{"id":5242,"date":"2005-09-13T10:51:50","date_gmt":"2005-09-13T14:51:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/5242.html"},"modified":"2005-09-13T10:51:50","modified_gmt":"2005-09-13T14:51:50","slug":"the-ginsburg-standard-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-ginsburg-standard-myth\/","title":{"rendered":"The ‘Ginsburg standard’ myth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Throughout the first day of John Roberts’ hearing yesterday, one name kept coming up<\/a>: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. To hear committee Republicans tell it, Ginsburg’s lack of cooperation in answering specific questions laid the groundwork that Roberts should adhere to now.<\/p>\n

Referring to the so-called “Ginsburg standard,” [Sen. Orrin] Hatch said Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s handling of questions during her Supreme Court confirmation in 1993 laid groundwork for why nominees should be allowed to avoid answering certain questions.<\/p>\n

“She said, quote, ‘A judge sworn to decide impartially can offer no forecasts, no hints; for that would show not only disregard for the specifics of the particular case, it would display disdain for the entire judicial process,’ unquote,” Mr. Hatch said.<\/p>\n

“She refused nearly 60 times to answer questions, including mine,” he said. “[She] did what every Supreme Court nominee has done: She drew the line she believed was necessary to protect her impartiality and independence.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hatch wasn’t the only one going down this road; about half the Republicans on the committee referred, directly or indirectly, to this “Ginsburg standard” to bolster the idea that Roberts shouldn’t answer Dems’ questions about Roberts’ views on issues. With this in mind, it’s worth taking a moment to highlight how wrong Hatch & Co. were.<\/p>\n

The truth is, Ginsburg sidestepped questions about specific abortion-related cases<\/i>, but, yesterday’s claims notwithstanding, Ginsburg didn’t hesitate to openly state her pro-choice beliefs. As she told<\/a> the Judiciary Committee:<\/p>\n

“[The right to an abortion] is something central to a woman’s life, to her dignity. It’s a decision that she must make for herself. And when government controls that decision for her, she’s being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For that matter, it was Hatch himself who praised Ginsburg for being so cooperative in answering questions, telling Ginsburg she had been “very specific in talking about abortion, equal rights, and a number of other issues.”<\/p>\n

If Roberts is going to be held to a real “Ginsburg standard,” he’ll have quite a few questions to answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Throughout the first day of John Roberts’ hearing yesterday, one name kept coming up: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. To hear committee Republicans tell it, Ginsburg’s lack of cooperation in answering specific questions laid the groundwork that Roberts should adhere to now. Referring to the so-called “Ginsburg standard,” [Sen. Orrin] Hatch said Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s handling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}