To Everything: ... Spin, Spin, Spin...

Jeffrey Toobin tries to get out ahead of the legal criticism, here branding Justice Roberts not a coward, but courageous;  characterizing the twisted legal decision not as muddled, but as "(another of even) the best judicial opinions".

By affirming the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act—the legislative cornerstone of Barack Obama’s Presidency—Roberts was disappointing those closest to him. Roberts was a professional Republican: a staffer in the Reagan and Bush I Administrations, a judge and a Justice thanks to Bush II. And here, alone and exposed, Roberts joined with the Court’s four liberals to dash the Republican Party’s most fervent wishes. It was a singular act of courage.

Toobin thinks, going down in history, Roberts has worked himself into a good position with this one:

His doctrinal investments may take a while to pay off, but he has the luxury of guaranteed professional longevity. Roberts could still be Chief Justice when Obama is teaching the jump shot to Malia’s and Sasha’s children. By then, if Roberts has succeeded in limiting the scope of federal power, the health-care decision may look very different from how it looks today.

Suffice it to say, I disagree with glowing analysis of the job.  (and .. " teaching the jump shot to Malia’s and Sasha’s children?"  Overreach, in trying to personally "sell" your point.  How about chess moves?  What are the chances the future presidential grands will be more interested in mind games, than hitting their... "jump shot(s)"? 

They call that pandering to the populists, where I come from  (or, "Jewish guys don't jump.") ...  failing to look beyond one's background to see his individuality.  His individual rights and needs.  It's not just sad, it's also the trouble behind such "one size fits all legislation" on such grave issues as one's personal choice in making healthcare decisions... 

It subverts the individual's freedom of choice, in service of the greater collective good -- a "good" that has yet been properly proven as a net societal benefit, when you work in real numbers. (You know how these early-spin promises rarely shake out...)

Toobin breathlessly concludes:

[I]t is always possible to quibble about one facet or another of even the best judicial opinions. For today, it is enough to say that the Chief Justice and the Court did the right thing in one of the most important cases that they will ever decide. That was by no means inevitable or even foreseeable. It is, rather, something to savor.

One man's opinion, then.*
--------------------------------


* Thankfully, he's a very small man  -- a very very small man -- (CNN "success" stock too), and does not represent the majority of those ... one-percenters, who will be most affected in the future by the Court curtailing their healthcare choices, and  choosing to rewrite politically unpopular legislation to eke it through on a tax loophole.

Other voices are speaking from other rooms...


ADDED:  From his wiki bio:

Toobin is a longtime friend of Supreme Court justice Elena Kagan, having met her while the two were students at Harvard Law School.

Hmmm.

He has described Chief Justice John Roberts as "very, very conservative."  Regarding Justice Clarence Thomas, Toobin has said that Thomas' legal views were "highly unusual and extreme", called him "a nut," and said that he was "furious all the time."

In March 2009, Politico revealed that Toobin was a member of the private discussion group JournoList, where "several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics" "talked stories and compared notes."

Sounds like he's about as neutral a legal analyst as Chief Justice Roberts would be a baseball umpire...