Move it up a notch

Because I've read Chief Justice Roberts' opinion in the Affordable Care Act case, I can't resist commenting on Mitt Romney's takeaway.

 

Romney's takeaway is to the effect of: since the Supreme Court has declared the Obamacare mandate to be a tax, we now know that President Obama has broken his pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class.

Is it really be too much to expect that someone running for President could convey that he understands there was more nuance to the Court's decision, and to Roberts' opinion, than that?

It's fairly obvious, from the way Romney struggles to defend his black-and-white "it's a tax" assertion - as well as to distinguish Chief Justice Roberts' analysis from anything that might be applied to Romney's health care act in Massachusetts - that Romney actually has read or at least been well briefed on the decision. He appears to me to be deliberately dumbing down his understanding of the ruling.

Here's a way Romney might move his credibility up a notch and still score some conservative or libertarian points:

"the Supreme Court decided that the only way you could conceivably justify the mandate was to invoke the taxing power under the Constitution; in effect, the mandate is a tax increase, or the threat of one, for anyone so bold as to not knuckle under to the government's order to buy insurance."

I wonder what Romney might say about the Higgs boson.