Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was smiling and back at work today, according to a report from CNN Political Ticker. It was her first public appearance since undergoing surgury for pancreatic cancer earlier this month.
The 75-year-old Ginsburg entered the courtroom with her eight male colleagues as they prepared to hear oral arguments after the high court’s month-long recess. She walked in unassisted and was smiling broadly.
It was business as usual, with the justices making no statements or gestures, and the court offering no acknowledgment of her return.
Doctors, according to the report, detected Ginsburg’s cancer early, which makes the situation much more optimistic.
Ginsburg, currently the only woman on the Supreme Court, is the second female justice to serve. (Sandra Day O’Connor was the first, and she announced her retirement in the summer of 2005.) She is also the first Jewish woman to find a seat on the nation’s high court.
She was appointed in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, and supported by then Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, a Republican. When Ginsburg first became ill, several names were batted around the beltway as possible replacements. Fortunately, all were women — Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan, the woman Pres. Barack Obama put forth as his choice as Solicitor General, was the most notable.
As a side note: If confirmed, Kagan will be the first woman in our nation’s history to serve as Solicitor General, the attorney who represents the government in cases before the Supreme Court.
As always, our prayers and good thoughts are with Justice Ginsburg and her family.
We also send jeers to U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, a Republican from Kentucky, who predicted at a county party Lincoln Day event over the weekend that Ginsburg would be dead in nine months. We all know the statistics related to pancreatic cancer and, as such, need no reminders from Bunning as to how serious the condition is. For him to use the possible pending demise of the Supreme Court’s only female justice as political fodder in a bid to revive an ever-increasingly low campaign fund balance, however, is the height of audacity and poor taste.
