Inglorious RBG

July 10th, 2016

Ruth Bader Ginsburg has lost it. Her recent comments are absolutely beyond the pale–even for her outrageous self. The other justices should hold an intervention, and tell her to be quiet or step down. This isn’t funny anymore. She is making overtly political statements about the presidential election that are absolutely unbecoming of a Justice of the Supreme Court. She is expressly dragging the Court into a political arena they would rather stay out of. Her comments also call into question her ability to adjudicate any case involving the Trump Administration. I say this as someone who largely agrees with her prognostications of what a Trump presidency would mean. She needs to stop. But she wont, because RBG loves the limelight, and reporters are happy to write down the insane things she says.

On Thursday, she told Mark Sherman she didn’t want to think of what a Trump presidency would mean, and used the female pronoun “she” to refer to the next President (obviously referring to Jill Stein, right?).

In an interview Thursday in her court office, the 83-year-old justice and leader of the court’s liberal wing said she presumes Democrat Hillary Clinton will be the next president. Asked what if Republican Donald Trump won instead, she said, “I don’t want to think about that possibility, but if it should be, then everything is up for grabs.”

That includes the future of the high court itself, on which she is the oldest justice. Two justices, Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer, are in their late 70s.

“It’s likely that the next president, whoever she will be, will have a few appointments to make,” Ginsburg said, smiling.

On Friday, she told Adam Liptak that she couldn’t think of what the country would be like with a Trump presidency, and said she would consider retiring to New Zealand.

“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.

Retirement to New Zealand, or anywhere else, would be a good idea for the Inglorious RBG.