commerce Clause contained, constitutional principle of enumerated powers re-affirmed.”

The Wall Street Journal is not so easily impressed. Its editorial today notes references to Justice Ginsberg’s “dissent”. Why would she dissent if she was in the majority, unless she wasn’t until Roberts switched sides?

“..If it is true, this is far more damaging to the Court’s institutional integrity that the Chief Justice is known to revere than any ruling against ObamaCare. The political class and legal left conducted an extraorinary campaign to define such a decision as partisan and illegitimate. If the Chief Justice capitulated to this pressure, it shows the Court can be intimidated and swayed from its constitutional duties.”