I think Chief Justice John Roberts' "switch in time" will achieve precisely the opposite of his reportedly intended effect. That is, rather than serving to re-establish what he believed to be was the sinking legitimacy of the Court, this ruling will only further discredit it.
I supppose no one but Roberts himself can say for sure, but the news media is replete with stories that Roberts reversed himself at the eleventh hour, applying head-shakingly clever or crazy, legal or political reasoning to arrive at the result he wanted to begin with which was to uphold the consitutionality of Obamacare.
To be sure, he has his conservative defenders, but I fear they may have fallen victim to the abiding temptation of all "insiders", that is, to value and applaud cleverness over common sense. Anyway you cut it, to, with a straight face, call a cat a dog, a "mandate" a "tax", is an affront to common sense and as such the Court will only be viewd by the public with an increasingly jaundiced eye.
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