In his latest column for The American Spectator, Ross Kaminsky attempts to defend his belief that majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts in the McCutcheon v. FEC was a ‘partial redemption’ for the Justice after his majority opinion in the Obamacare case, which he described as ‘nothing short of a disaster for the nation, and a huge black mark on John Roberts’ legacy. Mr. Kaminsky spends a good deal of time arguing that we conservatives who are still angry with Roberts and believe he can never be redeemed in his present position are too rigid and that our demands for ‘purity’ are very counter-productive.
An example:
John Roberts’ Obamacare error was larger and vastly more consequential than any error of an average politician or candidate. But the insistence of Republicans, and particularly the most conservative (and often most active and vocal) members of the party base, on philosophical perfection, on having no measurable affiliation with “the establishment,” and on never ever compromising (ever!) has a lot to do with why we are still suffering under a president named Obama and particularly under a Senate Majority Leader named Reid.
Ah! Mr. Kominsky has decided to seek shelter in the last refuge of a those who don’t get it, who refuse to grasp the grave danger The American Republic is in: blame the TEA Party. He damns those of us who are holding our fellow conservatives to the standard set by The Founding Fathers and who support conservatives with backbone. He condemns us for our work to get non-professional candidates elected:
I will not rehash all the stories, but just suggest a few names: Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock, Ken Buck (whom I like and who I hope wins his race for Congress this year), Christine “I’m not a witch” O’Donnell, and Sharron Angle (a very nice woman who was not ready for the big time in a race where the GOP had a rare chance to repeat John Thune’s incredible take-down of Tom Daschle).
How dare we demand that our candidates be Constitutionalists? Who the Hell do we think we are?!?
Karl Rove called, Ross, and he’d like to hear more of your advice.
I think I can speak for many when I say, Mr. Kaminsky: Frankly, we’re tired of being demonized and sick of being blamed for election losses that were caused by the Establishment GOP and Elite Conservative Leadership that did everything in their power to see that our candidates were mocked mercilessly and the subject of relentless calumnies thrown at them by the Left and by the Professional Right.
You and your kind scorn us and call us purists, which would be quite laughable if the stakes weren’t so high. Our actions and opinions and demands are inline with those of The Founders — read their writings and speeches.
While Mr. Kaminsky is filled with condensation for we conservatives, he is brimming with modern, New-Agey sympathy for the put-upon Human Being that is John Roberts:
Some suggest that the left’s massive media campaign in support of Obamacare, particularly making it sound as if a Court decision striking it down would be fundamentally undemocratic (as if that were the point of the Constitution), had an impact on Chief Justice Roberts. CBS News reported that “Roberts pays attention to media coverage” and that “there were countless news articles in May warning of damage to the court — and to Roberts’ reputation — if the court were to strike down the mandate.”
If true that John Roberts does indeed care about public opinion, which is to say if he is a human being with at least a hint of normal behavior patterns for the species — such as liking, even if not explicitly seeking, appreciation for a task well done — then it is a particularly bad idea for conservatives to refuse to give Roberts an “Attaboy” for doing something that advances liberty and turns the nation a fraction of the way back toward the Constitution.
Couldn’t even the most principled fighter for a cause have marginally less motivation, perhaps an occasional moment of “Why am I doing this?” if his “allies” won’t acknowledge his efforts and his successes? When that fighter has one of the most powerful positions in any government on the planet, those allies need to rethink a few things.
Are you serious. RK: an ‘Attaboy’ for requiring that Roberts do his job? That he not violate his Oath Of Office? What you are suggesting is that he is a weak man who lacks the strength of character to be a Judge. With friends like you….
The national government was set-up so that the Justices of the Supreme Court should make decisions without any consideration of public opinion, that the Senators represent the interests of the state governments, that the President be guided by the interests of the nation as a whole [following the advice of Edmund Burke: 'Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion'], and that only the members of the House Of Representatives consider the concerns of the moment of the citizens of The United States [and even then, they, too, are expected to believe as Mr. Burke did].
In the Comments section of Mr. Kaminsky’s post, 22 writes:
However, the fact remains that NFIB v. Sebelius will probably be the most important ruling to come from the Roberts Court and it was shockingly bad. None of the other justices agreed with his legal reasoning. He appears to have changed his position at the last minute after already written the “dissent” which was originally to serve as the majority opinion. He has been viewed as having “rewritten” the legislation so that it could pass his standard of legality and while he claims there are limits to the Interstate Commerce Clause, he greatly expanded the government’s power to tax, in the face of the administration’s claim that the “mandate fee” is a fee except when it is a tax (hard to follow that logic). Chief Justice Roberts is seen as having buckled under political pressure and when judges do that, their credibility is lost. I wish it didn’t happen, but it did. The ruling is a disaster. I don’t see how Mr. Roberts can escape being forever linked with it, particularly with those us who view ObamaCare as clearly unconstitutional and a great violation of our fundamental rights. I agree with you Ross, that we should refrain from further bashing him, but my confidence in the justice has been badly shaken.
I come not to bash Roberts, but to point out that, by his actions in the Obamacare case, he betrayed The Constitution, he violated his Oath Of Office, and he showed that he is man with an appalling weakness of character.
John Roberts can write opinions from now until Kingdom Come that meet our standards, but his grave mistake, his moment of pathetic weakness, his cowardice, his monumental betrayal in putting the Court’s stamp-of-approval on the fundamental transformation of the relationship between the individual and the state, where the state gained Power And Control over the bodies of all American citizens, is so awful in it’s implications, so heinous in it’s ramifications, so deadly in it’s implementation that this one opinion will be his only epitaph — that is, if Justice and Truth still exist in the future.
