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The media amplification of the allegation recently made by the New York Times, that United States Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito had flown a "Stop the Steal" flag over his Virginia home, has turned an unpleasant dispute between neighbors into something just short of a constitutional crisis. This has been done not in the furtherance of good governance but in an effort to damage the reputation of a competent, if not outstanding, jurist who authored the opinion overturning that most sacred of liberal cows, Roe v. Wade.
For this, the Left believes Justice Alito must be punished—silenced and perhaps even driven from the court.
Justice Alito is experiencing now what Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer warned would happen in 2020: "You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price," the New York Democrat said on the steps of the Supreme Court in early 2020. Schume may not have mentioned Alito by name, but it was clear Schumer meant to include him as he attacked the independence of the federal judiciary.
It is this that is behind the current smearing of the justice. There is in fact no such thing as a "Stop the Steal" flag. The phrase carries with it the idea of an official, sanctioned emblem that is easily recognizable, which is not the case; Justice Alito's home had an upside down American flag flying for a while, which is a recognized symbol of distress. Of course, some of the people who were at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 did carry it that way. But it's hardly a universal symbol of rejecting the 2020 election results in the way the yellow Gadsden Flag came to stand for the Tea Party Movement during the Obama years.
Moreover, there were people on Capitol Hill on January 6 carrying the American flag properly. Does that mean, according to the logic behind the Alito story, that Old Glory itself now represents "Stop the Steal" as well?
It's ridiculous on its face.
We also know, as The Washington Post concluded several years ago when it first investigated the matter, that Justice Alito was not responsible for raising the flag over his family home—it was his wife. How strange that so many of the enlightened liberals now breathing down Justice Alito's neck are unwilling to accept that his wife has the same rights in their home as he does.
Shortly after the first story started to unravel, another appeared identifying a second flag that had been flown over the Alito's vacation home. The Pine Tree flag, as it's commonly known, was also carried by demonstrators on January 6. Supposedly, this was now proof positive the justice is a closet insurrectionist who cannot be trusted to rule fairly.
Except that's not entirely true, either. Just because someone carries a flag in a demonstration doesn't make that flag a symbol of what went on. Plenty of American flags have been carried in anti-America demonstrations. More than a few have been burned. And again, it was Justice Alito's wife who raised it atop the flagpole.
It's all silliness driven by a desire to discredit Justice Alito and, to a further degree, the conservative, originalist majority now in place on the Supreme Court. It leads ultimately to the dangerous prospect of a constitutional crisis. Liberal senators like Dick Durbin of Illinois and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island are demanding Alito recuse himself from hearing cases involving January 6 defendants, the 2020 election, and, one presumes, anything involving the next election in 2024 because he has failed to maintain his impartiality.
That's one of those words, by the way, whose meaning has been distorted over the years. To some people, whether Justice Alito or any other federal judge is impartial is not nearly as important as giving the impression of impartiality—but only when you're a conservative. Liberals get free reign, as when former Planned Parenthood officials and attorneys get to preside over cases involving abortion or when sitting judges who have family members who raise money for Democrats running for political office are allowed to supervise trials where prominent Republicans are criminal defendants.
Objections may be raised, but they are just as easily dismissed. There isn't any one standard, just as there isn't a single "Stop the Steal" flag. Nonetheless, Durbin, Whitehouse, Schumer, and other Democrats will no doubt demand Congress impose a code of ethics on the courts in the face of Justice Alito's refusal to recuse himself.
That's where the crisis will begin—with one co-equal branch of the federal government trying to impose its will on another co-equal branch.
Let's run that up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes.
A Washington, D.C.-based writer and commentator, Peter Roff is a former U.S. News & World Report columnist and UPI senior political writer who is now affiliated with several public policy groups. Write to him at RoffColumns AT GMAIL.com and on social media @TheRoffDraft.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
