Today's New York Times story concerning another Supreme Court leak is in some ways quite an odd linguistic performance. The story is here. It begins:
As the Supreme Court investigates the extraordinary leak this spring of a draft opinion of the decision overturning Roe v. Wade, a former anti-abortion leader has come forward claiming that another breach occurred in a 2014 landmark case involving contraception and religious rights.
In a letter to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and in interviews with the New York Times, the Rev. Rob Schenck said he was told the outcome of the 2014 case weeks before it was announced. He used that information to prepare a public relations push, records show, and he said that at the last minute he tipped off the president of Hobby Lobby, the craft store chain owned by Christian evangelicals that was the winning party in the case.
It's the passive voice in the first sentence of the second paragraph that seems awkward and unusual. The passive voice is what linguists call a construction that uses a form of the verb "to be" in order to leave out the sentence subject or agent—you might say, for example, that "the ball was hit" instead of "John hit the ball." In this case, the second paragraph informs us only that Schenck "was told" of the outcome. Maybe in his interviews with the Times Schenck didn't say who told him?
No, that's not it, but it seems like it's really hard for the Times to get to the point. Here's the fourth paragraph:
Mr. Schenck's allegation creates an unusual, contentious situation: a minister who spent years at the center of the anti-abortion movement, now turned whistle-blower; a denial by a sitting justice; and an institution that shows little outward sign of getting to the bottom of the recent leak of the abortion ruling or of following up on Mr. Schenck's allegation.
I was at first confused by the phrase "a denial by a sitting justice," though if I'd stopped to consider I suppose I might have hit on the conclusion that Schenck must have told the Times that a sitting justice was the source of the leak. It would be odd, however, that the identity of a Supreme Court leaker was held back until after his denial had been clumsily mentioned. Anyway, I plunged unthinkingly ahead, and eventually got to the story's ninth and tenth paragraphs:
In early June 2014, an Ohio couple who were Mr. Schenck's star donors shared a meal with Justice Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann. A day later, Gayle Wright, one of the pair, contacted Mr. Schenck, according to an email reviewed by the Times. "Rob, if you want some interesting news please call. No emails," she wrote.
Mr. Schenck said Mrs. Wright told him that the decision would be favorable to Hobby Lobby, and that Justice Alito had written the majority opinion. Three weeks later, that's exactly what happened. . . .
Why so much wheel spinning in the mud before divulging that Justice Alito goes out to dinner with Christian evangelical activists and lets them know that he's authored the opinion that will make them and their friends at Hobby Lobby happy? "You can get your PR releases ready because Sam Alito's come through again!" Seems like you shouldn't have to turn inside the paper from page 1 to receive this information.
I'm coming toward the view that Alito is the likely source of the leak in the abortion case as well. If his lips were loose in 2014, there's no reason to think they'd be sealed in 2022. The probable motive in the abortion case would have been to lock in the decision before anyone squishy defected. Imagine the abuse that, say, Kavanaugh would suffer if it was known that his late change of heart or mind allowed Roe to stand. I'm tempted to think, too, that once you've admitted Alito as a young man must have done well on standardized tests measuring academic potential, you've exhausted his store of attractive human traits.
Reading the story is like wallowing in stinky mire but there is one moment of unintended comic relief:
In the interview, Mrs. Wright said that while she did not have her calendars from those days, she believed the night in question involved a dinner at the Alitos' home during which she fell ill. She said that the justice drove her and her husband back to their hotel, and that this might have been the news she wanted to share with Mr. Schenck.
I'm trying to imagine Mr. Schenck's disappointment when, having been warned against email as a vehicle of communication for Mrs. Wright's portentous news, he placed a phone call and was told only that she'd left the party early feeling ill. She's a high-toned old Christian lady and also a liar. For a recent Times story that's sickening through and through, no comic relief, try this one.
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