On Tuesday, my colleague Jim Thompson dissected the latest media hit piece against Samuel Alito, which came courtesy of Rolling Stone magazine in a story that tried to (falsely) portray the conservative Supreme Court Justice as a far-right extremist whose goal is to turn the U.S into a theocracy.
For those who missed it, the article centered around secret audio recordings from far-left activist/filmmaker Lauren Windsor, an ActBlue fundraiser who obtained them under false pretenses by misrepresenting herself as a Christian conservative during the Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual dinner, which was on June 3rd. Among other things, Alito agreed with Windsor's (fake) statement that she hoped America would return to a "place of godliness."
But contra to the leftist freak-out over the comments, "Judges don’t have to give up having opinions that leftists don’t like," Jim noted in his write-up. "A judge can hope that the country moves back toward God without compromising his commitment to the Constitution."
Rolling Stone Hacks Claim an Alito 'Gotcha,' Post a 2,000-Word Nothingburger
The especially interesting thing, in my view, about the snippets that were released to the media is not so much what Justice Alito was recorded as saying but what his wife, Martha-Ann, was.
Before we dive into that, let's recall that Mrs. Alito's flag-flying was the subject of multiple hit pieces from the New York Times.
The Times and their purported "experts" proclaimed flying the American flag upside down, as Mrs. Alito briefly did ten days after the January 2021 Capitol riot in response to a woketivist neighbor, and raising the "Appeal to Heaven" flag at their beach home in 2023, meant she was sympathetic to the J6 defendants.
As such, Justice Alito himself could not be impartial in cases related to J6 and the 2020 election, according to his critics, because that likely meant he might hold the same or similar views his wife allegedly did.
Justice Alito's argument in response to the hit pieces was that he had no involvement in flying them and actually encouraged her not to fly the U.S. flag upside down. The NYT tried to blow holes in that argument by pointing to an alleged "inconsistency" in his timeline of events.
But though the supposed "inconsistency" itself was also a nothingburger, as explained here, Mrs. Alito's comments to Windsor on that tape - which once again for the record was made when she didn't know she was being recorded - blow a big hole in the NYT's glaring insinuations about Justice Alito sharing Mrs. Alito's alleged pro-flag flying/Capitol rioter sympathies:
In Windsor’s recording, the justice’s wife sounded unrepentant, describing her critics as “feminazis” and threatening libel lawsuits against the press.
“There’s a five-year defamation statute of limitations,” Alito said. “Don’t get angry. Get even.” She also expressed deep resentment about newspaper criticism of her fashion choices “early on” and said her husband’s efforts to rein in her penchant for flying provocative flags have largely fallen short.
“He never controls me,” she told Windsor.
Martha-Ann Alito did say she has deferred to her husband in recent days by not seeking, for now, to counter an LGBTQ pride flag flying near their home. “I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across the lagoon at the pride flag for the next month,” she said. “I said, ‘When you are free of this nonsense, I’m putting it up.’”
Listen:
The Wall Street Journal, too, picked up on the point in an editorial they wrote after the recordings were released:
Mrs. Alito, in my opinion, is quickly approaching legend/thug life status in my book for how she's responded to the nontroversies, unapologetic while poking a gigantic needle in all the leftist stereotype balloons about supposedly meek and subservient conservative wives.
But beyond that, her remarks have indeed undercut the central argument behind the New York Times' flag hit pieces and the corresponding blowback from left-wing critics and other various and assorted hacktivists. She indeed is the one who flew the flags, not her husband, who she also confirmed is not a flag aficionado at all.
It shouldn't have had to come to this, because even if Justice Alito was on board with the U.S. flag flying upside down and the Appeal to Heaven flag being raised at the beach house, none of that would mean he (nor Mrs. Alito) has a soft spot for the Capitol rioters. That is a fantasy concocted out of whole cloth by The Usual Suspects, and one that Mrs. Alito shot down in the secret recordings that actually lend even more credence to the Alitos in this stupid fight, not their unhinged critics.