on Crow’s private jet: As he told the Dallas Morning News, Crow was meeting with the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis. When officials mentioned that Thomas was speaking to the group in Dallas, Crow offered the justice a lift, since he and the jet were headed home. Other rides would follow. This is no ordinary friendship.Republicans predictably pointed to similar, or similarly questionable, conduct by Democratic-appointed justices. Sen. Lindsey O.
“All hell would break lose in this town,” if a conservative justice behaved that way, Graham said, and he’s got a point, including about the media: “When a liberal justice does something the reaction in the American media is completely different.” Ginsburg, in particular, was treated too gingerly for too long, as she rose from mere justice toAnd for that matter, the current competition for ethics scoops risks drowning the truly problematic behavior in a sea of minor lapses, if that.
But the Republican whataboutism doesn’t prove what Republicans think it does. They see the lack of attention to the ethical lapses of justices appointed by Democrats as evidence of an effort to “delegitimatize the Supreme Court” now that it is firmly in conservative hands. I see it as proof that the problem is systemic, and that something needs to be done — especially because the justices seem incapable of acting on their own.