When news broke Monday night that the Supreme Court had reportedly voted to overturn Roe v. Wade and a draft of Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion had been leaked to Politico, there was a huge range of reactions. Despair, rage, dejection, determination—there were a lot of valid responses to be had. And then there were the people whose first reaction was to take to their fainting couches and lament the leak itself as undermining those all-important institutional norms.
Those people all need to take a seat today.
Some of this obsession with norms is coming from conservatives operating under the assumption that the draft was leaked by a liberal, pro-choice aide or clerk or someone else with access to the document. Some of them are going so far as to call the leak an “insurrection” and to insist the FBI be brought in to investigate.
Laura Ingraham says it’s “incumbent” for Chief Justice Roberts to drag every law clerk before him and say “give me your phone” to catch the leaker.
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) May 3, 2022
“Or the FBI. Give me your phones, we want all of your accounts. We have to look at every device…” pic.twitter.com/BYS1pCMSMn
John Kennedy this morning is pretending to outraged over the leak, saying it was done by a “misguided zealot” who should be investigated by the FBI and criminally prosecuted. Sen Whitehouse explains that Exec Branch has no juris over Sup Ct and likely no law was broken anyway. pic.twitter.com/m3hLyVrEaM
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) May 3, 2022
There is little question that this leak is designed to create threat to the life and limb of any justice who signs onto the majority opinion. Prosecution to the full extent of the law.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) May 3, 2022
No man I’m pretty sure the actual insurrection was last January 6th pic.twitter.com/sPog3PqFER
— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) May 3, 2022
There is no proof that the leak was done by a liberal insider and in fact, there is a strong argument being made that the point was to lock in any wavering conservative justices, making sure no one flips and that this decision moves forward as written. (Here’s a great thread breaking that down.)
But the “liberal zealot” narrative is an obvious fit for Fox News and rabid Republicans so it’s easy to dismiss. What I have much less patience for is the more middle-of-the-road pearl-clutching, mostly coming from older white men, who are so much more outraged at the idea of the leak—at the perceived undermining of institutions—than they are at the content of the leak and the fact that the reproductive rights and bodily autonomy of half the population are being stolen from us.
I have absolutely no patience for those people.
the U.S. Supreme Court — which once ruled that Black people had no rights — lost its innocence when someone leaked a draft opinion to a reporter pic.twitter.com/AreYTdnTSn
— Terrence T. McDonald (@terrencemcd) May 3, 2022
Sen. Warren on the fact that the draft opinion was leaked.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 3, 2022
“Really? You think the whole issue is about a leak?” she told me. “This is about five extremist justices … at least two of them swore up and down that they cared about the rule of law and Roe v Wade is settled law.”
Dear Journalism: the headline here isn’t the “unprecedented leak.”
— LauraLeslieWRAL (@LauraLeslieWRAL) May 3, 2022
playing the smallest of small violins for whoever is crying about the “unprecedented leak”
— the hot dam historian (@varsha_venkat_) May 3, 2022
get your priorities straight dum dums
You know what literally no one needs right now? For the guy famous for exposing himself to colleagues on a Zoom call to weigh in on how this “shattering experience” affects the court.
“There has never been a leak of a vote, much less an actual opinion, much less in a case of this significance,” @JeffreyToobin says. He calls it a “shattering experience for the justices” and says “I really don’t know how the institution is going to recover.” pic.twitter.com/ndkFO9vq0u
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 3, 2022
Some people need to get their priorities in order, especially if those people are being paid to write headlines or go onto cable news shows to give ostensibly expert analysis about this cataclysmic moment in time.
It’s also worth noting that while this sort of leak is rare (and sure, pretty important if still not what everyone should be focusing their anger on right now), it’s not unprecedented.
In 1973, the result in Roe leaked to Time magazine. Justice Burger wanted all clerks to undergo lie detector tests, but Rehnquist and Brennan objected: pic.twitter.com/UkmOVzYYEL
— JP Schnapper-Casteras (@jpscasteras) May 3, 2022
Also, at the end of the day, we’re talking about an institution that a lot of people don’t hold in that high esteem anyway—at least not like Jeffrey Toobin thinks we do. It’s hard to undermine an institution that appears to be in a constant state of undermining itself.
I’m sorry but no one who came of age with Bush v Gore (eg anyone under like 50) has ever seen the Supreme Court as “apolitical”
— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) May 3, 2022
The constitution is made up. The Supreme Court is made up. We could literally push all those old people down a flight of stairs. We are literally all choosing to play by these dumb rules.
— Microplastics Enjoyer (@EclecticHams) May 3, 2022
the reaction of an institution confident that it is reflecting the will of the people https://t.co/3oogitLsfF
— Kit Duckworth (@cgduckworth) May 3, 2022
I feel like I’m losing my mind when analysts and pundits say this leak has ruined the legitimacy of the court when one Justice tried to rape a girl, another is in a literal cult, and yet another harassed women and then helped his wife plan a coup. Like what are we doing here?
— April Wolfe (@AWolfeful) May 3, 2022
My kingdom for one mainstream reporter to just say the obvious that any court that includes a rapist, a woman bound to submit to her husband, and a man who HELPED HIS WIFE TRY TO OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT should not be the arbiter of our laws and rights.
— April Wolfe (@AWolfeful) May 3, 2022
(image: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Published: May 3, 2022 02:04 pm