Did you know that the federal judge who vacated the federal mask mandate for airline and public transit passengers on Monday is only 35? The New York Times thought that detail was important, and so did Slate legal writer Mark Joseph Stern.
The fact that critics of U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle's 59-page decision focused on her age rather than her reasoning reflects the confusion of people who tend to assume that any COVID-19 control measure they view as sensible must also be legal. These are two distinct questions, and conflating them amounts to rejecting the rule of law.
