Not making a decision is a decision
By 
You would think a judge of all people would understand that, but I guess some men you just can’t reach:
Justice Stephen G. Breyer says he is struggling to decide when to retire from the Supreme Court and is taking account of a host of factors, including who will name his successor. “There are many things that go into a retirement decision,” he said.
He recalled approvingly something Justice Antonin Scalia had told him.
“He said, ‘I don’t want somebody appointed who will just reverse everything I’ve done for the last 25 years,’” Justice Breyer said during a wide-ranging interview on Thursday. “That will inevitably be in the psychology” of his decision, he said.
“I don’t think I’m going to stay there till I die — hope not,” he said.
Justice Breyer, 83, is the oldest member of the court, the senior member of its three-member liberal wing and the subject of an energetic campaign by liberals who want him to step down to ensure that President Biden can name his successor.
The justice tried to sum up the factors that would go into his decision. “There are a lot of blurred things there, and there are many considerations,” he said. “They form a whole. I’ll make a decision.”
He paused, then added: “I don’t like making decisions about myself.”
The good news here is that it’s pretty evident that the pressure that’s being put on Breyer appears to be having its intended effect: Reading between the lines of this interview, I now think it’s much more likely than not that Breyer will announce his retirement next summer, at the conclusion of the Supreme Court’s next term.
Of course 10 months is a long time when you’re 83, or 88 (like Dianne Feinstein, in a state that just might make a right wing talk show host its new governor), or 81 and in poor health (like Patrick Leahy), or about to turn 80 in a couple of weeks after having had a heart attack recently (like Vermont’s other senator) etc. etc.
Still, it’s hard not to get exasperated by Breyer’s absurd conceit that there’s some sort of difficult public policy calculus that he’s trying to undertake here. There are literally thousands of candidates for the job he’s holding onto who would be more than adequate replacements for him, with the added bonus that they would be 30 or 40 years younger. It’s a difficult decision for him, because he likes being on the SCOTUS and doesn’t want to quit.
In other words, as in RBG’s case, we have pure selfishness masquerading as some sort exercise in stoic public spiritedness.
Anyway, some people have to play their little games.
We’ll just have to hope this one has a less catastrophic outcome than the one Ginsburg played and lost.