Mediaboss Marketing

Its hard to imagine a clearer violation of journalistic ethics than pretending to hold beliefs you dont, asking Supreme Court justices if they agree, and surreptitiously recording their answers at a no-media dinner. The novelty of the stunt, however, shouldnt distract us from the real takeaway, which is precisely that the recordings yielded nothing we didnt already know.

The key conclusions are that Justice Samuel Alito is a religious man; his wife Martha-Ann likes political flags; and Chief Justice John Roberts is genuinely committed to the (somewhat unrealistic) idea that only elected officials not judges should make moral decisions.

The recording was obtained by liberal documentarian Lauren Windsor at the annual dinner of the Supreme Court Historical Society, itself a rather misunderstood event. As someone whos been to the dinner (I was the speaker one year after writing a book on Supreme Court history) let me try to set the scene.

The dinner is a reasonably accessible way for a non-billionaire to hobnob with the justices: Anyone who buys a $500 ticket can attend, which is how Windsor got in. That might sound like a lot of money, but its much less than many non-rich people pay to go to sporting events or Taylor Swift concerts.

Yet the dinner feels elite. The dress code is black tie. The cause supporting the societys work on the history of the court is worthy, but niche. And the dinner, which is supposed to be off the record, takes place in the great hall of the Supreme Court building, all marble and very grand.

The key point is that, at the dinner, the justices are comfortably at home (its their office, after all). They are also, to a degree, the effective hosts of the event. They seem relaxed and friendly, and they get to be real people. Or at least, they used to now they will have to know they can be recorded by their guests.

Windsor got Justice Alito to say that in contemporary America, there can be a way of living together peacefully, but its difficult because there are differences on fundamental things that really cant be compromised. Um, yes? That statement seems incontrovertibly true.

The false-flag journalist then insisted that people who believe in God must keep fighting to return our country to a place of godliness. Alito agreed. Although godliness here is left vague, its hard to imagine a genuinely God-fearing person answering otherwise.

As for Mrs. Alito, she of the scores of flags flown at two homes, the most the provocateur could get was that she had been considering flying a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag to respond to a Pride flag in her neighborhood during June but that her husband had asked her Oh please, dont put up a flag. The exchange appeared to confirm Alitos letter to two senators in which he essentially said that his wife likes flying flags and all he can do is ask her not to.

As for Roberts, the chief responded to Windsors prompts by giving his patented mini-lecture about how justices are just lawyers who shouldnt take moral right and wrong into account. He also firmly rejected the suggestion that the US is a Christian nation and that the justices should be guided by that idea.

Its hard to see how a court could make decisions about racial equality or abortion rights or gun control without taking some kind of moral stand. Justices Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were great, morally driven advocates for equality who carried their moral values into their Supreme Court service. Even Justice Neil Gorsuch, a non-moral textualist by his own account, is clearly morally motivated in Indian law cases by the profound injustices done to the tribes over centuries. That seems praiseworthy, at least to me.

Justices are human beings, not machines. We should allow them to be humans, even at social events. And we should grow out of the fantasy of justices as perfectly impartial automatons free of human fallibility.

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People.

View original post here:
Column: Secret audio of Alito isn't the smoking gun liberals think - The Virginian-Pilot