Last night, Jon Stewart had some fun ripping CNN for getting the ruling so wrong, and then looked at the political implications from Roberts' ruling.
How excited was the President? Well, he strolled down I Killed bin Laden Lane to his -- YOU HEARD ME, I KILLED BIN LADEN MOTHERFUCKERS! -- and addressed the nation.
BARACK OBAMA: I know there will be a lot of discussion today about the politics of all this, about who won, and who lost. ... But that discussion completely misses the point.
(in Barack Obama impression) "Ah, which is, that I won. Not that what matters is who won... but it was me. So the real question tonight, how's it taste, motherfuckers?" (wild audience cheering and applause)
He was pretty excited. One small issue, one small issue. Obama had, in the past, been very clear about what this individual mandate was not.
9/20/2009:
BARACK OBAMA: For us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance, is absolutely not a tax increase.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: But you reject that it's a tax increase?
BARACK OBAMA: I absolutely reject that notion.
Of course you reject it. You have to have a re-election. But the Supreme Court, using the precedent set in the landmark case of Peeing on My Leg v. Telling Me It's Raining is allowed to say what things actually are. The Supreme Court's wording did not go unnoticed.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO, R-FL: A victory for the Obama administration means a middle class tax increase. And that's exactly what this is.
SEN. MITCH McCONNELL, R-KY: This law is a tax. ... The bill was sold to the American people on a deception.
REP. PHIL GINGREY, R-GA: It's a tax.
SEN. MIKE LEE, R-UT: It's a tax.
REP. TOM PRICE, R-GA: It's a tax.
ADM. GIAL ACKBAR, REBEL ALLIANCE: It's a tax!!
Senator Ackbar is right. It's a tax. The real question is, how does Wilfred Brimleyton Romney handle this new development?
MITT ROMNEY: It's important for us to repeal and replace Obamacare. What are some of the things that we'll keep in place? ... We have to make sure that people who want to keep their current insurance will be able to do so.
Sure, that's very important, that's... oh. That's actually a part of Obamacare. But, go ahead.
MITT ROMNEY: We also have to assure that we do our very best to help each state in their effort to assure that every American has access to affordable health care.
Oh, that's a great idea. That's... oh, it's like the Medicaid expansion that's in Obamacare. That... OK, that's good.
MITT ROMNEY: We gotta make sure that those people who have pre-existing conditions know that they will be able to be insured.
(blank stare from Jon)
So you're going to keep everything but the mandate, aka, the thing that pays for all of it. So the fiscally responsible Republican is saying, "Don't worry, you're going to get all the goodies. But... eh... not the bill. 'Cause that'd be taxes. And that'd be tyranny. Except in Massachusetts, where it worked. And... OH FUCK IT, JUST MAKE ME PRESIDENT, OK??? I'VE BEEN RUNNING FOR LIKE TWO THOUSAND YEARS! You know, this (points to face)
isn't going to last forever, people! I got like six to eight more years of handsome!"
Video and full transcript below the fold.
But of course, the main story tonight, the Supreme Courts' ruling on the Affordable Care Act, aka, Obamacare. Yes, this morning, all Americans, indeed, all citizens of the world, gathered together to see what our nation's highest court would say.
Would conservatives rule the day and overturn the individual mandate? Or would liberals reign, granting the government power to keep old people alive artificially, so that we may harvest their organs? That is exactly the question the court faced.
And then suddenly, at the exact time we had been told the day before the decision would be handed down, PANDEMONIUM!!!
CNN PROMO: This is CNN Breaking News.
The race was on! Which news organization would be the first to speak of the great decision? Who would emerge from the chaos as today's grand champion of news firstiness?
KATE BOULDUAN, CNN, 10:07am: I want to bring you the breaking news that according to producer Bill Mears, the individual mandate is not a valid exercise of the Commerce Clause. So it appears as if the Supreme Court justices have struck down the individual mandate, the centerpiece of the health care legislation.
BILL HEMMER, FOX NEWS, 10:07am: We have breaking news here on the Fox News Channel. The individual mandate has been ruled unconstitutional.
At 10:07am Eastern Daylight Time, in a photo finish with Fox News, CNN by 8 seconds was the very first organization to report the unconstitutionality of Obama's signature health care act.
WOLF BLITZER, 10:07am: Wow, that's a dramatic moment.
Yes! Yes! A moment of great drama. And like many of our greatest dramas, a work of complete fiction.
MEGYN KELLY, 10:09am: We're getting conflicting information. If you follow SCOTUSblog.com, which covers the high court, they say that despite what Shannon just read, that the individual mandate is surviving as a tax.
Boom! Fox News' Megyn Kelly catches the mistake not two minutes later via SCOTUSblog. But CNN... oh, CNN... pobre CNN. They went not one minute, not two minutes...
seven full minutes of unconstitutional mandate hyperventilation!
JOHN KING, 10:08am: The court striking down the mandate is a dramatic blow to the policy and to the President. ... The justices have just gutted, Wolf, the centerpiece provision of the Obama health care law.
WOLF BLITZER, 10:08am: It raises questions about any of this health care reform law.
JOHN KING, 10:09am: ... the direct blow to the President of the United States, a direct blow to his Democratic Party.
Yes. How will the...
administration recover, after this incredibly public blow to their credibility? I mean, the administration staked their entire reputation on this important moment. And now the...
administration is out there, the face of this giant fuck-up. Sure wouldn't want to be the administration right now. Anything else you want to add, CNN?
WOLF BLITZER, 10:13am: We're getting widely different assessments of what the United States Supreme Court has decided.
Yes, widely different. There's what you've been saying... (audience laughter) and then... there's what happened. No sympathy, CNN! You've been driving us nuts with this shit for months! Ooh, the ruling's gonna come down... the ruling's gonna.... It was like Christmas morning for you guys. You were bugging everybody, "ooh, what are we going to get? What are we gonna get? Is it in there? Can you tell me what it is? Just show me! Ooh, can I shake it?"
So then you run downstairs, and your parents are like, "Slow down there, Ace, we got all day." But you can't fucking help yourself, can you? You see the present with your name on it under the tree, and you just, "Oh, I gotta open this up!!" (makes wild tearing motions)
"Huh? You got me just red gunk and feathers?"
And I'm like, "It was a parrot, you asshole!!"
I'm sorry, Mr. Crackers! It's one of my earliest childhood memories!
So what actually happened? Well, by a 5-4 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the four more liberal justices, and wrote the majority opinion that the individual mandate was deemed unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause, but that that didn't really matter, because the decision upheld the individual mandate under Congress's power to levy taxes. It's very confusing. Unless you read, obviously, up to page 4.
How excited was the President? Well, he strolled down I Killed bin Laden Lane to his -- YOU HEARD ME, I KILLED BIN LADEN MOTHERFUCKERS! -- and addressed the nation.
BARACK OBAMA: I know there will be a lot of discussion today about the politics of all this, about who won, and who lost. ... But that discussion completely misses the point.
(in Barack Obama impression) "Ah, which is, that I won. Not that what matters is who won... but it was me. So the real question tonight, how's it taste, motherfuckers?" (wild audience cheering and applause)
He was pretty excited. One small issue, one small issue. Obama had, in the past, been very clear about what this individual mandate was not.
9/20/2009:
BARACK OBAMA: For us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance, is absolutely not a tax increase.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: But you reject that it's a tax increase?
BARACK OBAMA: I absolutely reject that notion.
Of course you reject it. You have to have a re-election. But the Supreme Court, using the precedent set in the landmark case of Peeing on My Leg v. Telling Me It's Raining is allowed to say what things actually are. The Supreme Court's wording did not go unnoticed.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO, R-FL: A victory for the Obama administration means a middle class tax increase. And that's exactly what this is.
SEN. MITCH McCONNELL, R-KY: This law is a tax. ... The bill was sold to the American people on a deception.
REP. PHIL GINGREY, R-GA: It's a tax.
SEN. MIKE LEE, R-UT: It's a tax.
REP. TOM PRICE, R-GA: It's a tax.
ADM. GIAL ACKBAR, REBEL ALLIANCE: It's a tax!!
Senator Ackbar is right. It's a tax. The real question is, how does Wilfred Brimleyton Romney handle this new development?
MITT ROMNEY: It's important for us to repeal and replace Obamacare. What are some of the things that we'll keep in place? ... We have to make sure that people who want to keep their current insurance will be able to do so.
Sure, that's very important, that's... oh. That's actually a part of Obamacare. But, go ahead.
MITT ROMNEY: We also have to assure that we do our very best to help each state in their effort to assure that every American has access to affordable health care.
Oh, that's a great idea. That's... oh, it's like the Medicaid expansion that's in Obamacare. That... OK, that's good.
MITT ROMNEY: We gotta make sure that those people who have pre-existing conditions know that they will be able to be insured.
(blank stare from Jon)
So you're going to keep everything but the mandate, aka, the thing that pays for all of it. So the fiscally responsible Republican is saying, "Don't worry, you're going to get all the goodies. But... eh... not the bill. 'Cause that'd be taxes. And that'd be tyranny. Except in Massachusetts, where it worked. And... OH FUCK IT, JUST MAKE ME PRESIDENT, OK??? I'VE BEEN RUNNING FOR LIKE TWO THOUSAND YEARS! You know, this (points to face)
isn't going to last forever, people! I got like six to eight more years of handsome!"
Jon then checked in with his
correspondents about the verdict.
John Oliver then sat down with
Herman Cain to go over how Cain would react as President of the United States in hypothetical situations.
Meanwhile, Stephen also covered the
cable news gaffes in reporting on the Supreme Court's decision, and then
lamented how John Roberts betrayed him.
He then talked about the
implications of what Obamacare will do to this country with Slate's
Emily Bazelon.
Jon had on Tenacious D to perform "
Deth Starr" and "
Throw Down" for the web only, and Stephen had on
Aaron Sorkin to talk about his new awesome HBO show
The Newsroom. HBO, by the way, has put the
ENTIRE first episode on YouTube for everyone to watch for free!!
Finally, Stephen ended the show by announcing the winner of his Colbert Super PAC treasure hunt! He's going to the University of Pittsburgh in the fall, folks. A detailed web-only solution is available for those wondering what they missed.