I was hesitant to criticize Chief Justice Roberts yesterday. I believe him to be a man of utmost integrity, and a brilliant legal scholar.  I was thrilled when he was appointed to our nation’s highest Court … though I admit, for me, yesterday was not easy.

As I’ve tried to digest the ruling, beginning with our own show yesterday morning and then sifting through column after blog after talk show after tweet for the remainder of the day, I have finally come to a conclusion that I’m at peace with:

We deserved this.

For appointing a moderate nominee in 2008 in an attempt to “win the independent vote,” we deserved this.

For our increasing abandonment of social conservatives who were among the most passionate of our base, we deserved this.

For compromising time after time after time legislatively, we deserved this.

I know it. You know it. Chief Justice Roberts knows it, too.

Aren’t we the party that vehemently speaks out against judicial activism? The Affordable Care Act was passed because people put Democrats in office to pass it, and more important, didn’t support putting enough competent conservatives in office to stop it.

The result? Obamacare. (It really is that simple.)

I’m not interested in any more bailouts. Not on Wall Street. Not on Main Street. And not from Chief Justice Roberts.

If you want to rid our nation of this job-killing, freedom-thwarting legislation, do it at the ballot box. Do it with your dollars, your tweets, and your phone calls. Channel the passion and energy that has delivered stunning conservative victories in Republican primaries this election cycle. Pull up video of Governor Scott Walker and his supporters — daily  … and take notes until the pen runs dry.

The President won’t be able to sell this legislation to the American people in its new form. Prior to today, I was quite certain that his reelection was inevitable. This is truly the first time I’ve felt hopeful about Mitt Romney’s chances.

So, thank Justice Roberts for ruling that the mandate, relative to the Commerce Clause, was unconstitutional. This was the clearest and most dramatic rejection of Congress’ use of the Commerce Clause for economic regulation in forty years. In this day-and-age of progressivism, there is no telling what liberty-crushing hazards down the road we have avoided. As Jonah Goldberg writes, Justice Roberts has forever “poisoned the well of the Commerce Clause for liberals.”

Thank Justice Roberts for recognizing the sovereignty of the states by not allowing the federal government to tamper with Medicaid funding. Conservatives have seemed to skip right over the monumental significance of this. (Let’s just see how many states participate in Obamacare now that there’s no fear of Federal penalty for opting out.)

Thank Justice Roberts for essentially stripping the President, for the remainder of this election cycle, of his ability to use Supreme Court nominations as a political issue.

And most important, thank Justice Roberts for forcing the President to come clean to the American people, and to call this legislation what it really is – an enormous tax on the middle class.  Do not ignore the enormity of this gift. Also, consider this: voting against a massive tax on the young and middle America will be much more politically potent than voting to defend the Constitution. (Many Americans have no idea what the latter means.)

But, whatever you do … don’t blame Justice Roberts that the President’s signature legislation still exists.

We deserved this.

But, take heart … it’s always darkest before the dawn.

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Thanks for reading.