Those of us who watch CNN, listen to NPR or monitor media ops on a professional basis know that the media recently blew up a story about the Alito household flying an upside-down flag as a symbol of distress after the Biden takeover and militarization of D.C.
Apart from the sheer nonsense of the story, there was one obvious unanswered question. Why was the media suddenly ‘pouncing’ on a story from Jan 2021? If this was such a big deal, why didn’t the media cover it then?
The answer is they had the story and they held it.
The wife of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. told a Washington Post reporter in January 2021 that an upside-down American flag recently flown on their flagpole was “an international signal of distress” and indicated that it had been raised in response to a neighborhood dispute.
Martha-Ann Alito made the comments when the reporter went to the couple’s Fairfax County, Va., home to follow up on a tip about the flag, which was no longer flying when he arrived…
The Post decided not to report on the episode at the time because the flag-raising appeared to be the work of Martha-Ann Alito, rather than the justice, and connected to a dispute with her neighbors, a Post spokeswoman said. It was not clear then that the argument was rooted in politics, the spokeswoman said.
More aptly, it wasn’t very useful then. It’s useful now as part of a strategic attack on the Supreme Court especially in preparation for litigation involving Trump. The push is on to get Justice Alito and Justice Thomas to either recuse themselves from Trump election or immunity cases, or for Biden to announce a court-packing scheme while Dems still have a Senate majority, and so an old story the media didn’t even bother with it in 2021 is suddenly big news in 2024.
And that’s how it works.
Much like the Dems have opposition research ready and waiting to go on anyone Trump picks as VP and on possible Senate candidates, so too the Dem media has files packed full of opposition research on Republican candidates, officials and, as it turns out, Supreme Court justices.