Despite His Best Efforts, Breyer Unable To Avoid Politics Of His Retirement

joining us now is our friend dalia

lithwick she is senior editor and legal

correspondent at slate.com her article

today about stephen breyer's retirement

is titled the deep irony of stephen

breyer's bare-knuckled exit from the

supreme court i think about stephen

breyer in a lot of different ways i

never ever think about his knuckles

bear or otherwise

dahlia it's great to see you thank you

for being here

it's good to be here on a day rachel

when everybody's a little giddy it's so

rare i feel to have from the roses to

the chuckling it's nice to have good

news

well it's also like you know it's it's

history i get i get like this about

state of the union and stuff like this

there's just some things at least from

the news business part of it like we're

about to get a supreme court nominee

like if you're lucky that happens one

time in your career when you have the

the honor and the responsibility of

getting to cover the news it's always a

huge deal whether you love the nominee

or you don't um but it's it's this is a

big deal this is varsity level news and

that's it's thrilling and it's also i

have to say it's it's a pleasure

to be able to cover this knowing that

stephen breyer justice breyer has chosen

to leave on his own terms we're not

covering him because he because he

passed away or we're not covering

because he was forced out in some

difficult circumstances it does seem

like he left on his own on his own terms

he did i i will say i'm a little sad for

him rachel and i know we've talked about

it a bunch you know and i've

said on even on this show you know

there's no point in asking justice

breyer if judges are partisan and

political because it's like asking the

easter bunny if there's such a thing as

the easter bunny you know he believes

so deeply in this notion

that

the justices are not partisan that the

court is

something bigger something better than

that and in a weird way

there's a quality of this that is so

aspirational and elegant at the same

time

that in a weird and i guess that's my

white knuckle reference in my piece but

in a weird weird way

because he's pulling the rip cord he's

doing it early this is a very political

move

to give the biden white house an

opportunity to fill this seat

before any shenanigans as you and uh

senator klobuchar talked about could

happen

the signaling

almost feels like he's giving up on that

aspiration that he has pushed in the

face of relentless pressure just admit

it just as prior it's all just a game of

politics you're a football step down

and he the harder he was pushed on that

rachel the more he dug in and so there's

a part of me

that feels as though

the ideas he stood for nina talked about

this so eloquently about bipartisanship

about cooperating about not

glomming onto the credit letting someone

else look good getting results these

deep friendships he had with justice

scalia with justice o'connor it feels

like all that just detonated around him

and so he's standing there kind of with

this womp womp it's really not partisan

at the same time that he is making a

really partisan retirement move

those values that you just talked about

do you think that the justice in

retiring in his meeting at the white

house tomorrow with president biden that

he'll try to

shape the choice of his successor

toward somebody with those same values

i don't think he would ever say anything

of the sort rachel i think he would

think it's unseemly and he often uh

would talk about you know he doesn't

have any opinions on judicial

nominations it i think he would describe

it as asking a chicken for its recipe

for chicken ala king which don't even i

don't know what it means but i think he

just didn't think it was appropriate to

talk

deeply about those kinds of political

things but at the same time i do think

he really

really values

the idea that the person who follows him

will look at the court in this kind of

mystical or racular way even if that's a

disappearing value

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