A new meme out there today is that Chief Justice John Roberts laid a clever bomb at the heart of liberalism by agreeing with the other Four Zombies of the Apocolypse on every issue except taxation. The implication is that courts all over America will now begin to undermine the federal goverment by following his comments about the Commerce Clause, the Necc. & Proper Clause and so on.
The law doesn't work that way, and time won't work that way either.
First, the law: only the points that decided the case (taxation issues and so on) get to be hard and fast law. Other points which did NOT settle the case (the other things he said) are called "dicta" and usually get ignored by lower courts. I may be wrong, not having read the case yet, but I suspect the five votes to tear down federal power just don't count.
Second, the clock, those who've read here before know that if Obama wins re-election (a pretty good bet today: almost 2-1 odds according to Nate Silver) then the actuarial tables indicate about an ugly 50% chance of one of the conservative Supremes buying the farm in the next four years. Add in the chance of incapacitation or other change and the odds favor Obama leaving Roberts with only four or fewer votes on the court by 2016. (Obviously, the Fantastic Five will fight like heck to beat those odds.)
Roberts did not win some subtle long term point of law today. He took a look at the cliff his four fellow zombies demanded they go over and he took the sensible course of action: he retreated with bitter vows to fight another day.