Video: Sebelius Admits She Never Consulted the Constitution or Legal Precedent on the Abortifacient Mandate

I was tempted to title this post “Hi, I’m Not a Serious Political Party At All: Part 2.” Watch the video, which is from hearings earlier today. Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina asks the HHS secretary a simple question: When you say that you weighed the balance of the Constitution versus the administration’s contraceptive mandate, what did you mean by that?

It turns out that she meant nothing at all by that. “Balance” is just a word that sounded good. She did not look into past Supreme Court cases regarding religious liberty. She did not look at any case law at all. She did not even have any sort of legal memo drafted to back up the mandate. She says she relied on “discussions,” which really means that she was just following Obama’s orders without bothering to determine whether those orders were legal or not. They discussed it with Planned Parenthood, and then they decreed it. The rest: Wingin’ it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9o3Y0C_Exg

More at the Beckett Fund’s web site. The entire administration ought be embarrassed by Kathleen Sebeluis’ comedic, pitiful performance in this hearing. But the fact is, based on how the administration’s lawyer keeps having his head handed to him by the Supreme Court, the administration is probably under the mistaken impression that Sebelius did just fine.