Do the democrats, or maybe just Obama specifically, want the procedural trick they plan to use to slip the health care bill through congress to be ruled unconstitutional? There seems to be consensus among legal scholars on both sides of the aisle that what the democrats are planning is on pretty thin ice constitution wise and therefore a SCOTUS challenge of any law that does manage to pass appears distinctly possible - and so the question becomes, if passage of this legislation is so important to democrats that they're willing to risk annihilation at the polls come November, why would you leave it so vulnerable to being overturned? Certainly one, although admittedly unlikely answer to that question is somebody wants it to be overturned - why? Well... look like you tried to do something grand and progressive but were thwarted by evil right wing reactionaries - this allows you to wrap yourself in a kind of glory without having to endure all the negative consequences of being held responsible for the enactment of a deeply flawed and unpopular law. And of course I've already speculated that Obama doesn't want to serve a second term but has to figure out a way to avoid it without degrading too much his appeal to lefties everywhere.Or possibly, since this administration loves its academics, possibly this is chaos theory in action, their version of Cortes burning his boats.
These conjectures seem... a stretch, let's say - but what then? Simply desperation? The thought of walking away from this cherished liberal dream is so unpalatable to them that they're willing to risk it all on a constitutional roll of the dice? Seems a tad irrational for pedagogues who like to think of themselves as the only adults in the room.
