Even by the standards of judicial reclusiveness, Supreme Court justices are famously uneasy while in the public eye — likely because any opinions they might express would belie their image as neutral arbiters of the law. Yet in their cloistered silence, the men and women with their lifetime appointments on the nation's highest court might also be seen by the public as imperious and insular and so each faces a quandary: To talk or not to talk to the media?
Last week, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg spoke, and she may now regret it (or not). In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times' Adam Liptak that ran in last Sunday's print editions, the 83-year-old Brooklyn native gave a little jab at Donald Trump. "I can't imagine what this place would be — I can't imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president," she said. "For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be — I don't even want to contemplate that."
She added something she said her late husband might have said and clearly meant in jest: "Now it's time for us to move to New Zealand."
As blanket condemnations of Donald Trump go, this was a pretty pale thing, the kind of remark that might get a titter or two out of the Georgetown cocktail set but probably not even a guffaw. And surely nobody who follows the Supreme Court could possible be surprised that Justice Ginsburg, perhaps the court's feistiest left-of-center member, would be no fan of the GOP's presumptive presidential nominee.
Naturally, Mr. Trump took great offense. He told the Times what she said had been "highly inappropriate" and that she owed her fellow justices an apology. "I think it's a disgrace to the court and I think she should apologize to the court. I couldn't believe it when I saw it," the former reality TV star was quoted Tuesday as saying. Matters then escalated. Justice Ginsburg told CNN that Mr. Trump is a "faker" while the candidate tweeted back early Wednesday that she should step down because "her mind is shot."
Mr. Trump has, admittedly, quite a bit of expertise in the field of inappropriateness. We would list his full CV on the subject but the references would consume the page. Let's just say that for Mr. Trump to call Justice Ginsburg inappropriate is a bit like members of Congress complaining about a lack of productivity at the Library of Congress. Whatever the perceived shortcomings of the latter, it pales in comparison to those demonstrated each day by the former.
Still, there is something to be said for justices who keep their distance from politics, particularly when it comes to the officeholder who will choose your successor. Just as we chastised the late Justice Antonin Scalia in years past for speaking publicly on cases that were destined for the court, we would politely suggest that a justice who broadcasts her preference in presidential candidates (or opposes a party's nominee which is quite close to the same thing or calls that person a faker for that matter) has crossed a line.
That's not because Ms. Ginsburg isn't entitled to her opinions. Donning the black robe doesn't make her brain dead. Nor do we buy the argument that she could never judge a Bush v. Gore II if this year's election came down to that, but in announcing her views, she has cast herself into a political role that justices ought not embrace. Not every decision before the court comes down to the political left versus the political right, but the split has rarely seemed more partisan than it does in this moment in history. At the very least, this is a problem of perception.
Supreme Court justices may not always be the completely neutral umpires calling balls and strikes as Chief Justice John Roberts famously described, but that lack of pure objectivity doesn't mean they should turn around and wear their favorite player's uniform either. Justice Ginsburg has been a marvel, a leading voice for the rights of women and minorities, but she should leave the Trump potshots to others — like Sen. Elizabeth Warren or better yet, those humble scribes of newspaper editorial pages who make a living dissecting and mocking Mr. Trump's latest weasel words.
We can't blame anyone for being appalled by Mr. Trump and his ignorant bully personna but this is one area where a Supreme Court justice ought to suffer in silence.