I’m not sure I totally buy it. NPR reported… “Just days before her death, as her strength waned, Ginsburg dictated this statement to her granddaughter Clara Spera: “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.””
It’s not like dying was a total surprise to her…why not a more official statement than one to her granddaughter?
As for the substance:
I’m not sure why you would doubt it, since it’s pretty much what you would expect her to wish.
No SC Justice would ever make a political comment like that as an official statement.
Isn’t it possible that Trump could install a new Justice after losing the election, but before Biden takes office?
Yeah, she was a real closed book about Donald Trump, however could we truly know that she felt this way?
I’m sure she wished it. I’m sure she said it. Enshrining it as a “dying wish” is a bit of dramatics that comes across as . . . petty and political?
Should people change their position on governmental process or policy because it was someone’s “dying wish”? Does and should an outgoing SC justice’s desires for their replacement have any real impact on the process for securing that replacement?
To be clear, I probably sit left of RBG on the spectrum, but I rolled my eyes a little at these last words of a truly great American, as well as at those who feel that these last words have any weight or import.
Dying wishes are unenforceable. So who gives a shit? I wanna be spread out around the mountains, but I realize I’ll probably end up in a cat box.
It does seem like an odd turn of phrase to share with a family member on your deathbed.
Even if it’s true, it’s naive.
According to the quote from the OP, it’s a statement she dictated. A dictated statement would be more formal than something you say to whoever is standing next to you as the lights go out.
Besides, for all we know, she made the statement a day or two earlier when she knew she wasn’t going to recover.
The way I see it, it doesn’t really matter whether or not she said it. They were going to ignore it. What just piles on to how scummy they look is to openly deny it.
ETA: @Joey_P types faster than I do.
Reportedly said days before she died. Probably in the same bed, but it’s not like this line was her final words on Earth to anyone about anything.
If I was going to doubt the veracity it’d be on the basis of, as the OP said, “… president installed” versus “… president inaugurated.” That’s a technical term she’d be unlikely to goof up unless drugged out of her gourd. That’d also be the sort of thing her granddaughter (unless she’s clueless; I don’t know anything about her) could have easily cleaned up even if it was said wrongly.
OTOH, RBG could have been deliberately hedging her bets that the exchange of power this time would happen non-traditionally. At which point “installed” might be a better more generic term. Precision of expression is a lifelong habit of good lawyers.
Witness the trainwreck in, e.g. Venezuela with two competing factions claiming to be the chief executive and various other factions within and without government siding with one or the other. Even Venezuela will eventually slay their two-headed beast and someone will then be “installed” as the chief executive singular.
I hope we avoid this future, but I admit I’m not optimistic.
It’s also possible that she meant what she said. the she’s not replaced until we have a new president. If Trump is re-elected, leave her seat vacant until he’s out of office.
Granted, that’s not really a feasible option and it’s not likely what she meant, but I’m just putting it out there.
Given that it seems to have been expressed as a “wish,” as opposed to a hope, desire, or something more plausible, it can be as pie in the sky as you want.
As someone said, a lawyer would choose words carefully.
I wish a lot of things that I don’t hope for. I wish I’d win the lottery, but since I don’t buy tickets, I’m not hoping for it too hard.
It seems likely that Ginsburg would’ve wanted to be replaced by a progressive justice, not likely that it was a dramatic final deathbed statement.
A lot of people put inordinate value on deathbed declarations, and even make up things that people never said.
Examples are Stephen Hawking and Charles Darwin getting religion in their final moments, and Pasteur supposedly renouncing germ theory, all fakes.
Not to be a threadshitter, but… is there really anything here to nitpick about her wording?
No matter how she worded it, her intent is crystal clear: She wants her successor to be someone appointed by a Democratic president, not Trump. Maybe she could have phrased it more surgically or something, but there is zero ambiguity here.
Who’s wording… RBG’s or that of the rogue grand-daughter that the public radio of our nation bought hook, line and sinker? 
RBG should have retired in Obama’s first term. Then there would have been plenty of time. Or even his second. To think she could have held out after Hillary lost… well…