Matthew Kacsmaryk — sole federal judge in the Amarillo division of the Northern District of Texas and recently responsible for invalidating the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of the abortion drug mifepristone — is “the worst federal judge in America,” recently declared Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus, who covers the Supreme Court. Kacsmaryk is worthy of the moniker, opines Marcus, “not simply for the poor quality of his judicial reasoning,” but for “the loaded content of his rhetoric,” which is not impartial, but that of a “zealot.”
Marcus’ charge is rhetorical bombast at its worst, but on what does she base it? Her own ideological zealotry and blatant bias, ironically enough.
Addressing the Accusations
“My beef is with ideologues in robes,” declares Marcus, pointing to the fact that Kacsmaryk “served as deputy general counsel at the conservative First Liberty Institute” and “argued against same-sex marriage, civil rights protections for gay and transgender individuals, the contraceptive mandate and, of course, Roe v. Wade.” Then again, there are plenty of liberal activists serving on the court, as well: U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, for example, is a well-known abortion advocate, earlier this year speciously speculating from the bench that the Constitution might confer a right to abortion. And prior to being selected for the Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had a consistent record of taking pro-choice positions. But, their stances on abortion are the “right” ones, so presumably Marcus has no problem with their bias.
Marcus also takes umbrage with
