Ruth Bader Ginsburg: the True Face of the Democrat Party *UPDATED*

Apropos of pretty much nothing except propaganda, the New York Times has a warm n’ fuzzy feature on its favorite Supreme Court justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Surprise — she hates Trump, et al.

Unless they have a book to sell, Supreme Court justices rarely give interviews. Even then, they diligently avoid political topics. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg takes a different approach.

These days, she is making no secret of what she thinks of a certain presidential candidate.

“I can’t imagine what this place would be — I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president,” she said. “For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be — I don’t even want to contemplate that.” It reminded her of something her husband, Martin D. Ginsburg, a prominent tax lawyer who died in 2010, would have said.“‘Now it’s time for us to move to New Zealand,’” Justice Ginsburg said, smiling ruefully.

Why hard-core Leftists always cite peaceful, prosperous, diversity-challenged New Zealand (“England in the 1950s”) as their refuge of choice is beyond me. On second thought, no, it’s not.

Justice Ginsburg, 83, said she would not leave her job “as long as I can do it full steam.” But she assessed what is at stake in the presidential election with the precision of an actuary, saying that Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen G. Breyer are no longer young. “Kennedy is about to turn 80,” she said. “Breyer is going to turn 78.”

For the time being and under the circumstances, she said, the Supreme Court is doing what it can. She praised Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. “He had a hard job,” Justice Ginsburg said. “I think he did it quite well.”

Given his rescue of Obamacare when it was on the ropes, she would say that, wouldn’t she? Read the whole thing for Justice Ginsburg’s thoughts on how this term went in the absence of the late Antonin Scalia. She cheers the abortion decision (which would have been drop-kicked by Scalia), and thinks affirmative action in education is here to stay (nobody tell former Justice O’Connor!):

The big cases the court did decide, on abortion and affirmative action, were triumphs, Justice Ginsburg said. Both turned on Justice Kennedy’s vote. “I think he comes out as the great hero of this term,” Justice Ginsburg said.

Think about that the next time you read (as you will in this article) that the Court is evenly split, 4-4.

UPDATE: A writer at the Washington Post says that Justice Ginsburg crossed a line:

This appears to be a joke, but Ginsburg’s sentiment here is crystal clear: She thinks Donald Trump would be a dangerous president. And in saying it, she goes to a place justices almost never do — and perhaps never have — for some very good reasons.

Ginsburg is known for pushing the bounds of a justice’s public comments and has earned something of a cult following on the left. But some say she just went too far. “I find it baffling actually that she says these things,” said Arthur Hellman, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh. “She must know that she shouldn’t be. However tempted she might be, she shouldn’t be doing it.”

2/2 If there’s a redo of Bush v. Gore, how does Ginsburg not recuse herself, given her Trump comments?

— Jeff Greenfield (@greenfield64) July 11, 2016

And that’s really a key reason justices don’t talk like Ginsburg did. Sometimes they have to hear cases involving politicaissues and people. Having offered their unprompted opinions about such things can lead to questions about prejudice and potential recusal from future cases.

As Greenfield notes, Ginsburg was a part of the court that decided who the president was when the 2000 election was thrown to the Supreme Court, so this isn’t uncharted territory. Had she said something similar about either Bush or Al Gore, would she have been able to hear the case?