On June 21, the Chief Justice of the United States took a walk and fell, cracking his head so badly that he required stitches and an overnight stay in the hospital. For some reason, the American public only learned that the most powerful lifetime official in the country was injured on the evening of July 7.
Despite his brush with slip and fall practice, Chief Justice Roberts is now “fine.” That his last fall back in 2007 was brought on by a seizure — arguably intensifying the public need to know about his fall — was brushed off by doctors, who blamed this fall on “dehydration,” which is never a valid excuse unless you’re canceling a concert where you furiously dance for a couple hours.
And let’s not glide over the double standard that RBG sets off a media firestorm when she gets the sniffles, but Massive Headwound Harry here got to peacefully lounge around the hospital with nary a word. It sucks that a woman is constantly dragged into breathless news cycles where people — on both sides, depending on the president — construct a public narrative about how she has to retire as physically unfit for office, but when the man with a history of seizures busts his head open it’s lost in a news dump.
Gabe Roth of Fix the Court issued this statement:
“The ‘need to inform the public’ is more substantial than Roberts pronounces. Regular health disclosures would give us faith that our nation’s top jurists are capable of handling the rigors of their jobs, and they may even help the justices themselves reflect on their abilities to continue in their positions,” Roth added. “I’m glad Roberts is okay, but based on the way this came out, amid the court’s consistent lack of transparency, I’m appalled.”
Look, it’s actually terrible that there’s a public interest in even the minor private health records of a government official. Unfortunately, that’s what the country signed up for when it turned a life-tenured priesthood into the arbiters of the most important conflicts over government policy. Until we embrace the wisdom of term limits for active judgeships, the public is entirely justified in expecting reports on the justice’s morning stool samples like the royal stand-ins they are.
Thankfully, thanks to quick action and attentive hospital service, Roberts was healthy enough today to strip millions of women of their access to health care.
Chief Justice Roberts recently spent a night in a hospital [ABC News]
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.