The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal’s “Best of the Web” at WSJ written by the editor, James Taranto.

Cause and Effect

  • “Mexican Gray Wolves May Be Saved After All”—headline, Salon, Jan. 17, 2015
  • “Pope Francis Says Canine Can Go to Heaven”—headline, NewTrendDiaries, Dec. 12, 2014

Question and Answer—I

  • “Our Embarrassing, Servile Media: Does the New York Times Just Print Everything the Government Tells It?”—headline, Salon.com, Feb. 18
  • “President Obama said Tuesday that 11.4 million people had selected private health insurance plans or renewed their coverage under the Affordable Care Act in the enrollment period that ended Sunday. ‘It gives you some sense of how hungry people were out there for affordable, accessible health insurance,’ Mr. Obama said in a video released by the White House. . . . ‘The Affordable Care Act is working,’ Mr. Obama said. ‘It’s working a little bit better than we anticipated—certainly, I think, working a lot better than many of the critics talked about early on.’ ”—news story, New York Times, Feb. 18

Answers to Questions Nobody Is Asking
“Why It Matters That Hillary Clinton Is a Woman”—headline, Washington Post website, Feb. 19

Up Is Down
When we saw the headline of Sahil Kapur’s latest at TalkingPointsMemo.com, “Inside the Strategy to Persuade John Roberts to Save Obamacare,” we thought it was a look back at the events of 2012. We were mistaken:

The fate of Obamacare may once again rest with Chief Justice John Roberts.

The law’s defenders in King v. Burwell are preoccupied with courting the chief justice, whom they view as their most “winnable” swing vote, according to sources close to the case. In 2012 he broke with conservatives and saved the Affordable Care Act from the politically-charged legal attack that nearly killed it.

“As a matter of legal doctrine it’s not a difficult case. What’s making it difficult is the politics of the ACA. And the chief justice has already shown that he’s able to rise above politics,” said Yale law professor Abbe Gluck, who filed a brief in support of the ACA subsidies at stake.

So when Prof. Gluck says “rise above politics,” she means “yield to political pressure.”

[Note: The posts above are from the Jan. 20 and Feb. 19 BOTW archives.] For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”