Political panel: Roberts’ legacy

>> roberts voted to save the president's health care law and may have also saved the court from going down a partisan road, the same as the rest of washington. bob ? herbert is the distinguished senior fellow . with the associated press and of course tom bro saw kau -kbro caw is the grand poobah . john roberts , we have the legacy of john roberts , will it always be this decision. how much is the roberts decision.

>> very much the roberts decision. we have to remember this is more of the beginning of his tenure as the chief justice than of the end of it. there will be a lot more decisions that will come down the pipe, but this is a big punctuation mark .

>> some conservatives believe he has the long view here and they are not overly getting mad at him saying this is going to help him be able to make other conservative decisions and not look partisan about it.

>> who are knows what was in his mind. you can never second-guess the supreme court and understand how he comes to the conclusions they do. he is an astute guy and there was a rising tide in the country of criticism that was a highly partisan court. at the same time the decision he made had sound legal precedent attached. he changed it from mandate to tax. that was a way of getingly around the question.

>> at some point.

>> his subconsciousness if not actively. ? a judicial ground for fair decisions.

>> is this the bipartisan stamp that the health care was lacking that will somehow sway them?

>> i don't think so. i think it's helpful in the middle because it was a conservative chief justice who actually swung the vote before the people who are lined up for or against this law. i don't think it changes many votes there. on the john roberts decision, i think he very consciously had his eye on history. i think he was thinking about his legacy and he did not want to be on the wrong side of history when it came to long-term health coverage in the united states . that's a big factor.

>> i have to say think about this week for john roberts . he was majority of striking down even the part that they upheld they issued this stern warning and this. it wasn't just this, but he sided with federal power .

>> he surprised everybody. he is of the justices that conservatives and democrats cite as a model. he doesn't want to be a partisan and a tool for the republican party . he is the chief justice. he has to set a legacy for himself and for the court. this has to be a big part of what he was thinking. i'm not sure i agree that he wants to be on the wrong side and the public on health care .

>> we're are psycho ? analyzing him. i don't want to move him too far down the road on health care .

>> i'm with you.

>> he found a way around it to get to the tax issue as opposed to commerce.

>> can you say he the conservatives a bone by names it a tax.

>> they wrote this morning that this decision is the tea party 's row v wade.

>> that may be true, but there other issues that come up. this ensure that is the health law goes forward. this is a complicated enormous and expensive law. we will run into problems so it's not so much the ruling that the tea party or opponents have to hang their hat on. they will be looking at the reality of health care coverage.

>> i agree with them on that. this is the beginning of a process again and we are kick starting the health care .

>> now it has to get implemented. a bunch of states that were holding on.

>> the difference with row v wade is there was criticism of the court. i didn't notice that yesterday. that was of the law and not what the court did. they side stepped that and because it was roberts making the decision. not because of the overreach. this was strictly of the law and getting rid of the law and not the process through the court.

>> three weeks from now, will the television ads that mitt romney and barack obama air have many mentions ? of health care . i think there will be less of a mention on the part of president obama and more of a mention on the part of romney. my guess is that they continue to take the temperature of their base and they are so violently a posed to the mandate. they raised it after the decision. one very senior republican senator said to me the calls in our office are going 150 to 1 against the mandate. key states where they had a referendum on it two years ago and passed by 66% at that time.

>> i would suspect that the obama campaign raised quite a bit of money yesterday. they made a decision that they didn't want to make it political and they didn't come out with the figure. we have no basis for comparison.

>> three weeks from now, how do you put it in the context of the economy.

>> that's the big umbrella .