That’s Jonathan Adler’s bottom-line assessment of an amicus brief, much ballyhooed by the Left, that several legal academics have submitted in support of the Obama administration in King v. Burwell (the Obamacare exchange-subsidies case being argued tomorrow). As Adler spells out at length, “For all the brief’s talk about the need to consider context and not to take words or phrases in isolation, it ignores key provisions and grossly misinterprets others.” Adler further observes:

As should be clear by now, I was quite underwhelmed by this brief. When I saw the list of signatories, I expected something more compelling. The arguments put forth in the brief are likely convincing to those who are not particularly familiar with the relevant statutory provisions and arguments. For those immersed in the case, on the other hand, the brief’s shortcomings are quite plain.
Perhaps I should not have been surprised. After all, while the brief purports to make a “textualist” argument, the most notable names on the brief are outspoken critics of textualism, not adherents. The various sorts of statutory interpretation advanced by Prof. Eskridge, for example, would undoubtedly offer more support to the government’s position than does a more sober and restrained textualist analysis. The only problem is that the current Court has not adopted Prof. Eskridge’s theories, which is why the brief is styled in textualist trappings.