That is what I was thinking. He seems to have gone way out of his way to make it look weird, as if to signal something or other and ot get a lot of attention. All the other options you suggest would have been way more low key to reach various goals people have been suggesting.
Like his unethical, unprecedented ex parte invitation to have Obama visit the Supreme Court - announced to the national press on the same day SCOTUS was deciding whether to hear Donofrio’s eligibility challenge.
There was no way in the world he could have made that action look worse. It was blatant. Too blatant to be an accident.
The same kind of thing happened with Judge David Carter - hiring a clerk from Perkins-Coie in the middle of a very visible eligibility case argued by Perkins-Coie, and exhibiting a 180-degree turnaround in his rulings and demeanor as soon as that clerk was on board with him. There was no way to appear more unethical than that. Again, too blatant to be an accident.
I’m trying to be careful not to suffer from confirmation bias, but I had suspected that Roberts was compromised on the eligibility stuff and that his actions (the ex parte invitation, the botched oath, and affirming Kagan and Sotomayor’s refusal to recuse themselves on cases where their very positions were at issue) were meant to be red flags, and now this Obamacare decision started out looking like a red flag but the more we hear, the more it looks to me like a flashing strobe light instead. And not just Roberts drawing attention to something fishy, but four other justices as well.
Roberts’ alleged “signaling” that something is wrong is not what was needed here. He took on the position. Even if he was threatened, he could have issued a rational ruling and revealed proof of a threat. Whether revealing a threat would have been unprecedented or not. What he DID do is equally unprecedented and much more damaging to the nation.
So his signaling, if that is what it is - rather than the product of poor reasoning, medication, or a mental breakdown, or a statist bent revealed - is just more evidence that he is a weak, self-absorbed man. Things have come too easily for him in life, whether he believes they have or not. He cracks in the face of adversity.
What he did is as if a General in the Civil War - when it was easier to become a General - had a chance to win a major battle, like Gettysburg.
Perhaps turning the tide of the war. Instead he rode over to the other side. Then he said that he wouldn’t pronounce on the merits of slavery, but it had
been made the law of the land for a while, and the country would just have to go back to deciding the issue at the ballot box, not on the battlefield. And the opportunity to win that battle was lost. That is not the role a
General plays. And if he cannot play the proper role, then he should resign. Since no one in a position to do so will have the guts to relieve him.
If this decision is signaling, anyone who knows what is behind it - be it Bork, Rush, whomever- is likewise putting themselves ahead of the country.