2018.02.12 Trump Rants
RBG showed her senility (or lack of judgement) by doing political rans about Trump. That undermines her impartiality.
~ Aristotle Sabouni
Created: 2019-02-05 |
To show her senility (or lack of judgement) runs deeper than her rulings, she openly made hostile statements about a Presidential candidate and her favoritism for the other. Foolish. Her apologists claimed those criticizing her, were attacking her free speech rights -- but that's not the case, they were attacking her judgement in not exercising her right to remain silent. Most intelligent and thoughtful jurists didn't opine on politics is because when they do, they either need to recuse themselves a lot, or they lose the public trust on rulings on cases where they've shown to have a strong political bias. RBG might have lost that trust long ago, but this doesn't help her standing in any way.
No one that I've heard or read claimed Supremes can't have opinions. They just need the prudence to know how/when to express them (and which ones not to). Blatant one sided propaganda from a eugenicist, may cause some distrust amongst those to the right of Mrs. Marx. And if she can't show the judgement to know when to shut up (or understand how both sides might take her partisan rhetoric), what makes you think she has the judgement to be a justice?
Justices like Scalia had opinions, but most of his political ones were in the context of the law and rulings, and not his personal preference on candidates or political causes. Why? You know he had them. But he was smart enough to know that around half the population would disagree with his political assessment, so in making those comments, all he can do is reduce the confidence in the justice/courts impartiality. Also, he's paid for his legal opinions, and that's his expertise, not as a political pundit. So he was a LOT wiser than RBG.
Now some argue it's good that they have opinions and are free to express them... as long as they show they can still make decisions based on facts and arguments instead of partisan bias. But in Ginsburg's case, she has a history of doing neither: preferring to ignore the constitution, denigrate it (by telling Egypt they'd do better to look at South Africa's Constitution than our own for their model), or saying we should base our laws on precedents set outside our borders (ignore original intent of contract law), and so on. So this isn't a case of RBG having an informed opinion AND being a well reasoned jurist... it's about her having uninformed opinions, expressing them, and frustrating those who also dislike her mental gymnastics many rulings have to go through to come to her decisions to ignore all original intent, and invent what she needs to contort the law into what she wish it had actually said.
So while she lost judicial trust among those paying attention, there was a reason that there was a precedent (most jurists shutting up about politics). So no one is saying she has to be quiet for first amendment reasons (under law), they're saying that wise jurists have always done so. When even the NYT is telling a far lefty to shut up, you know they've cross the line. [1]
🔗 More
| |
🔗 Links
- http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/02/12/ruth-bader-ginsburg-blames-macho-atmosphere-sexism-hillary-clinton-loss
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/11/in-bashing-donald-trump-some-say-ruth-bader-ginsburg-just-crossed-a-very-important-line/
- http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-ginsburg-scalia-trump-clinton-judicial-ethics-0712-jm-20160711-story.html
- http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2596433
Tags: RBG
