It doesn’t take a Washington insider to suspect that the White House has a back channel to the Supreme Court, knows how the justices have come down in the Obamacare case and has learned, from the Obama point of view, the news isn’t good.

The president’s defiance and what appeared to be his campaign of intimidation targeting the justices has morphed into barely concealed resignation over the last seven days.

That widely noted New York Times story of the weekend is a case in point. It detailed how the smartest crowd (hasn’t the MSM assured us of it) that has ever inhabited the nation’s Executive Mansion failed ever seriously to consider that seizing control over one-seventh of the American economy and forcing every American to buy a commercial product might, just might, run afoul of our constitution of liberty.