Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Panic On The Left

After months and months of smug assurance that ObamaCare would pass constitutional muster, the left discovers that opponents actually have a pretty good case. Now they're looking for scapegoats.
Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. should be grateful to the Supreme Court for refusing to allow cameras in the courtroom, because his defense of Obamacare on Tuesday may go down as one of the most spectacular flameouts in the history of the court. 

Stepping up to the podium, Verrilli stammered as he began his argument. He coughed, he cleared his throat, he took a drink of water. And that was before he even finished the first part of his argument. Sounding less like a world-class lawyer and more like a teenager giving an oral presentation for the first time, Verrilli delivered a rambling, apprehensive legal defense of liberalism's biggest domestic accomplishment since the 1960s—and one that may well have doubled as its eulogy. 

"What is left?" Justice Antonin Scalia demanded of Verrilli, "if the government can do this, what can it not do?" Verrilli's response to this basic and most predictable of questions was to rattle off a few legal precedents.

Justice Samuel Alito asked the same question later. "Could you just—before you move on, could you express your limiting principle as succinctly as you possibly can?" Verrilli turned to precedent again. "It's very much like Wickard in that respect, it's very much like Raich in that respect," Verrilli said, pointing to two previous Supreme Court opinions liberals have held up to defend the individual mandate. Where the lawyers challenging the mandate invoked the Federalist Papers and the framers of the Constitution, Verrilli offered jargon and political talking points. If the law is upheld, it will be in spite of Verrilli's performance, not because of it.
If Verrilli is so incompetent, what does it say about the guy who hired him? By the way, Verrilli's boss is the same person who judged this person to be the best spokeswoman for the Democratic Party.

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