The Dishonorable Attack on the Alitos
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
I suppose this is about being an honorable combatant in the middle of a culture war, which entails seeing the humanity of your perceived foe and, in the seeing of it, preserving your own.
The story, which you’ve already heard, is that a left-wing activist who calls herself an “advocacy journalist” went to the June 3 dinner of the Supreme Court Historical Society, a 50-year-old organization whose declared mission is to unearth and preserve the court’s history. During what appears to have been the drinks portion of the evening the activist, called Lauren Windsor, secretly taped private conversations with Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Alito’s wife, Martha-Ann. Ms. Windsor dishonestly presented herself as a conservative Christian. She goaded and baited the Alitos, hoping to get them to say extreme and stupid things, which she would later disseminate on social media.
Mrs. Alito, as appears to be her way—she is commonly described by friends as “a pistol”—said some spirited things. She has been under siege. Her husband wrote the Dobbs decision; she is by extension a target of hatred; she has been verbally confronted in her neighborhood and accused of inappropriate flag flying. Half the accusation—that after words with a neighbor she flew the American flag upside-down—was legitimate. It was a weird choice for the spouse of a justice in a time of tension. The other half—that the old Appeal to Heaven flag was flown at her vacation home, secretly signaling allegiance with the rioters on Jan. 6—was absurd. People on 1/6 carried Bibles and Bic pens too. Should we ban them? Slime those who use them?
The tone of the edited six-minute tape of the conversation with Mrs. Alito is at variance with news reports. Ms. Windsor comes across as a pushy and vaguely hysterical fangirl meeting an idol. Clearly, she was acting out her idea of a Christian and conservative, which is a revved-up nut. Mrs. Alito’s mistake was responding in an egalitarian manner and not breezing past the nut with a quick, false smile.
Ms. Windsor introduces herself: “I’m a huge fan of your husband, and everything you’re going through, I just wanna tell you—”
“It’s OK, it’s OK,” Mrs. Alito says.
Ms. Windsor: “It’s not OK, though! It’s not OK!” Mrs. Alito offers a vow: “If they come back to me, I’ll get them. I’m gonna be liberated and I’m gonna get them.”
Ms. Windsor perks up. A threat! “What do you mean by ‘they’?”
Mrs. Alito answers: “The media.” The press made fun of her from the day she arrived in Washington, at the sparky confirmation hearings for her husband. She implies that when all this is over she’ll be giving them a piece of her mind. Everyone in Washington has this fantasy.
Ms. Windsor says the Appeal to Heaven flag flap was nonsense, and begins to swear excitedly. “Right,” says Mrs. Alito. “But, like, I have the same flag!” Ms. Windsor says. “Yes, I know,” says Mrs. Alito.
“But a lot of people fly that f—flag!” Ms. Windsor says. Mrs. Alito, in what sounds to my ears like a comforting tone: “Don’t worry about it, baby.”
Ms. Windsor says Mrs. Alito is being persecuted as “a convenient stand-in for anybody who’s religious.” Again Mrs. Alito says it will be OK—she’s German and tough. “You come after, me I’m gonna give it back to you.” This part had a “Real Housewives” flavor. “Don’t worry about it.” Mrs. Alito says, read Psalm 27.
Ms. Windsor changes tack, quoting something she had said to Justice Alito. “So I met him last year at this dinner. And I said to him, like, ‘This country is so polarized, how do we repair that rift?’ And he was like, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know, that’s not our role.’ And I told him this year, I’m like, ‘You know for the past year I remembered our conversation and I looked at what happened to you and your wife, and I’m like ‘How is there any negotiating with the radical left?’ ”
Mrs. Alito agrees there isn’t. “There’s not!,” says Mrs. Windsor. “You cannot negotiate with the radical left!” “You have to just win!”
It’s like Sean Hannity on meth.
Ms. Windsor: “No, but you have to win! And if we want to take this country back to, like, a godly place, to a moral place, that means that we actually have to just—”
By now Mrs. Alito is all in, blowing off steam. She’d like to put a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag up across from a pride flag. “Oh, please don’t put up a flag,” her husband says, and she won’t, but after he leaves the court, “I’m putting it up and I’m gonna send them a message every day. Maybe every week I’ll be changing the flags. They’ll be all kinds!”
One believes her.
The edited tapes made front-page news, which was odd in a mainstream media that regularly and rightly scores the right-wing secret-sting-tape-maker James O’Keefe for deceptive reporting.
As to the contents of the Roberts and Justice Alito tapes, the chief justice didn’t take any bait or any nonsense. Of making America more godly, he said, “Would you want me to be in charge of putting the nation on a more moral path? That’s for people we elect. That’s not for lawyers. . . . It’s our job to decide the cases the best we can.”
Justice Alito gave Ms. Windsor more patience, but I agreed with the New York Post editorial that he seemed like someone gently trying to shake off a political obsessive. He agreed that polarization is real, and that for it to end, “one side or the other is going to win. I don’t know. I mean, there can be a way of working—a way of living together peacefully. But it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised.” Still, the court can’t solve polarization. “We have a very defined role, and we need to do what we’re supposed to do.”
The Alitos and Chief Justice Roberts didn’t do or say anything wrong. But there was something quite inhuman in what the left-wing activist did. She treated human beings as if they were mere means to her end. She acted out admiration to perform reputational harm. She presented herself falsely to inflict damage. That the content she produced was disseminated by honest grown-up journalists is to their discredit.
She claims to oppose polarization but fans it, further alienating those who already lack trust in institutions like the court and professionals like journalists. She presents another warning to those who hold or are adjacent to high office: You can’t assume good faith on the part of fellow citizens who seek you out.
More than that, it is deeply Stalinist. In Stalin’s time private life was dead, and private comments too. Neighbor spied on neighbor and reported back subversive comments to the Central Committee. People became spies, rooting out ideological error.
And, if you’re serious, what does it even get you? You persuade nobody. Your ideological friends like it that you owned the cons. Your foes are hardened. You get attention for yourself. So what? You’ll always be the person who got attention that way.
Peggy Noonan
The WSJ
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Reporters don't lie about who they are.
Btw there was nothing wrong with anything Alito said in his private cocktail conversation.
The Windsor playbook only impresses the radicals on the left. Left wing media uses people like her to do the things they don't want to dirty their hands with.
Dishonorable attack on the Alitos?
Mrs. Alito is one hateful and racist bitch. Sounds like she has a lot of influence on Mr., just like Ginny, I think we all know who wears the pants in these bought and paid for judges households.
Why haven't he and Thomas recused themselves from 1/6 - they were a part of it.
The moral for her progressive neighbor is don't use a "pride flag" to taunt your neighbor.
Vergogna
I think we all know that who does is irrelevant.
don't use a "pride flag" to taunt your neighbor.
Flying a flag right side up amounts to taunting your neighbor?
It was a non-violent reaction.
Flying a pride flag is not taunting. You know this.
Come on.
Do you think pride flags should be publicly outlawed? Perhaps you should move to Iran where your feelings would fit right in.
In rwnj world
Look what we made the Alitos do.
What was that?
mission accomplished...
next up, a fat rwnj, owned lock stock and barrel by the federalists, and his insurrectionist sasquatch wife ...
It didn't take much 'goading or baiting' did it?
that bitch fits right in with the revenge and retribution gang
when hubby is done with all that nonsense of the Supreme Court - she is big on getting revenge
Is Harlan Crow a federalist? Or just one who owns clarence?
He has a whole wing in his home dedicated to Nazi memorabilia
Very good.
A historical collection worthy of a museum.
you left out hateful and racist and vengeful
I can't keep up with you.
It has been another rousing response from the left.
The nation's finest speech writer stands a bit taller today.
There's nothing honorable about Alito - bought and paid for
Poor Peggy, she's lost it and gone delusional and demented like much of today's gqp
= oh no, somebody stole a play out of our playbook...
after 50+ years, when will rwnj's grasp the concept of recorded audio and video, especially in this day and age...
Who is James O'Keefe?
That no good lying fake ass scumbag from Project Veritas?
The one it turned out all his stories were complete bullshit?
That Jame O'Keefe?
The one whose lies the MAGA insisted were 100% True Lies?
Folks like “Ms” Windsor have no honor. Have no shame. Like other fundamentalist before them they push their narrative at all costs.
They are the dregs of society.
I wonder if she'll join NT.
Probably already here.
LMAO!
Ooooo, maybe someone will start a pool and we can guess who she is... Or maybe a drinking game... Such fun!!! Almost as much fun as the normal 'Tastes Great / Less Filling' arguments we get over politics here.
It would be a challenge.
Still working on a full set?
ms. Windsor is the actual zealot, willing to do anything because she’s convinced her own righteousness justifies it.
As William F Buckley once warned the FBI's W Mark Felt (not knowing that he was "Deep throat") acting out of righteousness can be a slippery slope.
What one person may consider righteous may be much different than what another considers righteous. It is best that we all follow a decent standard of conduct.
Yep, a radical fundamentalist through and through.
'It is best that we all follow a decent standard of conduct.'
When will the rwnjs do so?
Where are they?
James O Keefe did this sort of thing from the right for over 10 years.
He was even an official Fox News contributor for part of that time.
Spare us the new found outrage.
Media Buzz? Thank Fox News for having a liberal on the panel.
The 'right' don't like it when we use some of their tactics do they?
Nothing new about it but get used to it. It’ll be getting called out regularly.
Sure. Just point me to your posts defending okeefe or favorable coverage of his work from the MSM…
The war on the Supreme Court is out of control. It’s all about laying the ground work for court packing,
Yes, I miss those days of the "activist" courts, when the MSM treated the Court with the utmost respect.
That was before the court was packed with right wing extremists.
"Right wing extremists" must be your little euphemism for strict Constructionists.
Bought and paid for
Elections have consequences.
- Barack Obama
By whom and for what?
They are just pouting because they don’t “win” every decision. If the court had a progressive 6-3 majority and progressive justices acted the exact same way as Alito, they’d be perfectly happy. There is zero principle involved.
There is zero principle involved with the right wing bought and paid for 'justices'
Bazinga!
There is no room for principles when building a utopia. It's kind of like making an omelet.
rwnjs have zero principles to begin with and zero standards
That settles that.
The Court is not packed with right wing extremists.
what the fudge
what does fudge have to do with it?
I do like fudge, though!
The war ON the supreme court?
WOW!!
Psst ... it's been packed unless you are of the school of thought that 6 is a lower number than 3.
The court is not packed.
That's ridiculous.
now you are redefining terms to make an argument?
very orwellian of you.
Cut the verbal diarrhea, if SCOTUS was 6-3 in favor of democrats you'd be whining non-stop.
wow.
I had no idea you had esp and are clairvoyant now
perhaps one day the visions will be correct when they come to you.
Now you know, damn you were easy to teach. My thanks to all the commies who taught/indoctrinated you.
Peggy Noonan, 73, is due for a cognitive test .
Mrs Alito, at best, comes off as a MAGA wannabe on those audios. Her comments are not remotely soothing to people who expect an unbiased judiciary.
So, you called two people names.
Let us know when you can counter Ms Noonan's argument.
I heard the audio of what the Alitos said. That is the counter argument.
The only "defense" of them is "free speech".
Where is objectivity on the Court ?
Noonan's ridiculous idea that these secret tapes represent "Stalinism" is embarrassing.
She questioned the integrity of somebody who lies about who they are and tries to bait someone into saying something.
It is too bad I have to spell out something so obvious.
So, is Ms Noonan right or wrong?
She is right as in rwnj
She is trying to be relevant and perhaps save her job. The WSJ has been sacking a lot of reporters/columnists lately.
As to being "right or wrong", only a partisan can tell for sure.
Gee, I guess there is an explanation for everything.
Some believe that Jack the Ripper simply disliked women debasing themselves as whores.
Jack the Ripper was miffed that Patty the Pathologist dumped him.
I knew there had to be an explanation.
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lol … yes, she committed the ultimate sin. Speaking against the TDS ridden.
Shame on Peggy ….. bad Peggy ….
Who could possibly care what ms. Alito comes off as? Women aren’t their husband's property and have their own opinions.
Amazingly enough, many Americans stay well informed and already know that Mrs. Alito is not a part of the judiciary in any way.
Mrs. Alito is not a part of the judiciary in any way.
She serves a very important position - scapegoats are useful for throwing under buses when public image is at risk.
That's just silly.
Hunter had better hope not.
Alitos showed their asses. They were dirty and stunk up the place...
Dumb and mean is a bad hand. The Alitos bet it all on Trump Cards!
Their obviously biased dirty and prejudiced and hateful asses.
More name calling.
I know somebody who thinks that is a form of "expression."
Better than lying.
The only one who lied was the "activist" reporter.
So, you are not going to answer the question?
Have a good day.
Lying goes on from the right here every single day.
My patience is wearing thin on you calling me a liar.
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Big deal
then stop it
It has to offset all the lying from the left.
Any leftist found those much sought after pee tapes mentioned in the Steele dossier yet?
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Please quote the words said by Justice Alito that have you upset.
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This story was a nothing burger because the secretly taped justices spoke exactly as one would want Supreme Court justices to act. So the left focuses on a spouse to keep stirring the pot. It’s all about destroying the court by any means necessary.
yeah, but it sure got some LWNJs all worked up!
Sad, angry little people.
Very sad, very angry, very small minded …..
Alito is a douchebag, what else is new?
What did Alito do to incur your disdain?
obviously, like you are doing, the Alito Shuffle....