The Controversy Over RBG’s Racial ‘Blind Spot’ Shows How Quickly the Left Has Radicalized
Journalist Katie Couric revealed in her forthcoming memoir that late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg regarded national anthem protests with Trump-like scorn, the Daily Mail reported Wednesday.
SO WHAT
“The Notorious RBG,” the left’s pet name for Ginsburg, is taking on new meaning.
WHAT HAPPENED
Couric admitted in “Going There” that she censored scathing criticisms of the protest movement against racial injustice that Ginsburg shared during their 2016 sit-down for Yahoo News, per the Daily Mail.
According to Couric, a former host of NBC’s “Today,” she was a “big RGB fan” and “wanted to protect” the liberal icon from public backlash over her apparent racial-justice “blind spot.”
- Couric wrote that the day after the interview, the Supreme Court’s head of public affairs told her Ginsburg had “misspoken” and asked her to forget the offending quotations.
- New York Times columnist David Brooks advised Couric that Ginsburg, then 83, probably didn’t understand the question, while David Westin, the former head of ABC News, said the comments were newsworthy, she recalled.
Ultimately, Couric left out out Ginsburg’s harshest remarks suggesting the anthem protesters were ungrateful.
- But Couric did quote Ginsburg referring to the activists as “stupid” and “arrogant” and to the movement launched by former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick as “terrible” and “dumb and disrespectful.”
THE TAKES
The Daily Mail’s revelation confirmed prevalent suspicions on both the left and the right.
Many progressives on Twitter said they already ascribed problematic racial views to Ginsburg, whose hiring record was deemed insufficiently diverse in the wake of her September 2020 death.
between this and her hiring record, it is pretty much an undeniable fact that RBG was personally racist https://t.co/2m3JHSx251
— Law Boy, Esq. (@The_Law_Boy) October 13, 2021
On the right, meanwhile, Couric’s ideologically motivated behavior was in keeping with the conventional wisdom about liberal media bias.
Not that it's a surprise but it's never not a good day to remind people that the news is fake. https://t.co/rYpFvQtuaX
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) October 13, 2021
SAME ENERGY
Last month, out of respect for nonbinary and transgender people, the American Civil Liberties Union altered a quotation by Ginsburg to remove all references to women, and then apologized.
With Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, we lost a champion for abortion and gender equality. And on the anniversary of her death, the fight to protect abortion access is more urgent than ever. pic.twitter.com/vIKadIHouN
— ACLU (@ACLU) September 18, 2021
Long revered as a feminist legend, Ginsburg’s progressive legacy has been reevaluated in recent years as the left has rapidly become more radical.
- In an essay for New York Times Magazine published one month before Ginsburg’s death, critic Amanda Hess argued the justice’s comparatively moderate approach to politics was outmoded.
- “Now that the Trump era has been met by a true activist movement with the sustained protests of Black Lives Matter, the Ginsburg memes hit like relics,” Hess wrote.