A couple of weeks ago, I expressed the fear that, if the Democratic party were to try to pack the Supreme Court, the media would run cover for the enterprise, implicitly or explicitly:

if the Democrats give in to their worst instincts the next time they enjoy uniform power, all manner of supposedly respectable figures are likely to go along. Undoubtedly, the press will be among them. In theory, our journalists exist to push back against this sort of Jacobinism. In practice, they are sympathetic to the ends and therefore indulgent of the means. If it comes to it, they will mislead, euphemize, downplay, and create false equivalences, such that contextualized debate becomes impossible. The Democrats’ press releases will be echoed in the newspapers verbatim.

if the Democrats give in to their worst instincts the next time they enjoy uniform power, all manner of supposedly respectable figures are likely to go along. Undoubtedly, the press will be among them. In theory, our journalists exist to push back against this sort of Jacobinism. In practice, they are sympathetic to the ends and therefore indulgent of the means. If it comes to it, they will mislead, euphemize, downplay, and create false equivalences, such that contextualized debate becomes impossible. The Democrats’ press releases will be echoed in the newspapers verbatim.

Yesterday, Politico‘s Josh Gerstein illustrated precisely why I am worried. Gerstein penned a report about a speech by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in which Jackson had “urged Americans”:

to defend the judicial system against salvos that jeopardize its independence, warning that such threats have the potential to do serious damage to American democracy.

to defend the judicial system against salvos that jeopardize its independence, warning that such threats have the potential to do serious damage to American democracy.

Specifically, Gerstein reported, Jackson had said that:

“Equal justice under law is a key tenet to freedom in our society, and in order to have that, you have to have an independent judiciary — one that is not beholden to the political branches or beholden to people,” Jackson said during an appearance before hundreds of students at Southern Methodist University. “I just wish that people really focused on that and, therefore, stood up in some ways for the judiciary, when people — judges are being attacked and undermined, that is really an attack on our society.”

“Equal justice under law is a key tenet to freedom in our society, and in order to have that, you have to have an independent judiciary........

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