RUSH: Looky here, folks. I have a story here my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. It’s BizPacReview.com. The headline: “Ginsburg’s Law Clerks Line Up to Mourn and Everyone Stays [Quiet] About Jarring Lack of Color.” (Gasp!) What could this mean? Well, let’s read further and find out together, shall we?
“The deputy governor of Illinois called attention to the elephant in the room as the memorial service for the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg got underway. Christian Mitchell, the Democrat serving under Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker … noted the ‘jarring lack of [people] of color’ in comments on social media about the law clerks who had gathered to honor Ginsburg who passed away last week at the age of 87.
“Ginsburg’s former law clerks served as ‘honorary pallbearers’ and formed a dramatic backdrop on the front steps of the Supreme Court as her casket arrived on Wednesday. After a private ceremony, members of the public are allowed to pay their respects as the late justice lies in repose at the Supreme Court. As her casket arrived, an ‘army of law clerks’ were present, ‘dressed in black and standing silently,’ CBS News reported.
“Over her 27 years on the high court, Ginsburg had reportedly hired more than 100 clerks, and many came out to honor her on Wednesday,” and it was apparently so striking the lack of people of color among this group of clerks that nobody said anything about it, and thus it became the elephant in the room. How does this happen? How does one of the greatest…?
By reputation, one of the greatest Supreme Court justices in the history of the known universe, how does it happen? An avowed, proud, acknowledged leader in all things progressive liberal. How does it happen that among clerks…? Do you know who the clerks are? The clerks… Let’s see. What would be an appropriate term? The most appropriate term would not be “usable.”
The clerks do a lot of the work. They do a lot of the research. They do a lot of the first and second draft writing in conjunction with the justice. Now, she had over 150 of them. Not at once, but over the course of 27 years. That’s a hell of a lot of clerks. That’s a hell of a lot of people. But how does it happen that so few of them were people of color? How does it happen? Is it an oversight?
Is it “Aw, damn, never got around to it”? “I didn’t notice!” Is that the excuse? How can that be? How can it be, “I didn’t notice — sorry — that there aren’t very many people of color among my clerks”? I don’t know. It sounds to me like “systematic,” systemic… It sounds to me like systemic whatever here. I mean, if it’s very few clerks… If it’s so noticeable that it’s the elephant in the room, then it’s systemic, wouldn’t it be?
I’m stunned. I’ve had people say they saw the entire cadre of clerks, and they didn’t see one person of color. It’s not that there were very few; it’s somebody who says they didn’t even see one. She should have sued herself! You know, as somebody had worked at the ACLU, she should have sued herself for discrimination. But I don’t think that she did.
Well, I don’t know. I can’t answer the question. All I can do is ask it, and I’m probably in big heap doo-doo just by doing that. But remember, it was BizPac Review, not me.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is Vern in Richmond, California. You are next, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hello. Thank you for taking my call, Rush.
RUSH: Yes, sir.
CALLER: So my point is all this adulation for Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her politics is misplaced. She’s supposed to be, and all the court justices are supposed to be dispassionate judges of the law and the application of the law. They’re not supposed to be pushing a side. And anybody who is pushing a side really should be suspect. When we think of the women’s rights or civil rights and we adore her for it, we should be adoring the Constitution ’cause that’s what gave it to us, not a judge who read the Constitution and told us what it said.
RUSH: Well, look. You know this without me having to say it. But you raise a good point. Supreme Court justices are supposed to be arbiters of the law. They’re supposed to determine, at least the way the court constituted now, whether various cases that come before them are constitutional or not. Sometimes the cases have nothing to do with the Constitution, they will take ’em, but, in large part, the Supreme Court has become the final arbiter. And the American people have accepted it, which frustrates me to no end, the final line. This is the last place in line we go to find out whether something is constitutional or not.
So what these people who adore RBG are saying is she was a good liberal, not a good justice. The two go hand in hand. The two are the same thing. A good liberal is a good justice. The purpose of justices at the Supreme Court, the U.S. district courts, and the appellate court, the purpose is to advance the agenda using the law to do so. It’s where the left, by the way, gets their insurance policy for losing elections. ‘Cause they realize they can’t win them all. So even when they lose elections, they’ve still got left-wing judges all over the judiciary.
But Trump, in less than four years now, has appointed 300, got ’em confirmed. He’s made a huge dent into the left’s insurance policy. And this Supreme Court pick, this opening portends huge, game changing results for the makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court and so forth. But the adulation for Ruth Ginsburg is – she was a good liberal. She was a proud liberal. She was a good woman liberal judge. She combined all three political elements of being a woman, a feminist, and a judge with the liberalism of the day and made sure every chance that she got that those three things were first, second, and third, in her deciding cases.
I get your point. I mean, a dispassionate referee is what — but she was being praised and is being praised because she’s a good liberal, as they all will be when the time comes for judgment to be rendered on their careers and lives. It will be the same thing for any of the rest.