When Amy Coney Barrett came before that microphone in the Rose Garden to make her official introduction to the wider public, you knew you were getting a different sort of Supreme Court nominee. This wasn’t polished civics instructor Neil Gorsuch or earnest political operator Brett Kavanaugh. Here was a joyous, American-as-apple-pie judge next door. “I love the United States, and I love the United States Constitution,” she said on that Saturday afternoon at the White House. “I am truly humbled by the prospect of serving on the Supreme Court.” What a breath of fresh air amid the 2020 miasma, disarming critics and even dispelling some of the toxic clouds over Washington. Barrett’s resume is impressive: Latin honors in college and law school, a Supreme Court clerkship, a distinguished professorial career with prolific scholarship. Yet the unassuming nature of this Notre Dame professor-turned-7th Circuit judge sets her apart from the Ivy-festooned club she’s set to join. As the mother of seven, including two adopted from Haiti, she would become the first female justice with school-age children. “The president has asked me to become the ninth justice, and, as it happens, I am used to being in a group of nine — my family,” Barrett quipped, in a twist on Kavanaugh’s “team of nine” moniker. Indeed, how she and her husband Jesse, also a successful lawyer, juggle it all is as remarkable as Barrett’s accomplishments. The shot...