If Obama isn't confident, we should be
By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Apr 03, 2012
"Ultimately, I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress."
That’s what President Obama said. Now why did he say it?
Obama is setting the stage for a campaign in which he will denounce the “unelected” members of the Supreme Court for overturning the work of the people’s elected representatives. He’s preparing to defend his signature legislation even after it’s declared unconstitutional. That’s a risky move. Why is he making it already?
Because he knows he’s going to lose!
Obama is already trying to plant seeds of doubt about the wisdom of the Supreme Court, because he knows the Court will rule against his health-care plan. If he really felt confident that the Court would uphold the legislation, he wouldn’t make a statement clearly designed to undermine confidence in the Court. So when he says that he’s confident, in this case it means he’s not at all confident. And that’s a good thing.
Phil Lawler has been a Catholic journalist for more than 30 years. He has edited several Catholic magazines and written eight books. Founder of Catholic World News, he is the news director and lead analyst at CatholicCulture.org. See full bio.
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Posted by: John J Plick -
Apr. 03, 2012 6:26 PM ET USA
At the risk of sounding tangential, I will continue to insist that the “center” of this chaos is misplaced, this is NOT a “fight” between “us” and the government..., rather, it is a “fight’ between “us” and our fellow Catholics, (generally defined as “liberals”) The bonds which bind us together as Catholics trump any bonds of citizenship. As the bishops refuse to mediate coherently in this context we the laity must work it out with fear and trembling.
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Posted by: phil L -
Apr. 03, 2012 11:18 AM ET USA
Cornelius, that's a good question. The Court could overturn the entire bill, and then the HHS mandate would be a dead letter. Or the Court could, possibly, say that only certain portions of the bill are unconstitutional, leaving other portions intact. However the individual mandate is at the very center of the arguments about constitutionality, so if anything is overturned, the mandate probably will be.
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Posted by: -
Apr. 03, 2012 10:34 AM ET USA
Someone help me out here: if the Supremes overturn Obamacare, even if it's just the individual mandate, does that mean that the HHS mandate on providing contraception and abortion-inducing drugs is invalidated as well?
