Patterico's Pontifications

2/5/2009

Best Wishes to Justice Ginsburg

Filed under: Judiciary — Patterico @ 7:38 pm



The AP reports:

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had surgery today for pancreatic cancer, raising the possibility that one of the ideologically divided court’s leading liberals — and its only woman — might have to curtail her work or even step down before she had planned.

I wish Justice Ginsburg well. I am not a fan of Justice Ginsburg’s jurisprudence, but I respect her — as I do all the justices save Anthony Kennedy. (And of course, even if it were he who were suffering this malady, I would wish him well too.) Plus, she’s an opera fan and a personal friend of my hero Nino Scalia — so I figure that she must be a good person.

Pancreatic cancer has a poor survival rate, but the fact that hers was operable is a good sign. Good luck and best wishes to the justice.

12 Responses to “Best Wishes to Justice Ginsburg”

  1. Terrible news. I hope she got it early.

    Patricia (89cb84)

  2. In the 66 patients whose tumors were clearly operable after systemic therapy, the median survival duration was 40 months. “We’re really starting to see some tangible improvements,” said Dr. Abbruzzese.

    She’d still be eight months shy or so.

    happyfeet (4eacbc)

  3. Apparently, she’s already had her lifetime max of radiation, so there isn’t much in the way of treatment available to her after surgery. Let’s hope early resection is good enough. Cancer is a really shitty way to die.

    Pablo (99243e)

  4. I agree. I wish her well. The report I read said it was caught in an annual examination and it was a centimeter in size.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  5. Best Wishes as well

    EricPWJohnson (bd8e25)

  6. I have never understood the venom that people spit at others—generally folks they don’t actually know—over politics.

    Remember Tony Snow?

    To be fair, my own mother said that she wasn’t at all sad about Edward Kennedy’s brain cancer. I chided her about it, and asked her where her “hate the sin, not the sinner” had gone. She called back the next week, saying that she was a little ashamed of herself.

    That is the problem with partisanship. It quickly goes beyond politics to the personal.

    I believe in kharma. And I don’t wish my bitterest enemies ill. I just wish that they would change their ways.

    I absolutely don’t believe in Justice Ginsberg’s view of the Constitution. But Justice Scalia is a close friend of hers. As Patterico writes, that should tell us something important.

    I wish her a full recovery—and a Saul of Tarsus moment of clarity!

    Eric Blair (1aa50b)

  7. I wish her a speedy recovery and pray she gets better soon.

    Joe (17aeff)

  8. May the One who blessed Israel’s ancestors —

    Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,

    Matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah —

    bless and heal the one who is ill: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

    May the Holy Blessed One

    overflow with compassion upon her,

    to restore her,

    to heal her,

    to strengthen her,

    to enliven her.

    The One will send her, speedily,

    a complete healing —

    healing of the soul and healing of the body —

    along with all the ill,

    among the people of Israel, the United States, and all humankind,

    soon,

    speedily,

    without delay,

    and let us all say: Amen!

    Joe (17aeff)

  9. I, too, will pray that she heals quickly and is with us, even if to torment us, for many years.

    htom (412a17)

  10. Word apparently hasn’t been given out regarding what type of surgery she underwent, but apparently the cancer was relatively small. That seems to bode well for her, and though I may disagree with her philosophically, I certainly wish her well regarding her illness.

    Pancreatic disease can be quite painful, hopefully she’ll be spared that.

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  11. Best wishes to Justice Ginsburg, but I can’t help thinking this lady’s illness will afford Obama his first SCOTUS appointment.

    Of course, if Ginsburg retires for health reasons, Obama will replace her with another liberal judge, so it’s a wash. Lib retires, replaced by lib, no net change.

    Jones in CO (f397dc)

  12. I dunno, Eric. I get your point, but it’s really easy to overcorrect sometimes. When people get appointed for life, whether de facto like with supremes or near enough like with certain Senators and certain gerrymandered Reps, then this dealio like what is happening with this lady, this is how our polity functions. Disease is part and parcel of the system. It’s silly to pretend it isn’t. How does one expect these stories to end, really?

    happyfeet (4eacbc)


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