The First Elite Conservative To Say Enough - Andrew Sullivan

Mulling over the Supreme Court ruling in favor of Obamacare this weekend, it occurred to me why this remains a BFD. It's not that we now have a reprieve for the idea of universal healthcare in the US. Or even that we have an interpretation of the Commerce Clause that could eventually mean some non-trivial ratcheting back of the federal government's powers vis-a-vis the states. It is that a creature of the conservative movement, one of its youngest and most intelligent stars, saw the radicalism of the four dissenters ... and balked.

He balked, it appears, because of his attachment to the court as an institution, because he was unwilling to trash its reputation by embroiling it in a deep and bitter partisan grudge-match in the middle of a presidential campaign - when there was a plausible way out. He was also applying the logic of judicial restraint with respect to legislative wishes, interpreting the law to be as constitutional as it could possibly be deemed (i.e.in this case, viewing the mandate as part of the Congress's tax power). In these two ways, Roberts upheld a form of conservatism that is not synonymous with the interests of the Republican party at any given moment. Which is so unusual these days one wants (pathetically) to stand up and cheer.

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/07/the-first-elite-conservative-to-say-enough.html