The Supreme Court Leak

I will say nothing just now about Alito's draft opinion in the Mississippi abortion case, DOBBS v. JACKSON.

I will speak to the question of the leak itself. These things very rarely happen. I remember there was something of a hubbub after a book by Bob Woodward came out in the late 1970s called THE BRETHREN, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the Supreme Court.

But Woodward didn't drop a lot of serious "tea" in that book, and he had nothing on forthcoming matters, much less first drafts of lengthy controversial opinions.

By the way, a fellow named Scott Armstrong secured himself a footnote in publishing history by serving as Woodward's co-author there. Woodward was done with Bernstein yet not yet willing to fly solo. But it WAS his book.

The closest analogy I can think of, though, involves the Dred Scott case. A new President, James Buchanan, was inaugurated on March 4, 1857. His address made reference to the case then before the court and it certainly seemed then and seems still in retrospect, that he was speaking as someone who had read the decision -- which had not yet been formally released.

And THAT is a scary analogy.

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