Alito’s Marriage Isn’t an Excuse for Upside-Down Flag
Let’s say the Supreme Court justice is accurately portraying what happened at his house. He and his wife still made a serious mistake.
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Photographer: Alex Wong/Getty Images/Getty Images North AmericaThere are two possible explanations for the upside-down flag flown at the Alito home in Arlington in January of 2021. The first, as unnamed neighbors told reporters, is that by inverting the American flag, Justice Samuel Alito and his wife were signaling open support for the “Stop the Steal” movement. The second is the one offered by the justice himself, that the display signaled his wife’s exasperation at her inability even to walk down the street without suffering the frequent and often obscene verbal assaults of neighbors.
The first explanation, if true, would be indefensible. So let’s talk about the second. Because even if the whole brouhaha turns out to be a tempest in a suburban teapot, it still raises important questions, about both the ethical rules governing judges and the imposition of similar restrictions on their families.