Obama’s SCOTUS Pyrrhic Victory

After further review, I now believe Chief Justice John Roberts should be lauded as a hero. The Constitution will survive. Obama’s bad bill and his Presidential reelection hopes, will not. With Roberts’ deciding vote to uphold ObamaCare, he simultaneously:

1. Gets Democrats to admit ObamaCare is a tax.

2. Saves Republicans 9 votes in the Senate to repeal the law, down to 51 from 60.

3. Eviscerates the power of the Commerce Clause, which allowed ObamaCare to be considered in the first place and was an open door to abuse of state’s rights.

4. Reenergizes a sleepy conservative base that was counting on the Supreme Court to make up for bad leadership and even worse legislation.

5. Exposes state level leaders who had been banking on number four to keep them from having to take a substantive stand against big government.

6. Keeps the Catholic Church engaged in a fight to defend religious rights and against abortion.

7. Makes it utterly ridiculous for Barack Obama to run as a tax cutting candidate.

8. Kept in place a policy that will mean an absolute hiring freeze in the private sector at the very time Obama needs improvement in his faux unemployment numbers to stay in office.

9. Allowed a “liberal” justice (Anthony Kennedy) to slap his own party for being so far out of touch with Constitutional rule.

10. Gave Conservatives a few needed hours of very cathartic ‘scream therapy,’ exorcising months and years of Obama fatigue.

Make no mistake, the cost to Roberts personally is very high.  I believe, as the smoke clears and the pundit puffery recedes, the positive connotations of what Roberts accomplished will emerge as an even more significant legacy than the decision, the horrible law or the misguided President who crafted it.  Roberts very clearly redefined that states must give their consent before allowing any law, no matter how bad, to be leveled by the Federal Government.  He also made it impossible for stealth taxation, (other than inflationary monetary policy) to be snuck past an unsuspecting electorate.  (Is there any other kind?)  Striking down the entirety of the law was likely a voting impossibility.  Roberts made the savvy and nuanced ruling that paints large government proponents into a much smaller corner.

 

I believe the day will come when Barack Obama and Company rue the day of their precious Supreme Court ‘victory.’ It is very likely they won the battle and lost the war on the same courthouse steps. That is, if Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate doesn’t get him, first.  After all, there’s a Chief Justice with a freebie just waiting for a case like that.

 

Shad Olson is an Emmy Award-winning television anchor and radio host in Rapid City, South Dakota.  The Shad Olson Show is broadcast daily over a network of radio stations and streaming video websites in more than 140 cities and 28 states.  He is a published fiction author, journalist and regular contributor to multiple internet sources, including Life and Liberty Media.