Due to the increasingly political nature of the court, I have long felt the health care law would be overturned — apart from the widely panned case made for it by the administration’s lawyer. And now we have hints that the individual mandate may indeed be D.O.A. — and the only question is how much of the rest of the act is scuttled.
When there leaks on this, it is it yet another sign of how political the court has become. Supposedly not a shred of info is supposed to leak out on these cases, but this report talks about third hand sources and scuttlebutt. But someone is leaking. How would third hand sources have a clue of what is happening and how can there be a scuttlebutt unless someone is leaking? The questions will be: how big will the GOP’s smile be and how many Democrats will then stay home on election day (which will complete the court’s transformation)?
UPDATE: But Juan Williams argues that if the court strikes down the law it’ll erode public confidence in the court and give the Democrats a big issue to run on:
The Democrats have a nuclear option in this political game if the high court throws out the healthcare law as unconstitutional.
That blowup-the-system button, not pushed since FDR’s attempt to stack the court with Democrats during the New Deal, is for Obama to use the bully pulpit of the White House, and the national stage of a presidential campaign, to launch a bitter attack on the current court as a corrupt tool of the Republican right wing.
It is a move that could energize Democrats and independents even as Republicans celebrate a major legal victory.
Some Democrats, sensing a political windfall, can’t wait to start the offensive.
But the question, really, is whether Barack Obama can put on that kind of political hat. There are no signs yet that he is “another Harry Truman.” He tends to progress if little spurts and then suffer setbacks. Instead of ringing speeches can he deliver stinging speeches — and ones not just filled with adjectives and denunciations if he chooses to use a Supreme Court HCR defeat, but one that wins the argument with its logic and solidly makes his case to a)Democrats so they all vote b)swing voters?
How will Democrats react to watching Sean Hannity give high fives and hearing Rush Limbaugh gloat? Will they get out to vote? Or stay home to show their disappointment (and in effect vote)?
Ed Kilgore notes how once upon a time it was predicted that the court would not overturn the individual mandate — but how partisanship has caused an abrupt, almost breathtaking switch. It’s fascinating how long-held principles can become inoperative when someone of another party is in power. (Which is why many independent voters remain independent voters)
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.