Stephen Breyer's 'gooberish pablum' about SCOTUS 'friends' torched by legal analyst

The Nation's legal analyst and opinion writer Elie Mystal unleashed on former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer for expressing a desire to see justices on the court be friends with one another.

Breyer penned a column for the New York Times this week where he looked back fondly on an easier time when justices could disagree and still have honor and respect.

Mystal, however, was decidedly unimpressed by Breyer's nostalgia for comity.

"His op-ed is drivel, but behind its gooberish pablum," Mystal wrote. "There's something more sinister at work."

He called it nothing more than "anecdotes from Grandpa Breyer" about nine people who worked together and played bridge or went to the opera. Breyer, who did refrain from using the phrase "back in my day," attempted to lionize people like former Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

The goal of the op-ed appeared to be for Americans "to think, how nice, how quaint!" Mystal wrote.

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Breyer ends the column by saying that what worked for the Court likely won't happen in today's polarized political climate. Still, he wants people to listen to each other.

"It’s the kind of conclusion one would expect from a fairy, not an intellectual who has been paying attention," slammed Mystal. "Breyer’s article doesn’t offer any actual evidence to show that consensus is possible—or even desirable given what some of his work 'friends' want to do to vulnerable people in this country."

Additionally, he noted that those bridge games never stopped the far-right judges "from gutting the Voting Rights Act in 2012’s Shelby County v. Holder or revoking reproductive rights in 2021’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health."

What Breyer does accomplish, Mystal argued, is that he was able "to distract readers from those decisions (and any number of horrid decisions emanating from the corrupt and broken Supreme Court) and burnish the institution’s reputation at a time when the people have just about had enough of the justices."

For the first time in over a year, the Supreme Court's approval ratings slightly ticked up, according to a new Marquette Law School poll. However, it is still suffering under historic lows.

Breyer proclaims in his piece at one point that he never raised his voice in anger. Mystal couldn't understand that, given the court was eroding the rights of women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and others.

"Why the hell not? Why weren’t you, Steve, sitting there screaming at your conservative colleagues, or asking everyone who would listen to stop your 'friends' from hurting people?" Mystal asked.

He also wondered why Breyer wasn't standing up for judicial ethics while watching his "friends" taking funds from wealthy partisans, some of whom have cases before the court.

As Mystal closed, "I do not believe Breyer ever invited the guy who robbed him back to his house to play bridge. Maybe Breyer wishes he could have. Maybe Breyer believes they could have reached a consensus on how much cash and jewels Breyer should have handed over. But maybe if Breyer understood that his conservative colleagues are robbing people not of their wallets but of their fundamental human rights, he’d exhibit better judgment in his choice of friends."

Read the full column here.