The Five Stages of The Supreme Court's Obamacare Decision

DENIAL: the individual mandate upheld as a tax with Roberts joining the liberals in a 5-4 decision? That's OK. It's still unconstitutional. 


ANGER: What???!!!??? For God's sake, will it ever be possible for there to be a conservative majority on the Court for even one d*mned second???? Liberals vote in lock step, but our guys never want to when it counts. What has been the point of the originalist counter-revolution if we can't even strike down a provision forcing people to buy insurance, and then uphold it on the same dubious grounds as social security???!!! 


(pause)


Gah!


BARGAINING: maybe we could petition for a re-hearing. It's clear that the Court didn't get enough argument on the issue of the Taxing Power. I'm sure Mark Levin has a brief in the can and ready to go. 


DEPRESSION: what's the use. Even if we elect Romney president, he's not going to repeal the whole of Obamacare. Oh, he might repeal the Medicaid expansion and individual mandate, but I will bet you that Obamacare's "popular" provisions (guaranteed issue, kids on parents' plans 'til age 26, etc.) will still be there when he leaves office. 


ACCEPTANCE: hee hee., Did you see that? The Court called the individual mandate a tax! Obama lied to the American people when he said he wouldn't raise taxes on the middle class! This thing is doomed! Plus, the Court did declare the mandate unconstitutional for being beyond the bounds of the Commerce Power. No one's talking about that yet, but that is huge (and really the focus of much of the right's legal attack on Obamacare). Whatever is in that aspect of the decision - and no one, as of this writing, seems to have read that part of the decision - will be huge, doctrinally speaking. 


And, as God is my witness, I will never eat turnips again.