Liberals Lecture Supreme Court on How to be Popular!

Jon Cohn at The New Republic argues that the Supreme Court "should be careful" when it comes to deciding the constitutionality of Obamacare.

Why? Mostly because getting it wrong - that is deciding that the individual mandate is unconstitutional - would undermine the court's popularity with the American public. He quotes blogger Brad Joondeph on this dire threat to the court's legitimacy.

... (a) steady stream of highly divisive, conservative 5-4 decisions, led off by a decision to invalidate the most important federal statute in a generation, could be toxic. It could take years for the Court to regain its standing among the American public.

Doesn't Cohn mean it could take years for the court to regain its standing among American liberals? The public dislikes Obamacare.

In California, the public dislikes have gay marriage rammed it throat. Nationally, the public likes Voter ID laws of the sort that liberals want stuck down.

If 5-4 decisions are so bad for the image of the court, maybe a couple of the court's liberals should actually consider voting with the less liberal majority on some of these matters.

But it's actually funny listening to liberals like Cohn and Joondeph lecture the court about how to be popular with the American people when their own standing with the public is so pathetically low.

Last year, according to Gallup, some 40 percent of Americans described their views as conservative, while 35 percent claimed to be moderate. Only 21 percent copped to being liberal. That's one in five Americans who'll admit to be a liberal.

Clearly the justices on the Supreme Court shouldn't decide cases based on their popularity with the American people. All decisions should be based on the justices' understanding of the constitution, the law and the relevant facts of the cases that come before them.

For Cohn and Joondeph to suggest otherwise is not only wrong, it would be self-defeating for the progressive goals of their incredibly shrinking tribe.