John Roberts: He swings both ways. Senator Barack Obama was right to vote no on his nomination to the Supreme Court.

He was right then he went left...
Sort of like Hamlet, tragic but less entertaining
More from The Corner,  Volokh and Instapundit..."wobbly?"

As Volokh Conspiracy reminds us, Senator Barack Obama was uncanny in his doubts about John Roberts as a nominee to the Supreme Court:

The bottom line is this: I will be voting against John Roberts’ nomination. I do so with considerable reticence. I hope that I am wrong. I hope that this reticence on my part proves unjustified and that Judge Roberts will show himself to not only be an outstanding legal thinker but also someone who upholds the Court’s historic role as a check on the majoritarian impulses of the executive branch and the legislative branch.

And Jeff Goldstein takes on those conservatives who argue that Roberts was correct in how he ruled... 

Obamacare : This Law Looks Like It's Going To Be Struck Down

Vodka Pundit:  This was a train wreck for the [Obama] Administration...
Bill Jacobson has more here...
I would not get overly excited about this (at least not yet).  Yes it is good news.  We should be cautiously optimistic.  But some reports express some doubts of Kennedy being as hostile as Toobin suggests.  If the Supreme Court does throw Obamacare out completely, wonderful.  But a compromise could happen (say the individual mandate being thrown out)--which could create a real mess.  Still, given the difficulties in trying to remove this monstrosity legislatively, if the Court does the heavy lifting that will be just fine by me (and no this is not judicial activism because the law is in fact unconstitutional--beyond being a fiscal policy disaster).  


Ann Althouse has been predicting that Obamacare being tossed helps Obama get re-elected. I am not so sure about that and I disagree with her reasoning.  I am sure Obama would try to spin a loss at the Supreme Court that way (vote for me or they will nominate radical religious conservatives to the Supreme Court and take all your rights away...).  Most people do not like Obamacare, so if the Court does tosses it it will only infuriate that segment of voters who were very much for this (and they were already voting for Obama anyway).  Most people would be relieved.  Paul Heroux at the Huffington Post has an article that Republicans might not as urgent on voting for a GOP candidate if Obamacare is off the table...


Here is Ann Althouse's reasoning:  

If the Court takes down the entire Act, it would do Obama a great favor, which is why I'm predicting the Court will do just that. That was my prediction a few weeks ago, reading, not the the existing doctrine, but "the political forces at play and assessing the Court's vulnerability to those forces."

If Thomas, Scalia, Roberts, Alito, and Kennedy vote to strike Obamacare down, does anyone (other than Ann) really think they are doing so to help Barack Obama?  And if this helps Barack Obama, why aren't his allies on the left of the Court going along with striking the law down?  Update II:  Sotomayor, et tu?  Well this is interesting (could Ann be right?)

Ann is also raising her conspiracy theory (which is Team Obama's Solicitor General is intentionally throwing this case).  I am skeptical.  Obama and his lefty backers do not want Obamacare to fail.  Update:  Yet if you go through her comments, they are suggesting the Court might strike the mandate, leaving us with a single payer monstrosity. There is, however, no severance clause in Obamacare.  I agree a partial strike down would be a giant mess.  Let's hope the Supremes do the right thing and kill this.

In the words of Joe Biden, however, Obamacare getting struck down would be a big F'n deal.  Here's hoping for good things to happen.

Update:
The Other McCain reminds us we are paying the SG to try to steal our liberty...
Hot Air:  Carville argues that Obama losing his "Big F'n Deal" would be his greatest victory evah...who does he think Obama is? Obi Wan Kenobi?  
Harry Reid has a Gollum quality too...

Prior EBL Posts:
Wickard and Obamacare...
The U.S. Economy and Medical Entitlements are like the Titanic and a big giant iceberg...

Taking on Wickard: James Huffman on Obamacare and the Commerce Clause

Instapundit has the link to the article:
Wickard v. Filburn is the New Deal U.S. Supreme Court case that said Congress could regulate whether you could grow wheat on your property or not, even if you intended to use all the wheat for your own purposes.  It essentially expanded the commerce clause to allow U.S. Congress to regulate anything--trumping State or local law in the process.  This decision turned the 10th Amendment on its head and in large part made it meaningless:  10th Amendment, Rights of the States under Constitution:  "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."  Many commentators have been sharply critical of Wickard.  
Professor Huffman suggests (perhaps) more might be coming from the Supreme Court:

Professor James Huffman:
All he is saying, is give federalism a chance...

Although the smart money will be with Epstein’s forecast of more doctrinal incrementalism, if not with his wager on the precise direction it will take, we should demand and expect better from our nation’s highest court. As recently as its last term in Bond v. United States, the Court suggested a foundation for what might be called, in today’s parlance, a “reset” of commerce clause doctrine in particular and federalism doctrine in general. 

The structure of federalism protects individual liberty from government excess. 

The issue in Bond was whether an individual has standing to challenge the validity of a federal law on the ground that Congress did not have authority to enact the law and was therefore in violation of the 10th Amendment, which states that “[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” In response to the government’s argument that only a state government can challenge the constitutionality of Congressional acts alleged to infringe on the powers of the states, Justice Kennedy, writing for a unanimous court, held that the individual claimant does have standing because “[w]hen government acts in excess of its lawful powers, . . . liberty is at stake.”

As they say, read the whole thing.   More than Portlandia comes out of Portland.