Many on the right are not taking yesterday's Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act very well, but one enterprising pundit is making hay while the sun shines (or doesn't). Some on the right are blaming Chief Justice John Roberts's decision on epilepsy medication. Others are calling for him to be impeached from the bench, an agenda that liberals might want to consider getting behind, actually.
Some conservatives are arguing that what might look like a loss is actually a win for their side, while others have conceded that this the ruling could prove to be a significant boon to President Barack Obama's re-election chances.
But few in the U.S. are taking it quite as hard, it would seem, as former Fox News "rodeo clown" Glenn Beck. In the Thursday night broadcast of his signature show on the internet-only network Glenn Beck TV, Beck lashed out at Chief Justice John Roberts, calling him a traitor, and all but declared the end of the American experiment. Beck reached out through the fog of his despair, however, to deliver a message of hope and encouragement to his supporters.
“Here’s my opinion on this ruling: While it may have sealed the fate of the private insurance industry, I think it also sealed the fate of the election in November,” he said, "The American people are awake and fully engaged. It will make the Obama administration a thing of the past.”
Never one not to seize a money-making opportunity (he was the highest paid political pundit on Forbes magazine's Power 100 for 2011 list, after all), Beck has taken to selling $30 T-shirts emblazoned with Chief Justice Roberts's face and the word "Coward" underneath at his online store. We strongly suspect that in spite of his protestations, Beck will find a way to live with this disappointment somehow.
Watch Beck's reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling, embedded below:
