presumption in favor of severability as we call it. if a law s got a, b and c and b is found unconstitutional, there s a presumption in the court that you try to save a and c, and that s what the court did in this case. but even if the united states supreme court were to conclude as this court has, how as a practical matter do they make the health care law work without the individual mandate? i know that there have been some discussions in the wake of these earlier court decisions striking it down. there have been some other decisions that have upheld it. there s been discussion about whether the obama administration would voluntarily go back and say, you know what? we re good. we will take the individual mandate out, we can make this health care law work notwithstanding. is that true? is that an idea that s really being considered as far as we know? reporter: not as far as we know. the problem here is there were already questions about how this was going to work. now you take out on
out on it, they ve been exposed, because they ve been had. they had no choice. david axlerod isn t going to come on and say, yeah, we came up with that weird word at a focus group last week. they have to deny it, then they have to go back into the focus group or back into the campaign session and come up with a different word, a different phrase. but the goal is going to be the same; you have to single out romney as being just a little bit different than the rest of the americans out there, and we all know they re talking about his religion. megyn: what do you make of it, moe? they say it was mentioned over a dozen times in different interviews, and then they quote axlerod, and here s the quote. he didn t use the word weird himself, he made the observation that, quote, when he meaning romney makes jobs about unemployed or a waitress pinching him on the butt, it does snap your head back and you say, what s he talking about?
done. you kind of float it out there, and then people get talking about it like the three of us, and it becomes a narrative. sure. long, rich history. but in the case of barack obama what choice does he have? the hardest job in the free world right now is the job of somebody sitting in the obama campaign trying to find some issues, some positive accomplishments of barack obama that they can run on. this is all they have left is attack on the opponent. megyn: but does that work? does that work? i mean, it may be contrary to what president obama promised he would do, but it may also be effective, neil. yes, it works. it s worked for generations. it s worked for many presidential elections. we need an electorate that can see through it, and that s where sometimes i think all hope is lost. megyn: moe, i ll give you a quick final word. well, look, i m looking forward to a debate between barack obama and the eventual republican nominee on the issues. if last night s debate was any
this is intensifying, momentum is greater. megyn: they also don t like the house republicans when you poll them, they don t like the president s handling of it, the gop. my question is, when it comes to the presidential race of 2012, is that comfort to barack obama that they also don t like the house republicans? it is no comfort. he is going to run against the house republicans in the way that harry truman did in 1948. the difference is, as pat was suggesting, there s so little confidence in anybody, it s not ideological, it s just across the board dismissal that we could have a cataclasmic result in the election, throw all the incumbents out, the president, and the republicans, potentially rejected, this is really, as we say, a prerevolutionary moment. and you have this speckter of decline there was a piece yesterday in the journal, dan henninger did which i thought was quite important. this is an empire in decline, how does it feel. well, the american people, they re not used
this is from a principal appeals court, 11% circuit out of atlanta. this has just come down. nonetheless, the other headline is the court has apparently also determined that the rest of the health care law may stand even though what s been described by some as the heart of the law, the crux of the law, the mandate which funds it, is unconstitutional. we re trying to get more. this thing is, we re now told, 300-plus pages. jim angle has got his hands on the decision. i ll try to get my hands on it as well during the course of the next hour and bring you more of what we know, but this is a significant decision and the first half of it is, obviously, a blow to the obama administration. we re going to bring more to you right after the break on this breaking news as we get it right here. also want to bring you this, a brand new poll revealing less than one in five americans now believe that washington can solve this nation s problems. less than one in five believe that. alan colmes straig