National Review Senior Editor Ramesh Ponnuru:
"My own sort of educated guess, based on people I talk to at the Supreme Court, is that — Well, as I’m sure people know, there’s an initial vote the same week, on the Friday of the oral arguments. And my understanding is that there was a 5-4 vote to strike down the mandate and maybe some related provisions but not the entire act. Since then, interestingly, there seem to have been some second thoughts. Not on the part of Justice Kennedy, but on the part of Chief Justice Roberts, who seems to be going a little bit 'wobbly'. So right now, I would say, [the outcome of the case] is a little bit up in the air."
June 2, 2012
That's right. JUNE SECOND. A month ago. My guess is that some disgruntled member of the SCOTUS family (I'm looking at you, Clarence, and at your anti-Obamacare-activist wife, and maybe your clerks [Hardy? Lea? Nicholson? Stratton?]) started leaking as soon as Justice Roberts started writing his one-man majority opinion.
Linda Greenhouse of the NYTimes writes:
"Around Memorial Day, a number of conservative columnists and bloggers suddenly began accusing the 'liberal media' of putting 'the squeeze to Justice Roberts,' as George Will [put it, May 26. He continued:] 'They are waging an embarrassingly obvious campaign, hoping he will buckle beneath the pressure of their disapproval and declare Obamacare constitutional.'
"Although the court has been famously leakproof, Mr. Will and some of the others are well connected at the court, and I wondered at the time whether they had picked up signals that the chief justice, thought reliable after the oral argument two months earlier, was now wavering, and whether their message was really intended for him [in order to pressure and then embarrass Roberts]."
CBS' Jan Crawford, whom Justice Thomas considers one of his favorite journalists, noted, post-decision, that it became clear to the conservative justices that Roberts was, as one put it, "wobbly." Clearly, that "one" put it "wobbly" more than once.
Add to this the deliberate hints in the Scalia-Kennedy-Thomas-Alito dissent (such as continually referring to Justice Ginsburg's concurrence as a "dissent"), and the conclusion emerges that these unfrozen caveman justices are not exhibiting a sense of decorum.
By the way, conservative journalists, don't bellyache about unproven administration leaks and then revel in the flood out of what we thought was a sacredly secret society.
"My own sort of educated guess, based on people I talk to at the Supreme Court, is that — Well, as I’m sure people know, there’s an initial vote the same week, on the Friday of the oral arguments. And my understanding is that there was a 5-4 vote to strike down the mandate and maybe some related provisions but not the entire act. Since then, interestingly, there seem to have been some second thoughts. Not on the part of Justice Kennedy, but on the part of Chief Justice Roberts, who seems to be going a little bit 'wobbly'. So right now, I would say, [the outcome of the case] is a little bit up in the air."
June 2, 2012
That's right. JUNE SECOND. A month ago. My guess is that some disgruntled member of the SCOTUS family (I'm looking at you, Clarence, and at your anti-Obamacare-activist wife, and maybe your clerks [Hardy? Lea? Nicholson? Stratton?]) started leaking as soon as Justice Roberts started writing his one-man majority opinion.
Linda Greenhouse of the NYTimes writes:
"Around Memorial Day, a number of conservative columnists and bloggers suddenly began accusing the 'liberal media' of putting 'the squeeze to Justice Roberts,' as George Will [put it, May 26. He continued:] 'They are waging an embarrassingly obvious campaign, hoping he will buckle beneath the pressure of their disapproval and declare Obamacare constitutional.'
"Although the court has been famously leakproof, Mr. Will and some of the others are well connected at the court, and I wondered at the time whether they had picked up signals that the chief justice, thought reliable after the oral argument two months earlier, was now wavering, and whether their message was really intended for him [in order to pressure and then embarrass Roberts]."
CBS' Jan Crawford, whom Justice Thomas considers one of his favorite journalists, noted, post-decision, that it became clear to the conservative justices that Roberts was, as one put it, "wobbly." Clearly, that "one" put it "wobbly" more than once.
Add to this the deliberate hints in the Scalia-Kennedy-Thomas-Alito dissent (such as continually referring to Justice Ginsburg's concurrence as a "dissent"), and the conclusion emerges that these unfrozen caveman justices are not exhibiting a sense of decorum.
By the way, conservative journalists, don't bellyache about unproven administration leaks and then revel in the flood out of what we thought was a sacredly secret society.
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