THE CHIEF WAS ALWAYS GOING TO RETAIN CONTROL OF THE MAJORITY OPINION...:

Whatever his motives, however, by doing so Roberts emphatically ensured that the ruling--and he himself--would be immune to the increasingly adamant accusations of partisanship that have dogged the Court and damaged its stature in the eyes of the public in the wake of Bush v. Gore and Citizens United. It also guaranteed that many of the same hot-eyed ultracons who sang hosannas to him are now braying for his head. The day after the decision, Roberts told a gathering of judges and lawyers at a conference in Pennsylvania that he would soon be headed to spend his summer break on Malta, which, "as you know, is an impregnable island fortress. It seemed like a good idea."

History will judge the jurisprudential value of Roberts's opinion in upholding the ACA. But even at this meager temporal remove, its brilliance in one respect is already indisputable: the way it made a mockery of the self-serious self-certainty of any number of self-appointed Court savants. I'm not talking here about the folks at Fox News and CNN who, in their haste to be first to the air with the ruling, broadcast to the world that the individual mandate had been overturned. (Among those briefly given a minor coronary by the errors: President Obama, who--need it be said?--already has quite enough gray hair at this point, guys.)

No, I'm referring here to the likes of Jeffrey Toobin, who raced out of the Court after oral arguments in March and declared, "This was a train wreck for the Obama administration. This law looks like it's going to be struck down." Or to former Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino, who, after hearing public comments by Justice Ginsburg that there would be "sharp disagreements" when the decision was handed down, jumped to the entirely baseless conclusion that "that means it's either a 6-3 or a 5-4 decision against Obamacare." Or Bill O'Reilly, who months ago huffed and puffed as only he can, "It's going to be five-to-four [against the law]. And, if I'm wrong, I will come on and I will ... apologize for being an idiot."

In truth, O'Reilly is no more an idiot (on this topic, at least) than almost everyone else sitting rapt on Thursday morning, waiting for history to be made. And that, in the end, was what made the event so wonderful. On a political landscape where so much is familiar and predictable, the ruling was an utter surprise. For a moment, we were all blithering idiots together--though we'll still take that mea culpa, Bill.

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