Follow POL on Twitter Solicitor General Donald Verrilli had a tough round of questioning when he argued for the government defending PPACA in the healthcare litigation, and liberals were infuriated that the case turned out not to be the slam-dunk the Obama administration said it was, and made Verrilli a scapegoat for the administration's indefensible litigation position. Adam Serwer at the left-wing Mother Jones called his argument "one of the most spectacular flameouts in the history of the court." Liberal law professor Barry Friedman told the New York Times that Verrilli's performance was "disappointing." Liberal Jeffrey Toobin called it a train wreck on CNN and was otherwise harsh in a Politico story.
In contrast, conservatives were sympathetic to Verrilli. Miguel Estrada in the same NY Times story said that the criticism of Verrilli was "uninformed and unjustified." I defended Verrilli on Twitter.
Somehow, however, when the ABA Journal does a profile of Donald Verrilli, here's how they characterized the kerfuffle over the March oral argument:
It's customary for the solicitor general to show up on opinion days, and Verrilli appeared perfectly upbeat despite all the attention in March to what some perceived as his subpar performance arguing the Affordable Care Act cases. (Some of the criticism was ideologically motivated by critics of the health care law.)
What media bias?
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