As you can hardly help knowing, the New York Times has devoted breathless reporting by multiple correspondents to Justice Samuel Alito’s taste in flags. Based on that reportage, a host of left-wing politicians and commentators are demanding that the Justice resign, be impeached or, at the very least, refrain from taking part in cases arising out of the January 6th “insurrection” or even all cases involving Donald Trump.
There’s no need to recount the jeremiads back and forth – not only because they have become repetitious and dreary but because Jeryl Bier of Pluribus has done the homework needed to fatally undermine the factual underpinning of the anti-Alito assault.
The Times claims that the flags hoisted at the homes of Justice Alito and his wife – an upside-down Old Glory and the Revolutionary War Pine Tree flag – are symbols of the “Stop the Steal” movement. Mr. Bier demonstrates that such is not the case, drawing his proofs from . . . the New York Times.
To wit, a week after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the Times
published a “Visual Investigation” titled “Decoding the Far-Right Symbols at the Capitol Riot.” Neither the inverted American flag nor the Appeal to Heaven/Pine Tree flag were mentioned in the article–the latter despite a brief appearance in a video clip accompanying the article.
The following day, as part of the
Times’s Learning Network, a suggested lesson for high school students was
posted that promised “[i]n this lesson, students will learn about the people who participated in the violence at the Capitol as well as the flags, clothing and hand gestures they displayed and what they represent.” Neither the inverted US flag, a supposed “‘Stop the Steal’ Symbol”, nor the “provocative” Appeal to Heaven flag were mentioned in the lesson. They were apparently not worth including in the “dizzying array of symbols, slogans and images” the linked article discussed.
The more detailed Visual Investigation was preceded by an
article that ran on Jan. 6 itself entitled “Stunning Images as a Mob Storms the U.S. Capitol”. It included no images of either of the purported far-right symbols either.
In short, the association of the Alito’s flags with the January 6th riots was a concocted smear. The story is as phony as the Rathergate memos and deserves the same scorn.
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