joining me now is jeffrey rosen, law professor at george washington university and legal editor of "thenew republic" and ian millhiser. he was inside the courtroom today. thank you for joining me. >> thank you. >> jeff, let me start with you. jeff rosen. the chief justice said the law's individual mandate was constitutional. he wrote quote, the law's requirement that individuals pay a penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax. because the constitution permits such a çtax, it is not our rol to forbid it. was that the sentence that saved the health care law? >> that is absolutely the sentence that saved the health care law. lots of people have been focusing on a different provision of the constitution. did congress have the power to regulate interstate commerce broadly enough that would justify the mandate. but in the end, chief justice roberts casting a historic tie-breaking vote with the liberal justices. saying he did not think it could be justified under congress's power, it could be under the clear power to tax. that was the crucial decision

joining me once again is jeffrey rosen professor at george washington university and legal affairs editorextensively about chief justice roberts over the years. including a magazine cover story written just before the confirmationç in 2005. thanks again for joining me. >> it's great to be here. >> now, jeff, you know chief justice roberts far better than most. could you have foreseen him siding with liberal justices in this landmark decision? >> i certainly don't know him well, but i could have seen him siding with them based on the kind of justice he said he wanted to be. i had an interview with him soon after becoming chuf justice. he said he thought it was terrible when they had 5-4 decisions along party lines. and he said his central mission as chief justice was to be to avoid that. he's had mixed success in that. i think he came to washington and found things were more polarized than he expected. you noted the similarities between obama and roberts and trying to achieve some sort of bipartisan consensus and finding it challenging. this was the defining vote of his career and he real

joining me now is jeffrey rosen, law professor at george washington university and legal editor of "theou for joining me. >> thank you. >> jeff, let me start with you.

we turn now to george washington university law professor jeffrey rosen, professor, thank you so muche. >> what does today's decision reveal in general about the direction of the court? >> well in some ways this is a vision of the bipartisan decision that people who don't like the polarization of the court were hoping for. the court did not divide along party lines. you had chief justice rjohn roberts and anthony kennedy joining the three liberals. the court didn't strike down all of the law or uphold all of it but picked and chose. justice kennedy ended with a call to civility. for those that hoped the court is not going to go off the polarization cliff on thursday on health care reform, in many ways this could be a model of what a good path would look like. >> let me ask you about that. should we read anything into this decision in terms of what we should expect to see thursday? are they -- some have conjectured that maybe this is sort of softening the blow for more of a down the line partisan decision on thursday. >> that's possible, of course. but another possibility is this shows

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