Liberals’ lousy day just got worse. Here they were, ready to make the case that Donald Trump’s America is a sexist, racist, Islamophobic cesspool when cruel reality reared its ugly head.
Yesterday, LU carried the news that the body of Sheila Abdus-Salaam, the first female Muslim to serve as a judge on the New York State Court of Appeals, had been found Wednesday afternoon floating in the Hudson River. From the start, police indicated that foul play was not suspected. But that wasn’t going to spoil a perfect opportunity to dump on the president and conservatives.
Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe got the ball rolling with a tweet that did double duty, first praising Abdus-Salaam as “a remarkable woman,” then suggesting that she was murdered because of her race, religion, and sex.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
1/She was a remarkable woman and a promising judge. This smacks of a racist Islamophobic misogynistic murder. Comey needs to investigate https://t.co/Ns11SMLpxL
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) April 13, 2017
A few minutes later, Tribe issued a second tweet:
2/hate crime angle and Sessions needs to direct Civil Rights Division & Criminal Division to pursue this vigorously
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) April 13, 2017
But last night, New York’s Daily News reported that the judge had been battling depression and most likely took her own life.
State Court of Appeals Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam began taking medication for her darkening moods just a few weeks before her apparent suicide, a well-placed court source told the Daily News.
“There are no apparent injuries to her body,” said NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce. “It appears to be non-criminal … There is no apparent trauma. No physical abnormality at all.”
If that’s not bad enough, The New York Times delivered the coup de grace to Tribe’s theory by noting that the judge, born Sheila Turner (Abdus-Salaam was her first husband’s name), never converted to Islam.
So did that satisfy Prof. Tribe? Surely you jest.
NYT says police believe Abdus-Salaam committed suicide. NYT also doesn’t ID her as Muslim. So @tribelaw might be racing in wrong direction. https://t.co/gelXVmNRz6
— Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) April 13, 2017
Maybe so, @EdWhelanEPPC. Too soon to tell. https://t.co/cVqns4nLZb
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) April 13, 2017