Kentucky GOP Sen. Jim Bunning has apologized for predicting Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, but it doesn’t seem the Supreme Court justice gave it much thought. She was back on the bench Monday, three weeks after having surgery for pancreatic cancer. And she was just as much a spitfire as ever.

Over the weekend, Bunning warned that Ginsburg could be dead from her cancer within nine months, thereby leaving an open seat on the court that conservatives would love to grab. The blogosphere was afire with his comments, thus producing the aforementioned apology.

"I apologize if my comments offended Justice Ginsburg," Bunning said. "That certainly was not my intent. It is great to see her back at the Supreme Court today and I hope she recovers quickly. My thoughts and prayers are with her and her family." That gaffe appears to be just adding more trouble to Bunning’s 2010 re-election bid, even from fellow Republicans who have been nudging him to retire.

Meanwhile, if Ginsburg, 76, was aware of Bunning’s comments, she didn’t let on. The Washington Post called her a "vigorous participant" in Monday’s oral arguments, during which she teased a Supreme Court practitioner with a smile over a previous ruling, and made a point to look directly at reporters when she walked into the room. 

The New York Times points out that Ginsburg took "particular interest" in a case brought by the Navajo Nation claiming that the U.S. government played a role in a private company underpaying the tribe for coal found on its lands.

The court also agreed to hear the case, Salazar v. Buono, which concerns an eight-foot-tall cross erected as a war memorial in California’s Mojave National Preserve. That case, which the court is expected to take up in October, will be the Court’s first religious battle for the Obama administration. The administration’s solicitor general nominee Elena Kagan will have to decide whether to go along with the Bush administration’s defense of the cross or not, a move Bush approved.