Regardless of which side of the aisle you occupy, liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg demands admiration for her brilliant and trailblazing work on the U.S. Supreme Court. But with more than 25 years on the high court and at 85 years old, time appears to have caught up with the iconic liberal justice. Many expect that Pres. Donald J. Trump will have an opportunity to nominate her replacement in the very near future.
Recent reports indicate that Associate Justice Ginsburg’s health has begun to falter, and she was recently hospitalized after a minor fall at her Supreme Court office that caused three fractured ribs.
The Pres. Bill Clinton nominee in 1993 has already overcome a series of health scares. She fractured a pair of ribs in 2012, had heart surgery to correct a blockage in 2014, and is a two-time cancer survivor.
To her credit, the feisty co-founder of the American Civil Liberty Union’s Women’s Right Project has yet to miss of single day on the bench. However, she was unable to attend newly appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s introductory ceremony.
And although she reportedly hired clerks through 2020, it has become increasingly apparent that the rigors of the land’s highest court are more than her body can endure.
During Pres. Obama’s 2015 State of the Union address, Ginsburg fell fast asleep in an embarrassing moment caught on national television. Speculation abounded that her days were coming to a close and that she would retire while liberal Obama was in place to name her successor.
“It’s fair to say that there are many people worried about her health, and some who were concerned that she didn’t retire earlier when President Obama would have had the opportunity to appoint her successor,” Jewish magazine The Forward editor Jane Eisner said.
But Obama’s time has also passed, and Pres. Trump has a published list of conservative justices prepared. Should Pres. Trump name her replacement with the current Republican Senate majority in place, the high court would enjoy an even stronger conservative lean for a generation. However, Ginsburg’s signature achievements on the bench tend to be consistent with conservative values.
Many of her landmark decisions went to building women’s equality as we know it today. Unlike the social justice warriors nominated by Obama, Ginsburg balanced the books on gender equality — rather than slanting them in another direction.
In the 1973 Frontiero v. Richardson case, a female U.S. Air Force soldier was told she would need to prove her husband was dependent to add him to her health care coverage. The opposite was not true of male military personnel and Ginsburg called foul. But the clear-minded Ginsburg saw equality running both ways. When the Craig v. Boren case came before the court in 1976 that allowed women to purchase alcohol at a younger age than men, she doubled down on no double-standards.
Ginsburg’s historically keen sense of equality and fairness stands in stark contrast to the Obama-era justices who have attempted to carve out enhanced same-sex marital rights over Christians, and give minority-status American greater benefits than others. These were reasons why Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the GOP rejected Obama’s final nominee, Merrick Garland.
Americans of all walks of life can applaud Ginsburg without reservation for her tenacious protection of fundamental fairness. But, hopefully, she will step down gracefully at the conclusion on this term.
Watching her sleep through Obama’s speech tends to diminish her accomplishments in the public’s eye. Following the incident, she reportedly said she was not “100 percent sober.” She wisely skipped Pres. Trump first State of the Union address as it had been widely reported she has fallen asleep during oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“It is one of the biggest redistricting cases the high court has heard in years, but the special two-hour argument proved less than compelling to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who at times appeared to be, well, asleep,” Fox News correspondent Megyn Kendall reportedly said. The left-leaning media omitted this in their coverage. The fake news media took a great deal of poetic license with Ginsburg skipping Pres. Trump’s address claiming it was in protest.
Unfortunately, America is bearing witness to a once-brilliant jurist who will only tarnish her pristine legacy by hanging on. With any luck, Pres. Trump will soon nominate his third U.S. Supreme Court justice and Ginsburg can retire with her dignity intact.
~ Liberty Planet
