The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on the legality and lawfulness of federal vaccine mandates. Washington PostIt is about masks that she really gets upset. The deputy editorial page editor and longtime columnist for said periodical, Ruth Marcus, went postal because Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch was not wearing a mask while hearing oral arguments on this matter.
Marcus let the world know how upset she was with Gorsuch’s maskless heresy on Monday by screeching to the world with this fiery op-ed, “Where was Justice Neil Gorsuch’s mask?”
She did not waste any time in making her disgust public:
Where was Justice Neil M. Gorsuch’s mask? You might think that this is a silly question. I disagree. This question goes directly to the heart and soul of our fragile social fabric.
When the Supreme Court justices took their seats Friday morning to hear oral arguments in two cases challenging the Biden administration’s covid rules, seven of the justices wore masks — a change in their previous behavior prompted, no doubt, by the emergence of an new infectious strain.
It’s a horror!
Marcus is now contrasting Gorsuch with Sonya Sotomayor, who is annoyed by her because he didn’t wear a mask, but also because he belongs to the conservative 6-3 majority.
Sonia Sotomayor was the one justice who participated from the chambers remotely. She had been previously the only justice wearing a mask at the bench. Sotomayor is diabetic, and this can increase the risk of developing covid-related complications. She also is, or would have been, Gorsuch’s seat mate for the nearly four-hour-long argument session.
Marcus acknowledged that all nine justices are vaccinated and boosted, but almost made it seem as though they’re pointless and that the holy mask is just as if not more important:
But Mike Davis, Gorsuch’s former law clerk, as well as founder and president of the Article III Project, which lobbied to confirm President Donald Trump’s judges, responded this way on Twitter: “Every justice is vaccinated and boosted. Don’t vaccines work? We know cloth masks don’t.”
Oh, please. Yes. They are effective in protecting against severe illness, and they greatly decrease the likelihood of dying or being hospitalized. Because of their contagious nature, they are less effective in preventing breakthrough infections.
Of course, Marcus refused to comment on Sotomayor’s whopper that 100,000 children in serious condition due to Covid and that Omicron is as deadly as the Delta variant. Instead, she lamented that “Gorsuch is more emblem than outlier” as “[t]he pandemic has brought out the best in some of us, but the worst — the most selfish and irresponsible — in too many others.”
Ruth: Which one would you rather? A mask wearing Gorsuch who votes against the mandates or a maskless Gorsuch who votes to keep the mandates? It is possible to get the sense that Marcus would accept such a mandate supporting Gorsuch’s refusal to wear a masque.
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