It's been highly amusing over the past day watching the gop-ers wanting to throw parades -- and leftist 20 percenters in an absolute state of dejection -- after some tough questions posed to government lawyers on Wednesday by the Supreme Court's right-winger Justices (link at bottom). The question at issue: Is Obama & the leftists' monstrosity of a health care bill constitutional (and in particular, the "individual mandate"). But both the right-winger celebrations and the leftist funeral wakes should wait. More on that in a minute...But first, I'm on record a 1000 times in this blog: I hate the leftist health care bill and the slimy way it was rammed down our throats and against the will of the American people. Never before in American history has such a sweeping piece of controversial, unpopular, ultra-partisan legislation been enacted on nearly straight party-line votes, and certainly not by use of procedural gimmicks such as "reconciliation" (note to Karl Marx from Facebook: I didn't say "nuclear option," as if that really matters). But all that aside...
When it comes to gauging the Court's likely ruling, the questioning from the right-winger Justices must be taken with a huge grain of salt. I like to think I have a tiny degree of experience in this area, and I'm here to tell ya: Never (Ever) read too much into the questions asked by appeals court judges (even from the USSC) during oral arguments, and never rely on such questions as any kind of reliably strong indicator (one way or the other) of how they will rule.
The job of appeals court judges is to play devil's advocate in oral arguments. Oftentimes, attorneys watching oral argument have no real clue whatsoever if the questions are indicative of the way the judge already thinks he/she will rule, versus the judges wanting to hear the arguing attorneys' responses to the best points raised in the other side's Brief (more often, it's the latter).Put another way, very often the tone and direction of questions will heavily lean one way, only for a completely (and seemingly) contrary written ruling to ultimately be issued. That's happened a million times in American jurisprudence. Not to rain on the right-wingers' parade or anything. But rain, rain.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/218427-toobin-obama-healthcare-reform-law-in-grave-grave-trouble
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