Oh, look! A liberal is talking about whether something can be "squared with the Constitution."

Normally, law folk of the liberal persuasion mock those who think constitutional interpretation can be done like that. But here's Ian Millhiser at Think Progress writing under the headline "The Eleventh Circuit’s Affordable Care Act Decision Cannot Be Squared With The Constitution."

Millhiser quotes the majority's characterization of its task:

In answering whether the federal government may exercise this asserted power to issue a mandate for Americans to purchase health insurance from private companies, we next examine a number of issues: (1) the unprecedented nature of the individual mandate; (2) whether Congress’s exercise of its commerce authority affords sufficient and meaningful limiting principles; and (3) the far-reaching implications for our federalist structure.

Rather than acknowledging the sophistication of the judges' approach to legal analysis, Millhiser says:

This is one way to evaluate whether a law is constitutional, but a better way is to ask whether the law can be squared with text of the Constitution. 

He proceeds to quote the text of the Commerce Clause. (Of course, he doesn't stop there, but goes on to claim that there's virtually no limit to what Congress can do in the name of regulating commerce as long as "it does not violate another textual provision of the Constitution." Note the use of the word "textual," as if he would limit those other constraints to what is written in particular text. The obvious hypo: Could Congress ban abortion using its commerce power? Millhiser? Millhiser? Millhiser? Millhiser?)