Did You Hear About the Thing With the Thing?

The things in question: a certain health care law, and how the Supreme Court ruled earlier today.

Many observers of the SCOTUS had predicted a 6-3 decision upholding the law, or a 5-4 decision for it, or a 5-4 ruling that declared it unconstitutional. Also in the cards early this morning: partial invalidation of the Affordable Care Act, such as striking the individual mandate but keeping other provisions intact.

But in most cases, Chief Justice John Roberts and occasional swing vote Anthony Kennedy were seen to be voting in the same way. It's practically impossible to find anyone who foresaw the conservative Roberts affirming the law while the moderate Kennedy tried to kill it.

That's because most observers, including me, were working from the assumption that the Justices would NOT consider whether the law was constitutional, but would rather just exercise their usual political hackery and rule one way or another according to their political leanings.

Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the final decision -- one of the key players on the right decided to not be an activist judge. Instead, he decided to be a judge judge. Instead of subverting the Constitution of the United States with the Personal Opinion of My Own Prodigious Intellect, he dared to judge the law on its merits. (!!!) Then, he had the audacity to issue a ruling that explained that the legislation was unsavory to his political taste buds, but constitutionally sound. (double !!! !!!)

Listen to the language from the decision, written by the Briefly Esteemed John Roberts:

"The Framers created a Federal Government of limited powers, and assigned to this Court the duty of enforcing those limits. The Court does so today." Already, Roberts' lack of enthusiasm for the law is apparent. As in: I wouldn't support this piece of crap legislation, except that I sort of have to, dagnabbit. "But the Court does not express an opinion on the wisdom of the Affordable Care Act. Under the Constitution, that judgment is reserved to the people."

Roberts doesn't even believe the federal government has a right to force people to buy health insurance. He doesn't read the Commerce Clause in that manner. The individual mandate survives only because he agrees that the government can penalize the uninsured. "The Federal Government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance. Section 5000A [the individual mandate] is therefore constitutional, because it can reasonably be read as a tax."

(I can easily see him saying "tax" in the same tone you and I might use for "f*ck." Easily.)

(Bonus parenthetical comment: Roberts' characterization of the penalty as a "tax" means the Chief Justice is handing Mitt Romney, R-Windup Doll, another billion or so rounds of ammo for the presidential campaign. Goody.)

So it's plain that Congressman John Roberts would have stridently opposed Obamacare. It's plain that Chief Justice John Roberts dislikes the policy preferences that drove Democrats to craft the law. But it's also plain that the man has enough respect for American representative democracy to be content with playing his part, and no more. The intelligent design of checks and balances is not lost on the Chief Justice. Hallelujah, I guess.

I didn't expect to be praising Roberts today. This is the same guy who, when nominated for the SCOTUS position in the first place, conveniently "forgot," under oath, that he ever belonged to the Federalist Society, a group farther to the right than the American Socialist Party is to the left. This is the same guy who lent his approval to Citizens United, the most anti-democratic Court decision of the millennium. Roberts is going to continue to do his best to make life harder for disadvantaged and poorly-connected Americans, for many years probably. He's still, on the whole, a force for corporate interests over the general well-being of the nation. He's still responsible for making sure the health care law didn't compel states to expand Medicaid -- that section DID get stripped -- so at least the right wing's war on the poor continues to go well.

He's still probably guilty of perjury, probably.

But forget all that for another fifteen seconds. Today, Roberts placed his ego beneath the U.S. Constitution.


And sadly, America was surprised.