The New York Times is after Justice Samuel Alito, hoping to tie him to the January 6 rioters via a flag used by both. National Review’s Dan McLaughlin has covered it extensively (subscription link and free link). But the Times wasn’t done, and McLaughlin has the scoop.

Having shot and missed in an effort to blame Justice Samuel Alito for a flag that his wife flew briefly in mid January 2021, you might think that Jodi Kantor, Aric Toler, Julie Tate, and Alan Feuer of the New York Times would do one of two things: either do some additional reporting to fix the gaping holes in the story (assuming they’re fixable — a very generous assumption) or just move on quietly. But that’s not how activist agitprop campaigns work. Instead, the next logical step is to throw out an even flimsier story that looks sort of vaguely similar from a distance and hope that the narrative outruns the actual facts. This is what passes for political journalism these days.

The latest “breaking news” story (as the Times push alert christened it) demanding the attention of four reporters on the Times staff with nothing better to do, is that “Another Provocative Flag Was Flown at Another Alito Home.” The flag in question? A Philadelphia Phillies flag. No, actually, that one really is bad. But last summer, along with a Phillies flag and a town flag, Alito’s house at the Jersey Shore was seen flying the “Appeal to Heaven” or Pine Tree Flag.

The Pine Tree Flag, which features a pine tree against a white backdrop over the phrase “An Appeal to Heaven,” is associated with that notorious insurrectionist … George Washington. To the Times, this is a “provocative symbol.” Maybe to diehard British royalists.

The flag was designed in 1775 by Colonel Joseph Reed, Washington’s personal secretary at the time, and was specifically commissioned by Washington himself. It evoked a New Hampshire riot against British tree regulations. It remains the official maritime flag of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (albeit without the slogan, removed in the 1970s). We should look into whether Massachusetts can really be trusted. It might be secretly in league with Washington and the revolutionary government he founded. As the Times acknowledges — couched in ominous tones — the flag’s slogan “comes from the 17th-century philosopher John Locke, who wrote of a responsibility to rebel, even use violence, to overthrow unjust rule.”

John Locke? Another subversive! Is the whole Enlightenment in on the conspiracy? We may never know how deep this runs.

McLaughlin concludes:

Of course, it is true that the Pine Tree Flag is associated today with conservatives, just as is true of virtually all Founding-era patriotic iconography, including the Constitution itself. But that is mostly just a symptom of the political Left having abandoned the American Founding and its philosophy. Wait until the Times finds out that Old Glory, which was carried by some January 6 rioters, is flown by the Supreme Court itself.

Read the whole thing here.

Similarly, in a related article, Noah Rothman jokes about the silliness of it all:

The Times’ attack on the “Appeal to Heaven” flag is of a piece with this effort. Observers could be forgiven for concluding that the American Left is dead set on convincing their fellow countrymen that the symbols of American patriotism are all right-wing coded. Well, if they insist. That’s a truly generous and entirely unreciprocated dispensation. If that’s the Democratic left’s opinion, who are Republicans to argue with it?