Saint Alito

Hagiography is an old literary form, dating back to early Christianity. It recounts the lives of the saints in order to elicit the audience’s admiration. Although its reverential character notoriously compromises accuracy, hagiographies can be worth reading as windows into the worldview of believers. That’s the value of Mollie Hemingway’s remarkably uncritical biography, Alito: The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution. The book shows how Justice Samuel Alito and his fans think of themselves. It also exposes contradictions and delusions within the Alito-believer world view. To her credit, Hemingway carefully responds to questions that have been raised about Alito’s judicial ethics. To her enormous discredit, she crosses the line into unethical journalism by defaming the innocent.I explain in a new piece at the Los Angeles Review of Books.