Krauthammer and Roberts’ ruling
We are madly searching for meaning in the dust patterns that settled here in the impact crater from yesterday’s Supreme Court decision on health care reform. The Roberts court appears to have ruled without partisanship; at least not in the 5-4 ideological split that was widely predicted. Chief Justice John Roberts, appointee of President George W. Bush, sided with the liberal wing to create a majority that was something of a careful compromise. To which a grateful nation replied: Buh?
If you can’t explain this ruling in partisan terms, most of us don’t immediately know how to feel about it. It’s complicated. We have to think about it — all of us, even the people advising us on how to think.
So Charles Krauthammer’s column today was a chewy rumination on why someone with conservative political principles would have done what Roberts did. Krauthammer argues essentially that Roberts had two conflicting roles to play: his philosophical self — what he believed about the Affordable Care Act — and his Chief Justice self — concerned with legacy, and with how the Supreme Court should be perceived by the American people. The latter won out, Krauthammer says: Roberts found a way to be repelled by what he sees as constitutional overreaching while still finding narrow grounds to uphold the law and declare the court to be above ideological prejudice. Cont. Reading
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