How the Liberal Justices May Cost Obama the Election

Naomi Emery at The Washington Examiner makes a compelling case that John Roberts' decision to uphold Obamacare may cost the Democrats the election in November. Here's her opening:

Any year now, Democrats may start to ask themselves if it might have been better had John Roberts not changed his mind. If they would be better off with Obamacare out of its and our misery, a bone of contention now safely buried, and not as a bone in their throats.

For one thing, they still have the issue upon them -- the historic triumph they don't dare mention but which Republicans happily do.

Second, were Obamacare no longer the law, we might be seeing an uptick in hiring right now. Instead, that will be deferred until after November (and then possibly only if Romney's elected), and unemployment is rising in 44 states. Unemployment rising in 44 states is not what you want when just ten or so states will decide the election and unemployment has been 8 percent or higher for 41 months.

Third, had Roberts done otherwise, they might still have the issue of Medicare, which at this point they do not. When Paul Ryan was chosen to run with Mitt Romney, liberals planned to rip him to pieces over plans to trim Medicare. Somehow, they forgot that their own health care plan did much the same thing, covering 30 million new clients by draining millions from providers of Medicare. Although these cuts will not directly lead Medicare clients to pay more or lose coverage, they will end with many doctors and hospitals refusing to treat them at all.

Read the rest at the link. Wouldn't it be supremely ironic if the decision by John Roberts to contort himself into a jurisprudential pretzel in order to uphold Obamacare - a decision in which he was joined by the four liberal justices, a decision praised by Democrats and reviled by Republicans - actually wins the election for Mitt Romney?

Pernicious Influences

After I posted the critique of Cynthia Tucker's rather silly column on Paul Ryan in which she tried to wed him to the worst aspects Ayn Rand's philosophy I came across a piece by S.E. Cupp who made a very trenchant observation about the people who influence our politicians and which influences the media care about and which they don't.

She wrote that it's important to know whose ideas have shaped the thinking of candidates for high office, but only, you must understand, if the candidates are Republicans. Queries about who has influenced Democrat candidates, particularly if the candidate is Mr. Obama, are considered not at all germane to his fitness for office.

Here's part of Cupp's piece:

But because Obama’s campaign, his two memoirs not withstanding, was so cagey about all of that information, and the liberal media was happy to leave those gaps unanswered, voters had to fill in the blanks themselves. And it turns out, it wasn’t that hard.

They found out about Obama’s father, Barack Sr., a socialist activist the President devotes a book to, “Dreams From My Father.” They found out about Saul Alinsky, author of “Rules For Radicals,” who influenced young Barack into community organizing. They found out about Frank Marshall Davis, a labor activist and communist in Hawaii that Obama wrote highly of. They also found out about Roberto Unger, Obama’s Harvard law professor who is sick and tired of American hegemony.

There are plenty of others — notably Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright — people who, unlike Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand, Obama actually knew, and has himself cited in various places, before mounting a presidential run, as having influenced his political philosophy.

But conservatives were told over and over again in 2008 — scolded, really — that they were racist, small-minded, fanatical extremists if they tried to make any connections, tenuous or otherwise, between Obama and his self-proclaimed mentors and influences.

Questions about his father, his professors, his friends, his pastor…all off-limits.

Well, let's pose some questions. Who is the more pernicious influence, Ayn Rand or the motley collection of communists, far-left radicals, and America-haters who've shaped Mr. Obama's thinking over the years? Why is Ms Tucker deeply concerned about Rand's influence on Ryan but blithely indifferent to the people with whom Mr. Obama has surrounded himself? Can't we safely assume that Mr. Obama was drawn to these people because he shares their views? Can't we assume that Mr. Obama is himself just as much of a radical leftist as are the people who molded his worldview?

If we're to be worried about Rand's influence on Ryan why should we not worry about the influence of all of these Marxist-Leninists on Obama?

We might ask one more question. Have there been any strong influences on Mr. Obama at any point up until he assumed the presidency who were not socialist/communist leftists?