On June 8, 2022, Nicholas Roske flew from his home in California to Washington, D.C., with a Glock, a knife, zip ties, and tactical gear in a plot to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The leak of the 5-4 draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Association — overturning Roe v. Wade — had inspired him to target Kavanaugh before the opinion was officially published, thereby rendering it null and void. Upon taking a cab to the vicinity of Kavanaugh’s residence, he discovered it was heavily guarded by Secret Service agents who took notice of his behavior. In a panic, he called 911 to turn himself in as the authorities were already approaching.
Since you are reading National Review, you almost certainly have heard about all of this. But the haste with which the media rushed to suppress this horribly discordant news — during a summer where they were playing along with the Biden administration’s focus on “the threat of Trumpism” in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections — is something that I never forgot. (I am reminded of Dave Burge’s legendary nostrum: “Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving.”)
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