Roberts Turned Tail and Ran to his everlasting SHAME !!!!

I guess a member of right wing counter culture could see things this way:

Spare me the argument that Roberts, with the ghosts of 1937 tramping through his mind, was trying to “preserve the integrity” of the court. His jaw-dropping, intellectually inconsistent, Kafkaesque ruling in the Obamacare case is likely to live in infamy, much like such earlier Supreme turkeys as the Dred Scott decision and Plessy v. Ferguson. In both of those cases, as in this one, the Court took refuge in legal niceties and sophomoric hairsplitting, refusing to acknowledge the greater moral issue and the looming national catastrophe.

 Even if Roberts did make his “switch in time” pusillanimously, to avoid another Obama tongue-lashing and the ill will of the major editorial pages . . . so what? There are times in the affairs of men when business as usual should no longer obtain, and all right-thinking people (including the four justices who voted to strike down the monstrosity) must simply — in one of the Left’s favorite phrases — do the right thing. That Roberts did not will be to his everlasting shame…..

Until the Right understands that the Left cedes us — as the Times editorial so vividly illustrates — no legitimacy at all it will continue to be surprised by weak men like John Roberts, who allowed a rogue president to publicly browbeat him and the institution he heads — and then, when he had a chance to pay him back, turned tail and ran.

 As Kafka wrote in “Zur Frage der Gesteze”: “Was der Adel tut, ist Gesetz” (“Whatever the nobility does is the law.” So start acting accordingly. 

Michael Walsh, NRO Cornerite

The bolded text above signifies just the thing at issue - right thinking people - or in other words right-wing thinking people are having trouble understanding the significance of the ruling.  Remember that just about all the smart law professors said that the law should be constitutional if the court followed precedent.  

 If the court wanted to over-rule the law, it of course could do that, but it would be breaking from established norms of behavior supported by various members of the conservative bloc of the court.  If over-ruling health insurance reform felt good, the court could do it.  But of course doing what feels good, would open the court up for charges of judicial activism and engaging in petty partisan politics as the health insurance mandate had been developed  by conservatives in the first place over 2 decades ago. Since the development of the mandate as a means of solving the intractable challenge of  improving access to health care, there was no inkling that it could be constitutionally problematic until Mean President Obama stole this idea and thus nationalized Romneycare.  

 At this point wingers were quite happy to forget this past support of the mandate and instead use it as a cudgel to attack 80 years of court precedent from the New Deal period and in the process, expose this effort as nakedly partisan and unhinged from principle and reason.

This is the problem of the bubble - the foxnews - the right-wing counter culture - that seals off wingers from engaging the larger world of ideas.  When a first tier conservative such as Roberts breaks with right wing mythology, it leaves wingers such as the Walsh puzzled and enraged that his ideology is not afforded the legitimacy, as he puts it, that it is afforded within right wing counter culture.  In that sense he views himself as a victim.

Fortunately, there is hope for the victim of right wing counter culture.  The new mental health care benefit in Obamacare will make treatment far more accessible for those in need of care.

POST NOTE: I especially like the Dred Scott reference. It adds flavor to the wingnuttery.

Recall that all the Supreme Court had to do to decide this case was to narrowly rule that Missouri Law was controlling and that Dred Scott was not entitled to freedom either that or just punt.  Dred Scott's freedom had since been purchased anyway - the case had been going on for 10 years.  The Supreme Court did not have to pick a fight.  But instead it went beyond what it needed to decide in a tear of judicial activism bent on settling the issue of slavery for once and all ruling that black folks possessed no right which white folks need respect, that congress does not have the right to prohibit slavery in Federal Territories and that Free States did not have the right to prohibit slavery within their borders.  This was hardcore activism, when the court could have just walked away holding the since Scott was now free, there was no reason to rule on any issue.  

Contrast this with what right wingers wanted the Supreme Court to do with health insurance reform.  In this instance right wingers wanted the Court to undo 80 years of established norms in one blow - or in other words, hardcore judicial activism. Roberts could have taken a page from Roger B Taney and gone the activism route, but he chose otherwise.