On Yesterday's Crushing Defeat

I awake this morning and find that the internets are abuzz with new of the ObamaCare decision.   The conservatives are trying to spin it as a short-term loss with encouraging signs for the future.  One example is George Will's column in the Washington Post. 

By persuading the court to reject a Commerce Clause rationale for a president’s signature act, the conservative legal insurgency against Obamacare has won a huge victory for the long haul. This victory will help revive a venerable tradition of America’s political culture, that of viewing congressional actions with a skeptical constitutional squint, searching for congruence with the Constitution’s architecture of enumerated powers. By rejecting the Commerce Clause rationale, Thursday’s decision reaffirmed the Constitution’s foundational premise: Enumerated powers are necessarily limited because, as Chief Justice John Marshall said, “the enumeration presupposes something not enumerated.”

When Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), asked where the Constitution authorized the mandate, exclaimed, “Are you serious? Are you serious?,” she was utterly ingenuous. People steeped in Congress’s culture of unbridled power find it incomprehensible that the Framers fashioned the Constitution as a bridle. Now, Thursday’s episode in the continuing debate about the mandate will reverberate to conservatism’s advantage.

 Bullshit.  Plain Bullshit.  Nancy Pelosi was correct to ask that question, and John Roberts answered it for us.  Of course it's constitutional.  Congress can do anydamn thing that they want to do and the Court will find some way to make it legal.

There are two lessons to learn from yesterday's crushing loss.  First, Pelosi was right.  There is nothing that Congress can't do.  The Courts will not restrain them.  If it's legislation signed by both houses and signed by the President, it's the law. The second lesson to draw from this is one that Pelosi also gave us, shortly after she was elected as Speaker of the House.  Elections matter.  John Roberts also told us this in his opinion.

It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.

Spin it any way you went to, folks, but yesterday was a loss and the best way to insure that we don't suffer losses like this in the future is at the election box.

Oh, and one other thing:  John Roberts, appointed by President Bush, was touted as a brilliant legal mind and a solid conservative.  Today, I put him in the liberal camp.  He could have voted either way and been in the majority.  He chose to vote with the liberal camp on this issue, and handed conservatism a stunning loss.  He damaged the constitution and handed socialists the largest victory of my lifetime.  If I ever get the opportunity, I'm going to piss down his leg and tell him it's raining.