September 20, 2020

"[Sandra Day] O’Connor... retired at 75 to spend more time with her husband, John. He was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease..."

"... and O’Connor wanted to make his last years as full of companionship and good times as possible. But there wasn’t any time. John O’Connor deteriorated much faster than his wife had expected. 'John was in such bad shape she couldn’t keep him at home,' [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg told me. It was a lesson, maybe, in how even the noblest motives aren’t always enough reason to throw in the towel. Ginsburg kept fighting and working... When she was old and frequently sick she still kept on keeping on. Her worries about problems with naming a successor were real. But there was also just the way she lived her life...."

From "Ruth Bader Ginsburg Knew What to Do With Her Time/But she also knew something about the unreliability of happy endings" by Gail Collins (NYT).

"Noble" is the right word for what Justice O'Connor did, and seeing what happened, it's hard not to think she made the wrong choice, that — to use Collins's crude expression — she didn't have "enough reason to throw in the towel." But a choice like that is made in its time, without knowledge of the future. You can't look at what happened next when you calculate whether there was "enough reason."

And even when you look at the decision based on the knowledge that the decisionmaker had at the time, you can't know whether there was reason enough without knowing what only Justice O'Connor knew, the depth and the meaning of her love for her husband. To look from a distance and say she misjudged... there's no nobility in that.

Ginsburg "kept fighting" — and "throw in the towel" comes from boxing, where an actual towel was thrown down to signal defeat. But her beloved husband was already gone, and it was her own illness. There was no parallel way that O'Connor could have fought on. She had to choose whether to give her time to her husband. Ginsburg could no longer give time to her husband.

It's not that one woman "knew what to do with her time" — to use the words in the headline — and the other did not. Neither faced the choice that the other faced, and neither should be regarded as more of a fighter or more noble. 

76 comments:

Narayanan said...

Is this indicate RBG level of analogy reasoning inanity

Breezy said...

RBG napped a lot in public, including in court itself. Should that have given her pause wrt her keep on keeping on?

Jersey Fled said...

We take it as an article of faith that Ginsburg kept "working" and "fighting" those last few years, but do we really have much proof that she did? I don't know. I saw many who "retired in place" in my Corporate days. My last two years I might even say that of myself. It's easier to do as you go higher in an organization when most of the day to day work gets done by subordinates.

Was Ginsburg working and fighting, or just holding her place hoping to be replaced by a Democrat president?

holdfast said...

It’s nice how nobody even pretends that she was any sort of an impartial judge. Yes, before she was on the bench she was absolutely an advocate for women’s rights and ability to pick any career they wanted. But nobody is even willing to maintain the fiction that she hung any of that up when she became a judge.

If the Democrats hadn’t turned the Supreme Court into their main method for legislating things they could never get through Congress, we wouldn’t be in this mess now.

rehajm said...

I'm good with how RGB lived. SC Justice is a an appointment bigger than oneself, a devotion. Sacrifice. Yes you can tap out and you don't have to look hard to find examples of where they lingered too long, but the founders and makers have it right, I believe.

What wrecks it is when we decide to ignore the rules...

Unknown said...

> kept on fighting

What was she fighting for?

Howard said...

Pontification experts have 20/20 hindsight, film at eleven.

Kevin said...

It must be exhausting being a woman, being constantly told by progressives what to do with your time.

Remember Hillary’s, “I didn’t stay at home baking cookies?” Every profile, every article, every speech by a woman is overtly or subtly about how other women should live differently — achieving not just for themselves but as an obligation to all women.

And not just today, but women of the future! My God, how will the yet-to-be-born judge you when they look back?

Men do not get that treatment. Elon Musk and his colleagues do not write books and go on TV telling men they need to “build their own rockets to Mars”. There will never be a Lean In for men.

But women do. It’s the answer to why rich women in NYC are rioting, looting, and burning things in the name of others.

They’ve been “educated” to live as an instrument of someone else’s greater good.

gspencer said...

"When she [the Buzz] was old and frequently sick she still kept on keeping on."

Meaning, serving her selfish, leftist/Democrat causes, refusing to let the people have a justice who was at full strength.

clint said...

Naming a successor?

Kevin said...

O’Connor wanted to make his last years as full of companionship and good times as possible.

And that’s exactly what she did.

Nevertheless, the NYT persisted.

tim maguire said...

I can’t believe THAT’S the lesson Ginsberg drew from O’Connor’s experience—screw your family, keep working. They’ll die sooner or later anyway.

The more they talk about her, the worse she looks.

mockturtle said...

Neither faced the choice that the other faced, and neither should be regarded as more of a fighter or more noble.

Well put.

Mal said...

Justice O'Connor and Justice Ginsberg may not have faced the same situation, but Ginsberg's failure to leave and O'Connor's graceful exit illustrate a fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans.

And I think you have a tag for that difference: Hillary won't go away.

So much of the Democratic party's problems stem from super old farts who cling onto power for far too long, and hurt the next generation of leaders.

Take Nancy Peloci - 80 years ago, and grasping onto power with dear life. In contrast, the Republicans' last house speaker, Paul Ryan, is just 50.

Or say, Anthony Kennedy, who gracefully exited the Supreme Court last year at 83, even though by all accounts he was in pretty decent shape for a man of such years.

How about when Bush (H.W.) lost? He left the national stage without ever commenting on national affairs to any significant level, even though there must have been many things he disagreed with strongly. Will Obama ever shut up?

And of course there is 2016. The Republican field was wide open, with many viable candidates. But on the Democrat side, Hillary (age 72) smothered the competition, leaving an entire generation of candidates out to dry.

Republicans are young and vigorous - standard bearers of the future. Trump's lists of Supreme Court potentials has two gorgeous young women - Britt Grant (42) and Allison Rushing (38). Yes, thirty-eight.

Biden would be the oldest person ever elected if he wins the Presidency. He was born during World War II.

Let that sink in.

Fernandinande said...

neither should be regarded as more of a fighter or more noble

How about: Neither should be regarded as noble.

Because they both used their own ignorant personal opinions and capricious preferences to subvert the Constitution they falsely swore to uphold, and did their small parts in perverting the rule of law and making the US a slightly worse country than it might have been without their meddling.

Bruce Hayden said...

“ Her worries about problems with naming a successor were real.”

How would she have named a successor (assuming that she was talking about her seat on SCOTUS)?

That is just so wrong.

iowan2 said...

Ginsberg is the perfect leftist example of who they are and how they think.

Ginsberg knew she had the enlightened wisdom to govern the stupid populace. Commoners lack the wisdom to govern themselves. Commoners, for their own good, need the God-like Oracles, to protect them from themselves. The Constitution is flawed and self anointed protectors of sound governance rests with the truly divine oracles like Ginsberg.

Versus the plain reality of the people governing themselves, and 95% of that governance should take place at the local/regional,state level.

Fact on point. Michigan Judges overruling the legislature about the time allowed to count absentee ballots. Judges that share a mindset of Ginsberg. "Fuck the people, I know what is best for them, and only I have been enlightened from on high to decide such weighty items of governance."

DrSquid said...

RBG’s motivation in clinging to her seat on the court has been clear years, she even it expressed it openly through her comment to her granddaughter about hoping to have her replacement chosen by the next president. She had had cancer since well before Trump was elected, she should have bailed out 5 years ago had, and in the end she couldn’t make it just the few more weeks remaining to see if her struggle had paid off. She was dealt some bad cards, but she couldn’t have played them more poorly.

David Begley said...

Can we now all agree that SCOTUS Justices need an age limit? 75?

And how arrogant! RBG didn’t own that seat and she has no input into her successor.

Eleanor said...

Gail Collins, perhaps, has never had the strong sense of love and committment O'Connor had for her spouse. Collins can be forgiven, but also pitied, for not understanding what that means in one's life. If only Jill Biden was as loving and giving as Sandra Day O'Connor, then maybe Joe Biden could spend the rest of his time off the public stage and not the subject of daily ridicule. I just hope Joe's senility has progressed so far he's unaware of what's being done to him. Not by the public, but by his wife.

stevew said...

By deciding to remain active on the court to the very end Ginsberg did what she has always done: gave her all to her chosen profession and the job she understood to be important and valuable. I suppose she may have thought about the "unreliability of happy endings" but, if so, only fleetingly. Collins' argument and speculation of Ginsberg's motivations is insulting; a polite version of the Left's complaint that Ginsberg decided to remain rather than retire and have Obama fill the vacancy. I can't read the entire article so maybe that impression from the excerpts is incorrect.

rehajm said...

Was Ginsburg working and fighting, or just holding her place hoping to be replaced by a Democrat president?

Pretty certain Ginsburg saw equivalence in that 'or'...

Tina Trent said...

Agree. But what isn't noble is the thought that there are likely many powerful people in the media and in Congress and on the court and of course Ginsberg herself who knew she was far sicker than was being admitted, and this was possibly kept from the public.

We did have the right to know. It is our court, not hers. It is our justice system, not the media's. It will be a virulent disgrace if there was any conspiracy to conceal her actual condition, no different from the probable efforts to conceal Biden's mental state. She made the choice to stay on the court: she was a public servant, and the public has the right to know in the case of a position that is a powerful lifetime sinecure. So who knew? When this all washes out there should be a Congressional investigation. Enough hero worship. She was an employee. Our employee.

David Begley said...

The Dems will riot during the confirmation hearings. The whole Nation will see their insanity.

Someone here said the hearings should be closed to the public. Covid, doncha know.

bleh said...

Ginsburg was feeble and badly declining in recent years. Even during Obama’s second term she was out of it. I’m sorry but it’s true. She had no business being on the Court and Democrats should be mad that she didn’t retire in, say, 2015.

Laslo Spatula said...

Ginsburg tried to run out the clock on God.

It doesn't work that way.

I am Laslo.

DEEBEE said...

Long time ago, used to read “journal of Irreproducible Results” — I think — sortof a precursor to a lot of the current satiric genre. In there was a proposal for research, perhaps misremembering, was “in any large enough sub-group of humans the asshole quotient is constant”. A motto so to say that has guided my analytic framework about humans.

I was reminded of this reading Gail’s excerpts. I felt that about the libs. But then the counter, that one can find such ass-holes on the other side too, it’s just that you tend to read, and perhaps quote more of the liberal media.

RMc said...

neither should be regarded as more of a fighter or more noble.

Don't be silly. Liberals are noble fighters; conservatives shouldn't even be allowed out in public.

matism said...

I thank God that he now has moved RBG to a warmer climate with her Messiahs - Lenin and Stalin!

StoughtonSconnie said...

Am I the only person who started reading the excerpt and thought it was a reference to Biden, and not going to involve Ginsberg? Yesterday, a Saturday less that seven weeks from the election and a day after a consequential news event, and Biden called it a day at 8:30am (central time).

J. Farmer said...

@Mal:

So much of the Democratic party's problems stem from super old farts who cling onto power for far too long, and hurt the next generation of leaders.

Trump is 74, and Mitch McConnell is 78. Chuck Grassley, the president pro tempore, is 87. Shelby, Inhofe, Roberts, and Alexander are all in their 80's. The oldest person to leave office as president was Reagan, just shy of his 78th birthday.

Temujin said...

O'Connor did not just choose time to give to her husband. She chose time to give to each other, and herself. Time, such as she thought she'd have, to spend with the man she loved. A person she shared her life with. And that, despite what a dogmatic liberal may think, is more important than your job. Even a job as Supreme Court Justice. I can pretty much guarantee all of you, that when you are on that bed (if you get to end this way) and you are in your last thoughts, you won't be wishing you had another day at work.

I have long said that liberals are the most miserable people in the world. Hand-wringers, all. The header of the article says it all for me: From "Ruth Bader Ginsburg Knew What to Do With Her Time/But she also knew something about the unreliability of happy endings" by Gail Collins (NYT).

The unreliability of happy endings. Spoken like a liberal. What a view of life.

Our life is what it is. You don't know what Sandra Day O'Connor thinks about her life and the move she made to be with her husband. Would she have liked to be on the court after the fact? Possibly. Yet it was the still the right thing to do for her life. But...we plan, God laughs. You don't get to choose how the play goes. Just understand that it's the only play in town and live it positively, moving forward, best as you can, and take the changes as the come. And they will surely come.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Naming a successor!?!?!?!!!! That is so wrong.

It is filling a VACANCY. Ginsberg didn't own that seat on the bench. It isn't hers to pass down. It is a JOB.

There is no succession. It is a JOB vacancy and the next person who is taking that job will not be carrying on any type of legacy. Other than...we hope....adhering to the Constitution, which contains the description of the job duties.

Get over yourself Ruthie. oops...to late

Bay Area Guy said...

"..,to use Collins's crude expression — she didn't have "enough reason to throw in the towel."

Strange formulation by Collins. I know others have made this point, but allow me to re-emphasize: RBG could have retired in 2014 (at age 81). Prez Obama and his Dem Senate could have then nominated and confirmed a liberal replacement.

RBG's decision to "gut it out" for another 6 years, well, created the current predicament for Dema. Just sayin'.

Bruce Hayden said...

“And I think you have a tag for that difference: Hillary won't go away.

“So much of the Democratic party's problems stem from super old farts who cling onto power for far too long, and hurt the next generation of leaders.”

Funny thing is that everyone thinks they were Baby Boomers. They were not. The Baby Boomers never really had a President, and probably never will. Obama is probably the closest. The cohort that has been most highly represented at the highest levels of government have been from the decade right ahead of the Boomers, and esp in those born between 1945 and 1948. Those born just before the Baby Boom include the Clintons, GW Bush, AlGore, Romney, Trump, etc. Chuck Schumer does qualify, with a birthday between Ann’s and mine (he turns 70 right after the election where he has a chance to become Senate Majority Leader). My theory about this over representation of those right before the Baby Boom is that their careers were always a half step ahead of ours (Boomers), and essentially rode the boom to power.

And no, I don’t think of myself, rapidly approaching 70, as a “super old fart”. Those are the guys over 80. At least in our neighborhood, my partner in her early 60s is one of the youngest. Oldest, by a couple weeks, had a room at the Hanoi Hilton when McCain did. Two years younger. Dumped his bike on the nearby pass a couple weeks ago, and was lifted by chopper to Missoula 100 miles away. He was expected to be there for 6 weeks. He was home in under two. The good thing was that he missed the HOA meeting where he got voted off the board. You really don’t want a retired Navy captain on your HOA Board. The general consensus was that his wife should have sold his Harley while he was in the hospital. The next oldest, a month younger, proudly told me about giving up riding motorcycles at 60. I was never allowed to have one, so he, at least, is ahead of me.

Krumhorn said...

Gail Collins is a rancid cow.

It’s a lifetime appointment, just like the Pope or tenured professor. If the appointee wishes to die on the bench, St Peter’s Throne, or at the podium, that’s the choice that individual gets to make. I disagreed with Ginsburg’s opinions, but she was honorable and lived an excellent life. It said the world about her that she and Scalia were close friends. The Wise Latina and that other broad are not in her league by lightyears.

- Krumhorn

Unknown said...

Ginsberg

is a a legal

Gollum

Michael K said...

William O Douglas did the same thing Ginsberg did. Held on to power and let clerks write his opinions long past the senility stage. Thurgood Marshall did the same thing. When power is your God, there is no reason ever to surrender it. In competence is nothing compared to power.

cacimbo said...

Leftists wrote endless articles urging RBG to retire while Obama was President.Now their worst nightmare has arrived as her death gives Trump a vacancy to fill.All their rage at RBG for failing to retire at a more opportune time is redirected at Trump and his supporters for daring to exist.Hard to imagine leftist rage increasing, yet it is.I expect to see more random street attacks on perceived Trumpers by leftists unable to contain their rage.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Mediocre talents like Gail Collins are the biggest beneficiaries of White Privilege.

Marshall Rose said...

Ginsberg made a bad bet, she wanted Hillary to nominate her replacement, thats why she stayed on past Obama. She arrogantly thought it was her seat, and that it was her right to name a successor.

How she must have hated Trump, who denied her her chosen legacy.

Kate said...

Laslo in 2 succinct phrases. I would've blathered on for a paragraph, same sentiment.

wendybar said...

RBG was selfish. She should have retired when Obama was in office, but she chose to wait for the first woman president. Too bad for her it will NEVER be Hillary Clinton, or at this point, probably any democrat in the next few elections with the way they act.

annteeva said...

After O’Connor gave up her career to be with her husband, he decided to be with someone else.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/justice-oconnors-husband-finds-new-love/

William said...

Marie Antoinette, it is said, led a frivolous and self indulgent life. It is also said of her that nothing in her life became her so much as the leaving of it. RBG is just the opposite. She led a focused and serious life, but nothing so diminished it as her leaving of it.....It's enterprising of Gail Collins to find something positive to say about RBG in her late old age and her decision to stay on the Court after being diagnosed with cancer. Still, RBG's decision was not the right one and probably had more to do with denial and vainglory than a wish to continue fighting for a righteous cause......I don't know how this will ultimately turn out. Perhaps the Democrats will be able to use her death to motivate voter turn out. Or perhaps, just the opposite and the Republicans rally behind Trump's choice to fill her seat. If the Republicans fill her seat and win the election, I guarantee that RBG's reputation will suffer a sharp decline. She will join Wilson and Jackson in the dust bin of discarded Democrat heroes. If, however, the Dems win the election, there will be movement to replace the statue in the Jefferson Memorial and install hers in its place.

gspencer said...

"It said the world about her that she and Scalia were close friends"

Not really. Close friends is an exaggeration. That they were friendly at all was largely because of Scalia's Christian initiative. The Buzz was happy enough to take. As to giving back, not so much. And when the Buzz's husband died (2010), Scalia wearied from giving but getting little reciprocation, extended himself less and less.

The Buzz was about herself and her lefty-ism. Nothing else. Her dissents are rarely cited. In fact she's the only one who cited her own prior dissents.

JAORE said...

"...Ginsburg kept fighting and working... When she was old and frequently sick she still kept on keeping on."

Perhaps her mind was as sharp as ever. Though I could not detect that in her more recent interviews. I'll admit she was MUCH sharper than Biden (Low bar alert). But I know she was getting chemo at an advanced age. I also observed this shrunken, wobbly old woman slowly disappearing into her robes and wondered if clerks were the entire show.

But, ahhh the myth of Ginsburg.
Still a brilliant legal mind. Still fully participating from the bench - between naps. And those workouts! Why Olympic Team coaches could learn a thing or two!

Jupiter said...

If you don't need the money, the only good reason to keep working is that you enjoy your work.

Birkel said...

I cannot understand keeping a job and seeing those important to me less, therefore.
But I am grateful Ginsburg held on and Trump can replace her.

Great job, Ginsburg.
You helped kill 40 million babies.
You got what you wanted.

I hope you are judged a terrible human in time.
You certainly earned it.

Tina Trent said...

Annteeva: that was a disgusting slap in their face to O'Connor by some nasty reporter. Her husband was in the late stages of dementia and could not be cared for at home. Many dementia patients lose their sexual inhibitions. It's tragic. O'Connor handled the "news" reports at the time with profound dignity, but it must have been terrible for her. You should hope it never happens to you.

tim in vermont said...

Character is destiny, as they say.

Sebastian said...

"Ginsburg kept fighting"

As if we need further illustration of the utter corruption of American "law."

Sydney said...

Ginsburg "kept fighting" — and "throw in the towel" comes from boxing, where an actual towel was thrown down to signal defeat. But her beloved husband was already gone, and it was her own illness.

Yeh, I have trouble seeing the nobility in Ginsburg's decision to keep working past her abilities. As others have noted, she was often seen napping during court sessions in her later years. But, and I hate to say this since I am a woman, feminists often mistake selfish choices for heroism.
I am put in mind of a woman physician who went to Antarctica to do research in the 1990's. I understand that being chosen for that kind of work is an honor because you have to meet rigorous standards. When you apply, you know that you are going to be isolated in the world's most remote place for months. This woman was feated as a hero when she came back early to get treated for breast cancer. But at every juncture in her story, when she could have chosen to act heroically, she chose instead to act selfishly. She found a breast lump while she was in Antarctica. Instead of waiting for her return home to have it investigated, she decided to biopsy it there in Antartica. Instead of performing the procedure on herself, she had a welder and a carpenter do it. When the biopsy confirmed cancer, instead of waiting for the weather to break so she could safely be transported home for treatment, she asked other people to risk their lives to fly her out of Antarctica and home in terrible weather conditions. And yet, when she got home, she was lauded as a hero and had speaking tours and a book published and interviews. I remember being ashamed of my sex when it was all going on. I know I sound harsh and judgemental about her decisions, and I may have lacked the courage to do otherwise myself, but how many people remember this hero now?

Breezy said...

I imagine she must’ve felt quite sturdy and resilient given all of the ailments and accidents she weathered... I can see how she may have felt immortal to some degree. Good for her genes to have survived so long.

Yancey Ward said...

"a choice like that is made in its time, without knowledge of the future. You can't look at what happened next when you calculate whether there was "enough reason."

Something no arm-chair quarterback ever understood.

Yancey Ward said...

"We take it as an article of faith that Ginsburg kept "working" and "fighting" those last few years, but do we really have much proof that she did?

She was often "seen" in public according to news reports, but on only a few occasions was she actually seen functioning in public the last 4 years, at least by me. Have any of you actually read any transcripts of court sessions? I haven't- did she ask actual questions from the bench in the last 4 years?

Tomcc said...

I'm wondering why she didn't retire during the Obama administration. Did she feel that her perspectives and insights were so unique and unattainable that no one, even someone chosen by a liberal Democrat, could provide an appropriate replacement?

Zach said...

Rehnquist also served on the court right up to the point of his death by cancer, so I don't think it's a partisan thing.

It is a selfish thing, however. Rehnquist missed dozens of oral arguments. Ginsburg has been falling asleep in the middle of proceedings for years.

If you were on trial and your judge routinely missed sessions or fell asleep during the middle of the proceedings, would you think you had received a fair trial? Or would you argue that putting a shaky "X" on work done by others does not fully discharge his responsibility to know the full facts of the case and the relevant law and make a fair decision based on the totality?

Tomcc said...

SNL's Kate McKinnon honors Ginsburg as 'real-life superhero'
We are living in a theater of the absurd

SensibleCitizen said...

RBG was an ideologue that didn't need to hear a case. She just needed to know which decision would be more to the left, and that's how she voted. She wasn't fearless or independent or even necessarily a great legal mind. She was a leftist ideologue. Period.

She has no right to, on her death bed, request that her replacement be nominated by the next President. She could have retired, in her 80's, while Obama held the Presidency, and the Dems held the Senate. But she didn't. In the end, she was selfish and short sighted and she will have created the tipping point that is the end of Roe v Wade.

Quite a legacy for an ideologue.

Stephen said...

Comparing the lives of Justices O'Connor and Ginsburg has a tinge of irony when one considers the Biblical origin of the latter's given name, Ruth, "compassionate friend."

When both Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi became widowed in Moab, Naomi, before returning to her native Judah where she had the best hope of surviving, encouraged Ruth to go back to her family in Moab; Ruth was young enough to find another husband and bear children.

In an oft-quoted speech from the Bible Ruth said, "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried."

Justice Sandra left the Court to be with her husband, and Justice Ruth tried to make sure that fewer women would be placed in the position of her Biblical namesake.

Nichevo said...


Bay Area Guy said...
"..,to use Collins's crude expression — she didn't have "enough reason to throw in the towel."

Strange formulation by Collins. I know others have made this point, but allow me to re-emphasize: RBG could have retired in 2014 (at age 81). Prez Obama and his Dem Senate could have then nominated and confirmed a liberal replacement.

RBG's decision to "gut it out" for another 6 years, well, created the current predicament for Dema. Just sayin'.

9/20/20, 8:19 AM


She wanted to "make history,' *more* "history, to be another "first." She wanted to be the first Jewish woman justice to be replaced by the first anti-Semitic woman President by, who knows, Anita Hill or Monica Lewinsky or some other token selected for identity and not quality or character.

Or maybe RBG had a protege in mind to replace her, like Kennedy, and BHO turned her down, unlike Trump.

All is vanity, saith the Preacher, and Ginsberg has now paid the price of her vanity - of her folly, her enormous arrogance. Bad for her, good for America. May her memory be for a blessing. But such as it is I think she may be soon forgot.

On the rational/selfish level, I suppose that after her husband's death, she had no one, and no reason to quit and creep off into the corner of a nursing home, forgotten by all, abandoned as old news, no one hanging on every word of her personal trainer.

It was the best thing for the Court that she leave, and the nation, but not for her-no upside for her at all. Wouldn't have thrown Atropos off by a millimeter.

Nichevo said...

J. Farmer said...
@Mal:

So much of the Democratic party's problems stem from super old farts who cling onto power for far too long, and hurt the next generation of leaders.

Trump is 74, and Mitch McConnell is 78. Chuck Grassley, the president pro tempore, is 87. Shelby, Inhofe, Roberts, and Alexander are all in their 80's. The oldest person to leave office as president was Reagan, just shy of his 78th birthday.

9/20/20, 7:56 AM


And you, always nitpicking. Do you eat those nits, or do you just like to squeeze them because you can? Do you really think the senescence problem is the same for both parties? Obama is widely regarded as having led or presided over the annihilation of the D farm team. In 2016 the Rs had a very wise slate of middle-aged, reasonably qualified candidates, and still do. The D's presented as a gerontocracy then and still do - the attempts at youth in the 2020 D clown car were chiefly notable for callowness and lack of stature.

If anything, Clinton Bush and Obama were all too young and undistinguished, and it showed.

Jeff Brokaw said...

Your take is 100% the right one. The comparison is stupid and petty for all the reasons you mention, and ignores the TWELVE YEARS of age difference!

J. Farmer said...

@Bruce Hayden:

The cohort that has been most highly represented at the highest levels of government have been from the decade right ahead of the Boomers, and esp in those born between 1945 and 1948.

The baby boom is nearly always defined as beginning in 1946 and ending in the early 1960's. What years are you using to define "baby boomers"? Clinton, W., and Trump are all considered baby boomers. Obama was born at the very tail end of the range and is usually technically considered a baby boomer even though he had no real exposure to the social and political movements of the 1960's. He was still 18 in 1980.

Joe Smith said...

Ginsburg fucked up bigly when she didn't let Obama replace her.

She was incredibly selfish to hang on long after she was physically debilitated.

You pays your money and takes your choice...

Bruce Hayden said...

“ The baby boom is nearly always defined as beginning in 1946 and ending in the early 1960's. What years are you using to define "baby boomers"? Clinton, W., and Trump are all considered baby boomers. Obama was born at the very tail end of the range and is usually technically considered a baby boomer even though he had no real exposure to the social and political movements of the 1960's. He was still 18 in 1980.”

Not really. There was a blip in the birth rate right after the war, pretty much around the world. But by 1947 or so, that was over. Then, in about 1948, 1949, or so, our government, along with the MSM of that time, started a concerted effort to get the women who had taken over men’s jobs during the war, to give up those jobs, to the returning men. Demographically, the Baby Boom wasn’t caused by a higher birth rate, per woman having children, but rather, a higher marriage, and thus mother, rate. The women having kids weren’t having more of them. The slope of that curve had been on a fairly steady decline since Revolutionary War times. That didn’t change. What changed was that all of the maiden aunts and uncles of the previous generation, got married and had kids in the Greatest Generation. The result, was the Pig in a Python. That really started in 1949 or so, and lasted to about 1965. Interestingly, the real Baby Boom was mostly only experienced by the non-British Anglosphere - the US, Canada, Australia, and NZ, partly, probably, because their countries were not physically destroyed by the war. Those born in 1945-1948 were not part of the Pig in the Python bulge, but arguably, benefited throughout life by being right before it. It was easier to get tenure with the real Boomers coming up behind them, forcing the academic ranks to swell. It was easier to get elected to higher office with the Boomers eligible to vote, but not yet to win higher office. Etc.

Birkel said...

Smug types.

Both definitions of the word.

bagoh20 said...

Is there a leftist leader in power anywhere in the world who stepped down voluntarily? The only one I know of was Gorbachev, but he had no choice as his state dissolved under him.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Dennis Miller podcast w/VDH is outstanding. Dennis and Victor are blessings.

Kai Akker said...

From her husband's obituary in 2009, an unexpected angle:

His degenerative condition was diagnosed nearly two decades ago but worsened considerably by the early 2000s, reportedly prompting his wife's retirement from her lifetime appointment in 2006.

Sandra Day O'Connor spoke about the demands of caring for someone with Alzheimer's, including unexpected, sometimes bittersweet, developments as her husband began to lose his ability to recognize his family. He formed romantic attachments with other patients at an assisted-care center in Arizona, and this transformed him, the former justice said, from someone who had been depressed and introverted into a much happier person.

She told the New York Times: "He was in a cottage, and there was a woman who kind of attached herself to him. It was nice for him to have someone there who was sometimes holding his hand and to keep him company. And then he was moved to a different cottage, because his condition deteriorated. And in the new cottage, there's another woman who has been very sweet to him. And I'm totally glad."

hstad said...


Blogger Nichevo said..."...RBG's decision to "gut it out" for another 6 years, well, created the current predicament for Dema. Just sayin'..." 9/20/20, 8:19 AM


You could be right in your view? But I'm one who believes they thought Hillary was going to win bigly and RBG wanted her to pick a replacement. That's what happens when you start believing your own tribe's propoganda.

RBG was second rate, except that she was a "Feminist" (one trick pony) that's why they lionized her. Hell she wasn't even the first woman on SCOTUS. At least Sandra Day O'Conner was successful in several life endeavors. But she happened to have been Republican and never got the fawning accolades from the MSM like RBG.

Krumhorn said...

Not really. Close friends is an exaggeration. That they were friendly at all was largely because of Scalia's Christian initiative. The Buzz was happy enough to take. As to giving back, not so much. And when the Buzz's husband died (2010), Scalia wearied from giving but getting little reciprocation, extended himself less and less.

That certainly doesn't square with what Scalia's sons say about it. Nor does it conform to things each of Scalia and Ginsburg have said about it. A former clerk of his reports that he visited Scalia just before his death and Scalia pointed to 2 dozen roses on the table a that he had planned to give Ginsburg and asked him to deliver them for him.

Maybe it was an elaborate piece of stagecraft put on for our benefit by political pros, or maybe it was real. I prefer the later since I doubt that either of them had the time or energy for play-acting.

- Krumhorn

The Godfather said...

Ginsburg is Exhibit 1 in support of my proposal that we amend the Constitution to eliminate lifetime appointments. Her lingering tenure on the Court did the country no good -- and that would be true even if she really were a uniquely excellent justice. She could have been replaced, with no harm to the country or her causes, before 2017. But worse, life tenure enables a perverse, fanatical mindset, in which service to your ideology or causes becomes all-important (so the Gail Collins article teaches us). Also, to be frank, old people (and I am old), even if they retain most of their marbles, lose flexibility, and their ability to accept new ideas. So let's amend the Constitution to require all new justices to retire at age 75 -- OK, if you argue that the job doesn't involve any heavy lifting, I'd compromise at age 80, but not a day over.

TJM said...

Ginsberg is enjoying cocktails with Satan

Nichevo said...

You could be right in your view? But I'm one who believes they thought Hillary was going to win bigly and RBG wanted her to pick a replacement. That's what happens when you start believing your own tribe's propoganda.


Hstad, what you quoted above was me quoting someone else before I replied to him, expressing, I believe, predominantly your viewpoint.