Legitimizing the Supreme Court?

Charles Krauthammer has an excellent analysis of the reasons for Chief Justice John Roberts’ decision on ObamaCare. And I’m not just saying that because I said it earlier. He attributes the ruling to Roberts’ desire to undo that many see as

“ … the judiciary’s arrogation of power [that] has eroded the esteem in which it was once held,"

... and cites Roe v. Wade as a particularly egregious example.   But ... 

“More recently, however, few decisions have occasioned more bitterness and rancor than Bush v. Gore, a 5 to 4 decision split along ideological lines. It was seen by many (principally, of course, on the left) as a political act disguised as jurisprudence and designed to alter the course of the single most consequential political act of a democracy — the election of a president.

Whatever one thinks of the substance of Bush v. Gore, it did affect the reputation of the court. Roberts seems determined that there be no recurrence with Obamacare. Hence his straining in his Obamacare ruling to avoid a similar result — a 5 to 4 decision split along ideological lines that might be perceived as partisan and political.”

The problem with the Roberts decision is – to use a sports analogy - it looks to most people like he threw the game to make it appear that there was no gambling going on. Everyone knew that there were four certain votes on the court for ObamaCare. As the Court is constituted today, there are four votes for anything any Liberal congress or President wants to do. The only real question in cases of ideological division is how the Conservative justices will vote.

Krauthammer:

“Law upheld, Supreme Court’s reputation for neutrality maintained.”

This is probably what Roberts intended, but really, in what precinct of the land does this decision enhance the Supreme Court’s reputation for neutrality?

We know who was questioning the Court’s legitimacy if the ruling went against ObamaCare.  Glenn Reynolds gets it exactly right.  It appears to Krauthammer, to me, and to many on the Right that Roberts decision was a surrender to the demands on the Left.  Is the Court's "Legitimacy" dependent on E.J. Dionne or the rants of Eugene Robinson and Sheila Jackson Lee?  If so, let's appoint them to the Supreme Court and eliminate the middleman. 

Which leads me to the question of when, if ever, did the Court vote for the purpose of retaining its legitimacy in the eyes of the Right?    Will Liberals on the Court ever vote to retain their legitimacy in the eyes of, say, Rush Limbaugh?

Is the Left the arbiter of the Court's legitimacy?  I rather doubt it.  And I doubt that Roberts' decision to throw the game did anything to make anyone think better of the Court.