Amy Coney Barrett, the smart young nominee, accompanied by her young family (including seven children—two of whom were adopted from Haiti), entered the fray today. Noting the number of justices on the Supreme Court, she joked: “I’m used to being in a group of nine—my family.”
It was a beautiful scene in the Rose Garden. The flags were flying—God knows there were plenty of flags—but, more importantly, there was a smart young nominee, accompanied by her smartly dressed young family (did I mention the seven children, two of whom were adopted from Haiti?).
“I love the United States, and I love the United States Constitution,” Barrett told us, adding that “judges are not policy-makers.” Donald Trump, too, seemed to go out of his way to note that Barrett would follow the rule of law and not pursue a partisan agenda, presumably trying to quell fears about flipping the court by nominating a young conservative to Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat.
In what was a relatively short ceremony, Barrett took time to honor Ginsburg’s legacy, and to acknowledge RBG’s famous friendship with Antonin Scalia—the late justice for whom Barrett once clerked (“his judicial philosophy is mine,” she said).
The talk about their friendship was, perhaps, a plea for comity, but she’s not naïve enough to think that’s going to happen any time soon. “I have no illusions that the road ahead will be easy,” Barrett said.
She’s right. It’s going to be insane. During his opening remarks, Trump predicted Barrett’s confirmation would be “extremely non-controversial,” but even he seemed to acknowledge that was something of a joke. Or, at least, a mere aspiration.
Already, some on the left and some in the media are attacking Barrett over her faith and her family. To be sure, the people lodging attacks are hardly representative of the entire media, much less the Democratic Party writ large—but these are hardly “randos” either. Consider, for example, MSNBC host Joy Reid, who sent a tweet that seemed to tie Barrett to The Handmaid’s Tale.
Attacks on Barrett’s Catholic faith and involvement with the People of Praise have long been telegraphed. The new development seems to be an attack on her family.
For example, journalist Vanessa Grigoriadis tweeted, “I guess one of the things I don't understand about Amy Coney Barrett is how a potential Supreme Court justice can also be a loving, present mom to seven kids?” This was reminiscent of some of the attacks on Sarah Palin. I rarely see them applied to working women who are liberal.
Getting into the act, John Lee Brougher, a veteran Democratic operative who was adopted, tweeted that he needs to know “more about the circumstances of how Amy Coney Barrett came to adopt her children, and the treatment of them since.” The “treatment” of her adopted kids?? (That tweet was later deleted.)
And How to Be an Antiracist author Ibram Xolani Kendi noted that “some White colonizers ‘adopted’ Black children. They ‘civilized’ these ‘savage’ children in the ‘superior’ ways of White people, while using them as props in their lifelong pictures of denial, while cutting the biological parents of these children out of the picture of humanity.”
Rather than attacking her faith and family, a more relevant question might be: Is she qualified? Here, Barrett’s sterling credentials are well known, but the testimonials I’ve seen only enhance her reputation.
According to Harvard Law School professor Noah Feldman, who was a fellow Supreme Court clerk and disagrees with Barrett’s judicial philosophy, “When assigned to work on an extremely complex, difficult case, especially one involving a hard-to-comprehend statutory scheme, I would first go to Barrett to explain it to me.” He’s not alone. According to the Chicago Tribune, “Fellow clerks nicknamed Barrett ‘The Conenator’—a play on her maiden name and reputation for destroying flimsy legal arguments.”
“She was very, very smart. Not at all ideological,” Jay Wexler, “a Boston University law professor and self-described liberal atheist who clerked for Ginsburg alongside Barrett,” told the Tribune in 2018. “I take her at her word that she will try as hard as anyone can to bracket the views she has as she decides cases.”
With all this—the qualifications and testimonials and optics (a female nominee with seven kids)—it might seem insane for progressives to take the focus off of attacking Trump and instead spend precious time, energy, and capital going after Barrett. In a sane world, barring some major revelation, Democrats would keep their eye on the ball (defeating Trump, talking about his disastrous COVID response, etc.) and not fall for the trap of trying to destroy an innocent woman, while offending Americans who may view her sympathetically.
Throughout the 2020 primary campaign and general election, Joe Biden has run an impressively disciplined campaign that avoided such traps. Unfortunately, this nomination expands the playing field.
Can the mainstream media and progressives resist the temptation to try and “Bork,” “otherize” or “Palinize” her? I hope they surprise me, but I don’t think they can resist. To a lot of folks on the left, Barrett’s big family is weird. So is her faith.
It was a beautiful nomination day. But it’s about to get ugly.
