Justice Samuel Alito did not disclose a 2008 trip on the private jet of Paul Singer, a billionaire GOP donor, and did not recuse himself from a later case involving Singer’s hedge fund. Since the Supreme Court is now under a sustained attack by Democrats and progressives, partially because of the Dobbs ruling (How dare unelected judges rule that unelected judges shouldn’t decide matters the Constitution leaves to legislators?) and partially because they see the current conservative-leaning Court as its greatest roadblock to a socialist, quasi-totalitarian Nirvana, his best, most responsible and most ethical course was to admit he made a mistake, show that he understood the public’s concern, and vow to be more mindful of his conduct going forward.

Instead, Alito penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed defending his indefensible conduct,  declaring himself as innocent as a newborn lamb, and, of course, making things worse. His piece was full of legalistic hair-splitting to explain why he was well-within the requirements of the Ethics in Government Act, but the universal ethics requirement that judges must avoid the appearance of impropriety does not rest upon legal niceties. It rests upon how the public perceives things, and most of the public can’t read a statute and don’t read court opinions.

What they can do is be influenced by the news media’s slant on the news, and most of the news media, being propaganda agents of the Democrats, is dedicated to the task of undermining the Supreme Court’s legitimacy generally and the credibility of its conservative members specifically. Out of arrogance (As in, “Nyah, nyah, nyah, can’t touch us, we’re here for life!“) or mind-blowing stupidity, the two most conservative justices, Alito and Clarence Thomas, have decided to give their critics just what they crave. Though it may be true that the Left’s representatives on the Court have engaged in similar ethics breaches, either they have covered their tracks better or the over-matched conservative media sleuths haven’t been as diligent or thorough in their investigations. as their progressive counterparts like ProPublica have been. And it doesn’t matter: what Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas did in accepting trips and favors from wealthy conservatives was wrong, and should be addressed.

Alito’s transgression was far less serious than Thomas’s, as it was only one lavish trip, it occurred 15 years ago, and the SCOTUS case Alito should have recused himself from was a 7-1 ruling in which his participation wasn’t decisive. Never mind: coming after the revelations that Thomas has been surreptitiously partying and cavorting with a wealthy conservative, his family and friends at the tycoon’s expense for years, Alito’s ethics blindness creates a genuine crisis for the Court, and it must be taken seriously by Chief Justice Roberts, who thus far has done nothing that we know about.

The Supreme Court needs a written ethics code and a procedure for enforcing it. Its traditional stance that as the best of the best in the American judiciary, the Justices need no stinkin’ ethics rules no longer holds up.

Obviously, they do.