John Roberts Is Too Busy Imagining Right-Wing Attacks On SCOTUS To Condemn Leftists’ War On It

Following several landmark rulings during last year’s Supreme Court term, which included the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the upholding of Second Amendment rights, and an affirmation of constitutionally protected religious liberty, leftists throughout the country’s various institutions have been hard at work in their attempts to destroy the credibility of SCOTUS. But Chief Justice John Roberts, who has shown remarkable efficiency in targeting conservatives when he fears their critiques endanger his bench’s legitimacy, has been conspicuously silent as leftists declare open season on the institution of the Supreme Court.

Since the high court kicked off its 2022-23 term earlier this week, the corporate media have launched a barrage of attacks against the body’s Republican-appointed justices and are issuing warnings about potential future decisions that don’t fit their distorted view of reality. In the pages of New York Magazine, for instance, writer Ed Kilgore whines that the court’s 2021-22 term was “the most damaging” for “progressives” in “living memory,” and opined that this year’s term “will have multiple opportunities to further the idea that [SCOTUS is] little more than an extension of the Republican Party.”

“[T]here will be plenty of opportunities in the 2022–23 term for the right-wing majority that reversed Roe v. Wade to upset additional progressive precedents and carve out new areas of constitutional law that could strengthen privileges for white people, conservative Christians, private-property interests, and red-state lawmakers,” Kilgore writes.

Of course, any efforts to smear non-leftist entities by America’s propaganda press wouldn’t be complete without input from The Washington Post and The New York Times.

“Supreme Court, dogged by questions of legitimacy, is ready to resume,” a Thursday headline from the Post reads.

“The Supreme Court Isn’t Listening, and It’s No Secret Why,” a Saturday headline from the Times’ editorial board opines, with the writers hyperbolically claiming that “[a] court that does not keep [public] trust cannot perform its critical role in American government.”

The highly contentious issues scheduled to come before SCOTUS this term include affirmative action, federal immigration policy, “whether business owners can refuse services” to LGBT customers “based on religious liberty claims,” “[v]oter redistricting, and the discretion of state legislatures to create congressional election boundaries,” as well as others.

The Buck Stops with Joe Biden

The wave of open hostility towards SCOTUS, particularly over the court’s takedown of Roe‘s invented “right” to an abortion, isn’t exclusive to the country’s partisan press. Rather, it’s being spearheaded by President Joe Biden.

Since the June release of the court’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Biden has routinely lambasted SCOTUS and has sought to undermine its legitimacy at every available opportunity. Beginning on June 24, the day Dobbs was released, Biden unleashed a series of attacks against the high court, saying that the “conservative majority of the Supreme Court” showed “how extreme it is” and “how far removed they are from the majority of this country.”

The court is taking the country down an “extreme and dangerous path,” he added.

Less than a week later on June 30, Biden proceeded to declare to the world while at a NATO summit in Spain that SCOTUS’s “outrageous behavior” in overturning Roe is “the one thing that has been destabilizing [the world].”

A day later on July 1, the president continued with attempts to further denigrate the high court, once again referring to it as an “extremist” institution during a virtual meeting with Democrat governors over abortion.

“I’m joined by a group of Democratic governors as we work closely to protect women’s rights after this tragic reversal of Roe v. Wade — a terrible, extreme decision, in my view, upending the lives and impacting on the health and safety of millions of women,” Biden said. “And I share the public outrage at this extremist Court that’s committed to moving America backwards with fewer rights, less autonomy, and politicians invading the most personal of decisions of not only women but we’ll find, if they expend — expand on this decision, men as well.”

Where’s John Roberts?

Despite Biden’s unprecedented wave of attacks against SCOTUS, the body’s chief justice, John Roberts, is nowhere to be found. While the George W. Bush appointee did issue remarks this past summer questioning “the connection between the opinions people disagree with and the legitimacy of the Supreme Court,” he has not explicitly condemned or addressed Biden’s attacks on the high court.

The same could not be said, however, when it came to responding to criticisms issued by former President Donald Trump of leftist judges engaged in political activism from the bench. Back in November 2018, the Republican president blasted a federal judge appointed by former President Barack Obama for blocking one of his administration’s immigration policies, saying that the ruling was “a disgrace.”

“Because every case, no matter where it is, they file it — practically, I mean practically — for all intents and purposes — they file it in what’s called the 9th Circuit. This was an Obama judge. And I’ll tell you what, it’s not going to happen like this anymore,” Trump said. “Everybody that wants to sue the United States, they file their case in — almost — they file their case in the 9th Circuit. And it means an automatic loss no matter what you do, no matter how good your case is.”

When asked for comment on the president’s remarks by the Associated Press, Roberts responded with a statement directly addressing Trump’s criticisms, saying that the judiciary does “not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.”

“What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them,” Roberts said. “The independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”

Unlike Biden’s, Trump’s comments didn’t call into question the credibility of the judiciary, let alone label the Obama appointee or the 9th Circuit as “extremist.” Moreover, Trump never went before the world’s leading nations and accused his own country’s judiciary of stripping rights from American citizens. So why the response from Roberts to Trump but not Biden?

While former colleagues of Roberts such as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz have indicated that the chief justice appears to “despise[] Donald Trump,” the double standard seems to fall in line with Roberts’ history of political activism on the high court. Whether it’s been his behind-the-scenes deal with leftist justices to save Obamacare or his ill-fated attempt to preserve Roe, Roberts has regularly demonstrated a willingness to forfeit the traditional principles of a judge in order to avoid negative coverage from the country’s corrupt, left-wing media.

As detailed in their bestselling book, “Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court,” for example, Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway and President of the Judicial Crisis Network Carrie Severino note how Roberts “was uneasy with the prospect of the Court’s making such a major change” to Obamacare and “feared it would be blamed for the likely fallout in the insurance markets” if the court struck it down.

CBS News’ Jan Crawford has also reported similar findings, revealing that “Roberts pays attention to media coverage” and that “[a]s chief justice, he is keenly aware of his leadership role on the court” and “is sensitive to how the court is perceived by the public.”

While rebuking Trump offered no real threat of bad coverage from legacy media, a statement condemning Biden for his attacks on the court almost certainly would. Then again, maybe Roberts is just too busy identifying and punishing the Dobbs leaker — oh wait, he still hasn’t gotten around to that either.

Whatever the ultimate reason may be for his continued silence, Roberts’ double standard doesn’t bode well for the chief justice’s apparent bid to preserve SCOTUS’s long-term reputation. If he had any real interest in preserving the integrity of the institution he serves, Roberts should abandon his role as a politician and become the originalist judge the country needs him to be.

Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

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