LOUISVILLE, Ky. — U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning is apologizing to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for saying that he believes she could die in less than a year from pancreatic cancer.
Bunning, a Kentucky Republican, said Saturday that Ginsburg has the type of cancer that people often die from within nine months.
He said in a statement today that it wasn’t his intent to offend Ginsburg with the remarks and apologizes if he did. Ginsburg returned to the bench today and Bunning says it is great to see her back at work.
The Courier-Journal of Louisville reports the two-term senator’s remarks came when he said he supports conservative judges “and that’s going to be in place very shortly” because Ginsburg has cancer.
Doctors removed a small tumor this month from the 75-year-old Ginsburg.
Ginsburg has “bad cancer, the kind that you don’t get better from,” Bunning said during a 30-minute Lincoln Day dinner speech Saturday in Elizabethtown, according to the Courier-Journal.
Doctors diagnosed the 75-year-old justice and removed a small tumor this month. They said the cancer was caught early, when it is most curable.
“Even though she was operated on, usually, nine months is the longest that anybody would live” with pancreatic cancer, Bunning had said.
Bunning, a Hall-of-Fame baseball pitcher, served 12 years in the U.S. House before becoming Kentucky’s junior senator. He is a member of the Finance, Banking, Energy and Budget committees in the Senate, according to his Web site, but apparently has no medical background.
The American Cancer Society estimates that 20 percent to 24 percent of patients whose pancreatic cancer is caught early survive five years.
Bunning has had lackluster fundraising so far, but has said he intends to seek re-election in 2010. Bunning, 77, has had testy exchanges lately with Mitch McConnell, his fellow Kentuckian and the Senate Republican leader and is expected to face a tough re-election challenge.
Ginsburg was appointed in 1993 by President Bill Clinton and is the only woman on the high court. There was no immediate comment today from the court on Bunning’s remarks.
If Ginsburg or another justice leaves, it would fall to President Barack Obama to pick a successor, who must be confirmed by the Senate.
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