Patterico's Pontifications

2/22/2009

U.S. Senator Predicts Justice Ginsburg Dead This Year

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 9:21 pm



Sometimes Republicans can be real idiots:

U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning predicted over the weekend that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would likely be dead from pancreatic cancer within nine months.

During a wide-ranging 30-minute speech on Saturday at the Hardin County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner, Bunning said he supports conservative judges “and that’s going to be in place very shortly because Ruth Bader Ginsburg … has cancer.”

“Bad cancer. The kind that you don’t get better from,” he told a crowd of about 100 at the old State Theater.

“Even though she was operated on, usually, nine months is the longest that anybody would live after (being diagnosed) with pancreatic cancer,” he said.

Ginsburg, who is 75, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer earlier this month and surgeons removed a small tumor that had not spread. Doctors termed it a “Stage 1” cancer, meaning they found it in the early stages when it is most curable.

According to the American Cancer Society, people diagnosed with Stage 1 pancreatic cancer have between a 21 and 37 percent chance of living for more than five years with the disease.

Thanks for your diagnosis, Dr. Bunning. Now shut the hell up.

Thanks to Scott Jacobs.

34 Responses to “U.S. Senator Predicts Justice Ginsburg Dead This Year”

  1. yeah, I saw this earlier & thought “is there something wrong with politicians that they don’t know when to just shut up?”

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  2. My comment to Patterico when I saw this and shared it was far, far more profane…

    Scott Jacobs (90ff96)

  3. Never underestimate the ability of Republican senators to be utterly clueless in every situation.

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  4. Or Democratic VP, for that matter.

    Dr. K (b99fd5)

  5. Well, I can’t really underestimate zero, can I?

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  6. Never underestimate the ability of Republican senators people to be utterly clueless in every situation.

    FTFY!

    redc1c4 (9c4f4a)

  7. what an (army language here)!!!!

    redc1c4 (9c4f4a)

  8. Bunning said he supports conservative judges “and that’s going to be in place very shortly because Ruth Bader Ginsburg … has cancer.”

    Huh?! Bunning can’t be that ignorant of — if not stupid about — the way that things work. Doesn’t he realize that any new justice for the Supreme Court (at least for the next 4 years) is going to be nominated by…Barack Obama?

    Mark (411533)

  9. I think the article proves that he is both more that ignorant – and stupid – enough.

    Scott Jacobs (90ff96)

  10. It does not take intelligence to be a senator. We have Murray in my state, with the intellectual firepower of a birthday candle.

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  11. He also criticized President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package, saying it only drives the nation deeper into debt.

    He’s smarter than Arlen and both those socialist broads from Maine put together I think.

    happyfeet (4eacbc)

  12. That’s not saying much…

    Scott Jacobs (90ff96)

  13. Probably took one too many in the head when he was in the majors.

    I know, he was a pitcher, but it’s still a good excuse.

    Dr. K (b99fd5)

  14. Sounds like Bunning and Bill Frist went to the same medical school, the one that teaches you to offer a medical diagnosis when you have not examined the patient. Oh wait, that’s right, Bunning didn’t go to medical school so maybe he has an excuse for offering a stupid opinion on a subject he knows little about.

    Fritz J. (c671c7)

  15. Re: #16

    I’m in China right now, and I say that all the time.

    I denounce myself for being a male chauvanist pig (and proud of it!)!

    Dr. K (b99fd5)

  16. #17 Dr. K:

    I denounce myself

    as well you should!

    But more seriously, pancreatic disease is horrifyingly painful and not something to wished upon a political opponent in the conduct of civil discourse.

    Unfortuately I have far too much experience with it, both personally and in my family. The good news is that Justice Ginsburg is likely to enjoy some good health as a result of the earliness of the surgical intervention in her case.

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  17. Not real bright.

    Ehrenstein complaining about someone being classless is rich.

    JD (a9f2c7)

  18. It is pretty stupid for a pol to be saying such things in public, though there really isn’t all that much wrong with what he said. It’s just lousy PR. In the same vein, Massachusetts will soon be looking for a new Senator because Ted Kennedy will soon be dead.

    I’m not hoping for it and I’m not cheering the fact. But it is the truth and I generally don’t have a problem with people saying things that are true. OTOH, my statement stands a much better chance of being accurate than Bunning’s does.

    Pablo (99243e)

  19. Repeal the 17th Amendment.

    icr (ff91f1)

  20. A truly crass comment by Bunning. We’re supposed to be above that.

    While there are miracles (my own wife was given a 15% chance of surviving one year due to advanced melanoma, nine years ago)and we can hope for the best the numbers do say the Justice will likely not last much more than 18 months.

    But hey, had this been a Democrat speaking of a conservative he’d probably have gone so far as to say she deserved it.

    ThomasD (211bbb)

  21. Good point, Thomas D. And you wouldn’t find a single lefty blog calling that Democrat on the carpet for it either.

    spongeworthy (c2e8fe)

  22. How many of us, in things we’d never publish, said to ourselves:

    If this was going to happen, why couldn’t it have happened three years ago?

    or

    Thank God it wasn’t Antonin Scalia!

    One does wonder how our friends on the left would have reacted had this disease struck Clarance Thomes.

    The very politically incorrect Dana (3e4784)

  23. Ehrenstein complaining about someone being classless is rich.

    The Hambone is always true to form. Ask him sometime about what he mentioned about my mother on another blog – he’s hideous beyond belief.

    I wonder why a Senator felt compelled to say something like this, when there was nothing comparable to the news regarding Kennedy’s diagnosis. Maybe something about birds of a feather.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  24. Dmac, if you put on hip boots and wade through DE’s blog, you will see some remarkably mean spirited and classless posts (always involving political issues). His posts on McCain in particular should keep him from ever using the word classless again.

    Ah, but that is different, you see?

    Eric Blair (9671e0)

  25. So far as politicians and clueless or cruel statements, I have to say it is a bipartisan issue.

    This character is a jerk. He will be apologizing soon, I’m sure.

    I don’t like Ginsberg’s decisions on SCOTUS, myself. But do you know the identity of one of her best friends? Scalia.

    Disagree with someone’s politics all you like. But this sort of thing says much more about the person making the statement than the target.

    Eric Blair (9671e0)

  26. It’s obvious that all of Bunning’s brains were in his arm, and after too many curve-balls,
    he did’nt have any arm (or brains) left.

    AD - RtR/OS (9d1a46)

  27. There’s a passage in Kipling (Stalky & Co.) concerning some people complaining about the crass nature of a line of discourse:

    “They ‘nursed the pinion that impelled the steel’; naturally they do not approve.”

    When I see some crass or vulgar comment from a Conservative or Republican chewed over – by either side or both – I cannot help but feel split. on the one hand, I don’t like boorishness. On the other, when the Liberal Left routinely gets away with statements that frankly call for horsewhipping them through the streets, I have VERY little sympathy with them over hurtful words.

    I cal for a moratorium on criticizing Republicans until the Democrats demonstrate that they are willing to censure any member of their own for anything less than the commission of a felony…..or Political Incorrectness against a Liberal Sacred Cow.

    C. S. P. Schofield (2f879a)

  28. Bunning needs to apologize.

    Setting aside the shockingly bad taste, Bunning is wrong that this somehow is “good news” in a political/ policy sense. Any current vacancy on SCOTUS is likely to be filled with a Justice at LEAST as thoroughly lefty as Ginsburg but much younger.

    So even if it were tasteful to discuss these things, and it isn’t, the most one could venture would be, “Can’t she wait until 2011, har har.”

    Mitch (890cbf)

  29. Wow, it’s all about me! ROTFALMAO!

    David Ehrenstein (98fb12)

  30. Doofusity in the extreme!

    Patricia (89cb84)

  31. JD:

    Ehrenstein complaining about someone being classless is rich.

    Well, in fairness to Ehrenstein, he didn’t actually come out and say he intended to to be a complaint. Maybe he meant it as a compliment?

    Xrlq (62cad4)

  32. And here is Bunning’s apology:

    http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D96HH1980&show_article=1

    Something tells me that he won’t be running for re-election again.

    Eric Blair (9671e0)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.0976 secs.