Rushing to confirm Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett before the election was supposed to be a sinister Republican plot to steal a second term for President Donald J. Trump.
Obamacare would be overturned, Roe v. Wade struck down, while women and journalists were rounded up and forced to wear silly costumes. The Pope would be installed as king. At least that's what Barrett agreed to when she accepted the nomination, according to the pundits, who are often right. But the Lady Justice had other, more feminist ideas, and a sinister plot of her own.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday shot down a lawsuit seeking to nullify President-elect Joe Biden's victory in Pennsylvania, after the case was similarly rejected at the state level. The results of the election are not going to be overturned, and neither is Obamacare. Journalists may yet be spared the gulag.
In failing to make good on her secret agreement with the (male) president, Justice Barrett was following in the feminist footsteps of her predecessor, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, aka "Notorious RBG." An icon of female empowerment, RBG would have celebrated ACB's decision to break the promise she made to the man who hired her.
It goes without saying: Trump has every right to be angry. Barrett gave her word, and went back on it. But unlike Barack Obama's failure to enforce his "red line" in Syria, this wasn't a decision fueled by cowardice. This was a powerful woman courageously exercising her right to disagree with a man. She changed her mind. So sue her. (Oh, wait. They already tried that, and lost.)
Barrett's reneging on the secret deal to keep Trump in office is a disaster for America, but a triumph for women who dare have their own opinions. Ruth Bader Ginsburg would approve. Her legacy is in good hands.