Matt Ford points out the surreality of Justice Amy Coney Barrett's appearance at an event with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) over the weekend:
If you were a parodist for The Onion, “Justice Amy Coney Barrett Insists Supreme Court Isn’t Partisan at McConnell Center Event” probably wouldn’t even get you a courtesy chuckle from your co-workers at a pitch meeting. Reality, however, clearly has a more surreal sense of humor than any mortal can muster, because this incredible moment of irony is exactly what occurred this weekend in Louisville, Kentucky.
“My goal today is to convince you that this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks,” the court’s newest justice reportedly told an audience at an event celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center. The center is named for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who was present as Barrett spoke, and who has, for these past many years, served as the loyal bagman for the larger conservative judicial project.
conservatives have navigated between the Scylla and Charybdis of judicial politics over the past few decades. They can’t nominate Supreme Court justices whose views are too well known, à la Bork, lest they share his fate. Nor can they throw their support behind nominees whose views on constitutional law are too mysterious, lest they nominate another David Souter, the George H.W. Bush pick who quickly became a reliable liberal justice after his confirmation. One of their solutions to this quandary was social networking: Groups like the Federalist Society function less like the top-down clearinghouse that most liberals imagine it to be and more like a Facebook or LinkedIn for like-minded lawyers.
So, no, Barrett, Kavanaugh, and the rest of the Republican justices don't self-identify as Republicans anymore. But Barrett's claim that they're apolitical is as nonsensical as it seems.