Who's Stunned By The Ginsburg And Scalia Friendship?

I was out of town and off the grid all weekend, so I was mercifully spared some of the nuclear war of words that launched moments after the world learned that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died.

For that, I am grateful.

I have yet to read what America’s beard-tuggers had to say in the Sunday papers about choosing her successor.

What struck me Friday, however, was the media’s focus on the affection between Ginsburg and the late Justice Antonin Scalia who died in 2016.

As if it was unheard of for two people with profoundly different opinions to forge a friendship.

I did a quick Google search of “Ginsburg,” “Scalia” and “friendship” Sunday night and got more than 212,000 hits. Photos of the two riding an elephant frequently illustrated these stories. So did pics of the burly justice and his petite colleague at the opera or dancing at a party. Naturally, the unimaginative press corps dubbed them “The Odd Couple.” (I searched “Ginsburg,” “Scalia” and “odd couple” and got more than 20,000 hits.)

This made me wonder what sort of bubble these journalists inhabit that leaves them stunned by such a relationship. Oh, right, they work in newsrooms, which famously lack diversity when it comes to opinions.

News commentators endlessly marveled over this close relationship between two brilliant jurists who frequently sparred over the law and directed barbs at each other’s legal arguments. 

While this friendship may have baffled the inside-the-Beltway crowd, I’m guessing many ordinary people shrugged.

Most of us have beloved family members with whom we do not agree politically. We socialize with pals whose votes cancel out our own. We worship on Sundays with people who share our faith but not our politics.

In response to the national fascination with the Ginsburg/Scalia phenomenon, Eugene Scalia, Secretary of Labor, felt compelled to pen an explainer in a Sunday Washington Post piece: “What We Can Learn From Ginsburg’s Friendship With My Father, Antonin Scalia.”

“What we can learn from the justices — beyond how to be a friend — is how to welcome debate and differences. The two justices had central roles in addressing some of the most divisive issues of the day, including cases on abortion, same-sex marriage and who would be president. Not for a moment did one think the other should be condemned or ostracized. More than that, they believed that what they were doing — arriving at their own opinions thoughtfully and advancing them vigorously — was essential to the national good. With less debate, their friendship would have been diminished, and so, they believed, would our democracy.”

Sad that this even needed to be said.