Like a rabid dog gnawing on a bone, the New York Times will just not let go of the non-story involving Justice Samuel Alito’s wife, Martha-Ann, and a 2021 dispute with a neighbor that allegedly culminated in Mrs. Alito “briefly” flying the American flag upside down 11 days after the Capitol riot.
Not even counting the guest essays, letters to the editor, opinion pieces, and Spanish language versions they’ve published on the issue, by my count they’ve published nine – count ’em – nine articles over the last two weeks related to flag-flying at the homes of the Alito family, from the upside down one at their primary residence in 2021 to the Revolutionary War-era “Appeal to Heaven” flag that was flown at various points in 2023 at their beach house.
The insinuations have been clear in all of them: In their view and that of their “experts,” due to the alleged Jan. 6th symbolism of the flags, Mrs. Alito is sympathetic to the beliefs of the Capitol rioters and as such, her alleged beliefs have compromised Justice Alito’s ability to impartially judge cases related to Jan. 6 and the 2020 presidential election.
READ MORE: Sens. Durbin, Whitehouse Up Ante With John Roberts on Alito Flag Issue, There Should Be Only One Response
Their latest piece, again written by Pulitzer Prize-winning “reporter” Jodi Kantor, dramatically centers around a timeline of events regarding the 2021 flag-flying incident, the one that Justice Alito said “briefly” happened “in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”
But Kantor wrote that according to records they dug up surrounding the dispute (records that stemmed from a phone call made to the police by the woman’s husband), an incident where Mrs. Alito was called the “c” word by the female neighbor Justice Alito told Fox News about didn’t happen until a month after the flag was seen flying:
Just published: Mrs. Alito’s conflict with her neighbors in Virginia escalated so much that the neighbors called the police. But that final incident, which Justice Alito said helped spur his wife to raise the upside-down flag, happened a month after the flag was up.… pic.twitter.com/3xoILuVdpN
— Jodi Kantor (@jodikantor) May 29, 2024
The paper also heavily leaned into the recollection of events as told by the (now-former) neighbors involved in the feud. They portray themselves, of course, as just mild-mannered but passionate liberal folks who were not trying to goad the Justice and his family but who were merely expressing their First Amendment rights with their curse-word-themed signage posted near where kids caught the school bus. They did admit to using the vulgar term on Mrs. Alito but suggested they only did so because she allegedly gave them no choice:
To better understand the clash, The Times interviewed Ms. [Emily] Baden, her mother and her husband, as well as other neighbors, and reviewed the texts that Ms. Baden and her husband sent to friends after the episodes. Justice Alito, who did not respond to questions for this article, has in recent weeks given his own explanation of what happened.
[…]
But in the Baden family’s version, the justice’s wife initiated the conflict. “Aside from putting up a sign, we did not begin or instigate any of these confrontations,” Ms. Baden said later.
The whole purpose of the piece was to cast doubt on Justice Alito’s impartiality and credibility as well as to portray Mrs. Alito as a Crazy Lady who repeatedly harassed her neighbors for having a different point of view. But when one reads between the lines here, the Badens come off as the real fruitcakes with an ax to grind, as explained well by conservative commentator Amber Duke:
So the couple the Alitos got into a spat with were a pro-BLM mid-30s unmarried white couple with a “pandemic puppy” living at their parents’ house. Let’s just acknowledge the amazing typecasting here.
The couple claims they “didn’t instigate” except they acknowledge they put up the f**k Trump sign and then committed to keeping it up after Mrs. Alito mentioned she found it offensive. They later added another sign saying, “you’re complicit,” which they claim was directed at Republicans. After January 6, they admit again to deliberately driving past Alito’s house to “see what she was doing.” Then they had the gall to claim to be the victims and called the police on the older homeowner they were deliberately f**king with. Okay.
And at the end of the day, as Duke and others also observed, the alleged “inconsistency” in the timeline of the Alitos’ version of events still does not prove the flag was intended to show solidarity with the Capitol rioters.
This continues to be, as my colleague Brad Slager pointed out in his analysis of the hit pieces, a classic “manufactured narrative” by the Democrat apologists in the MSM:
This exposes the desperation seen in the press this past week. After years of exhaustive study spent looking for any indicator they could find to accuse anyone of insurrection, somehow this historic flag never managed to ping on the media’s radar – until last week.
We are looking at a completely fabricated outrage, and the press has resorted to reporting on the “growing” tide of indignation to have Alito step down – coming from the press. This lame attempt is producing little more than eye-rolling from the public. The news outlets need to wave their white flags on this issue.
And upside down if they have to.
Flashback: Justice Alito Leaves Progressive Smear Merchants Crying as He Scoops Them on Their Own Story
