That time when Justice Roberts proved he wasn't a total intellectual whore
by digby
So, it appears that Chief Justice John Roberts decided that his reputation as a reasonable human being couldn't survive signing on to the fatuous notion that one should literally put millions of people's people's lives at risk over what is obviously nothing more than a typo. He was unwilling to accept the fiction that the congress would "fix it" knowing very well that the congress is barely able to agree on what time of day it is.
Whew. The world has not gone completely mad. At last not today, on this issue.
I'm going to guess we'll be seeing a lot of this shortly. Right wingers don't take kindly to this sort of thing:
Jeff Toobin just pointed out on CNN that Roberts is still a very conservative justice and this idea that he's a "liberal" is daft. This is just a sign of how absurdly right wing the conservative legal community has become that they would even think of pushing a daft case like this one. Roberts is just not willing to be a total intellectual whore for their hobby horses.
But don't worry, the Republicans will nickle and dime Obamacare to death in any way they can forever. It's way too vulnerable to that sort of thing. But this outcome shows that a majority of the court is not going to accept any excuse conservative miscreants can find to destroy it.
Here's Ian Milhiser's analysis.
Update: ICYWW
