I never cease to be amazed at conservatives ability to hold onto hope that all the things that go against them are really part of some overarching, long-term plan for total victory. Case in point: this post from The Atlantic about John Roberts’ real reason for ripping conservatives’ hearts out with his Obamacare ruling:
So, if Roberts had held that Obamacare was an unconstitutional mandate that could not be sustained under the taxing power, that would have created a serious risk that some later court would say the same about the [Paul] Ryan [Medicare privatization] plan. The same risk would have also imperiled any revival of the Bush plan, which effectively converts Social Security into an individual mandate to invest your Social Security contributions into a private retirement plan.
So, Roberts’ ruling was really a brilliant piece of legal foresight; setting a precedent for lawsuits that haven’t been brought yet against laws that haven’t been passed yet. Well, I’m glad he was thinking about that and not the facts of the case that was in front of him.
If John Roberts really did this as part of an absurdly complex, behind-the-back-triple-bank-shot plan to achieve conservative victory, then he is a devious genius on a par with Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz.
If Roberts was really trying to help conservatism, I’ve already mentioned several ways he could’ve done it better. I’m going to stick with the interpretation that he’s a shnook, and his ruling was a giant judicial cop-out.