When W selected John Roberts to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by Sandra Day O’Conner’s retirement he was well on his way to becoming as reviled a President as any since Watergate, subject to abject derision from large swaths of the electorate. Long past a temporary post-9/11 boost in popularity, or the “political capital” he swore he would use after reelection, increasingly bogged down in two conflicts advertised as quick shock and awe affairs but instead looking more Vietnamesque by the week, and his own worst enemy when it came to bumbling public messaging, 43 was taking hits from all sides. Fox/AM worked overtime to keep the GOP base attuned to the tribalism W now fully depended on to keep his approval numbers out of the dumpster, but that didn’t stop a growing flock of pundits from opining about another US President’s second term heading off the rails.
Yet and still, the Roberts appointment was a big deal, a grand spectacle. Whatever his judicial philosophy, Roberts represented a vibrant young face for the high court, and few begrudged the pride he beamed from the podium as he accepted a President’s confidence in him. More than one jurist and his patron, the ceremony reflected the majesty of two basic US institutions refreshing each other. Whatever baggage the President was lugging around, filling a Supreme Court vacancy received a pass and, so long as the selection was sound, tradition would insulate all parties.
Bush sorely tested this proposition not long after picking Roberts, when Chief Justice William Rehnquist passed, creating another vacancy. After reinserting golden boy Roberts into the top slot, he badly bungled his next move, selecting under-qualified crony Harriet Meiers for the other seat. But even when she was forced to drop out after demonstrating an embarrassing lack of constitutional grounding, subsequent pick Samuel Alito received no penalty or any less deference when he stepped forward to accept his appointment. After all, W’s shortcomings weren’t his fault. Again, the institutions carried the moment.
Fifteen years later, any wholesome synergy between the White House and the Supreme Court is just another memory that makes our current state of affairs ever more desperately tragic. Amy Coney Barrett’s selection ceremony merely reinforced the only thing Trump and his GOP eunuchs are reliable for: debasing everything they come in contact with. Whatever intrinsic luster used to exist when a youthful applicant to the high court is formerly introduced was MIA Saturday.
When most of America is unable to feel much more than disgust toward all manner of Presidential recognition or job appointment, perceiving it as a badge of servile complicity rather than an honor of any sort, that is a very bad place to be; nonetheless, here we are. What was palpable with Gorsuch and unmistakably tangible with Kavanaugh, is now impossible to ignore with Barrett. That enthusiastically embracing Trump’s patronage, gushing about how “overwhelmed and honored” she is to be MAGA’s Supreme Court designee, discredits her to so many eyes speaks to the rot of this Presidency and creates an awful gut feeling we may be too late, even if November goes better than one could hope.
After one nominee sullied by Mitch McConnell’s refusal to even meet with Merritt Garland, an ugly final act following seven years of seditious obstruction of our first black President’s entire agenda, and another pick who demonstrated a nationally televised temperament leagues below what most all expect from a Supreme Court Justice, everything about this round carries the undiluted stench of illegitimacy. Trump and his GOP bunion massagers will doubtless respond with incessant righteousness about their “brilliant” darling being the innocent victim of inside-the-beltway hardball tactics as Democrats turn up the heat during her questioning, which will only accentuate the invalidation.
No, how much of the taint metastasized from the limitless hypocrisy her facilitators required to make her opportunity happen Barrett can shed will depend on her answers. Whether she’s a serious jurist prepared to rise to the occasion despite the bottomless depths her sponsors occupy, or the high court equivalent to Alex Azar, will to a substantial degree be fleshed out by how she handles herself under the pressure her appointment deserves. Saturday’s roll out was less than encouraging.
Nobody expects this White House to ever do more than the least; it will always fail to meet the lowest expectations. Downs Syndrome children are, by all medical assessments, particularly vulnerable to Covid’s worst. One imagines a mother of such a child would be particularly aware of her public surroundings and take all reasonable measures to avoid exposure. That Trump made a point to pack the Rose Garden full of maskless partisans was par for his sorry course, grossly insensitive to his nominee’s situation.
For what it’s worth, Barrett seemed wholly untroubled by the super spreader surroundings, as a firing squad of air droplet shooters faced her square on. Perhaps she was put off, but masked her concern. I doubt it. Either way, it’s a reasonable question for any Senator to ask what her feelings were about such a reckless public health spectacle on display in her honor. Her answer should prove enlightening and provide at least a hint to whether her most basic maternal instincts are impacted by MAGA sensibilities. That would matter… a lot.
As to Barrett’s pro forma praise for RBG and her promise to strive to approach her caseload with similar rigor toward obtaining justice, her past is even less inspiring than her workmanlike Rose Garden recitations about the one who really made her career dream possible. Her benefactor mindlessly seeks to create health care chaos by striking down the ACA with nothing to replace it. Only vacuum-tight judicial recklessness would side with such a plaintiff. There seems little doubt Barrett is willing to do just that, transforming the Roberts court into the Judge Jeanine Pirro court. Guns for felons. Why not, as long as they’re not too violent. Roe v. Wade. History. Declaring absentee ballots void and stealing the 2020 election? I wouldn’t bet your “skyrocketing” 401K against it. In other words, a true MAGA “originalist,” prepared to deliver the goods.
The majority of us have fully awoken to understanding a real-life villain occupies the White House. Perhaps the best description of his hideous oversight was expressed in a Washington Post editorial: Trump doesn’t govern so much as harass the nation. At this point, he and his House and Senate accomplices neither deserve nor really care to receive categorized dispensation depending on the historical solemness of a particular duty being performed. Barrett, by all accounts a very decent person of advanced legal intellect, fully capable of deep dives into constitutional minutiae, embodies whether the entire MAGA menu is toxic, inedible regardless of accoutrement or garnish. After all, the Joker only has henchmen. the Penguin only flunkies. We’ll know more about how much of a disservice such generalization is to Barrett in the coming weeks, whether she deserves better, which will then promote a bit more optimism about how she will rule on the high court. So far, she deserves our doubts. BC