Last night Mitch McConnell introduced Justice Amy Coney Barrett at an event. And then she said this:
“My goal today is to convince you that this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks,” she said as reported by the Louisville Courier Journal.
I thought it was a joke when I heard it. How could she have the gall to say anything like this after the Texas non-decision? But she apparently didn’t see any irony in the fact that she was saying this at the McConnell Center after being introduced by the partisan Machiavelli who installed her on the court and was taking a victory lap for having done so.
Gosh, I wonder why people think the court is corrupt?
She went on to say a bunch of gobbldygook about how none of them are partisans but they do sometimes share a philosophy that leads them to consensus. Right.
As Philip Bump in the Washington Post pointed out, that’s a very “generous” view:
It is also possible to conceptualize a jurist who holds starkly partisan views that are then packaged or rationalized within the bounds of a judicial philosophy. The cases the Court hears are by definition the most difficult and complicated that arise. However distilled one’s objective philosophical approach to decision-making, it will need to be implemented in a way that’s subjective to the case. Many people want to see themselves as impartial observers and decision-makers. Almost none are.
I don’t even think Coney-Barrett was trying. Appearing as she did with McConnell by her side it was nothing more than trolling. Even if she didn’t know that McConnell certainly did. They are out of control and their power is virtually unlimited.