Worst Person Dot Gif

It's very rare that I agree with Jack Shafer (20 years of rarely agreeing with him!) but this is correct.

How has the Supreme Court kept a relatively tight lid on its workings compared to the CIA, the NSA, the Pentagon, the FBI and other government appendages? For one thing, it’s smaller by multiple degrees. The fewer secrets you handle, the easier the job. But the court has long occupied a sacred and mythic place in the national consciousness, a place that the court itself has cultivated. Although the justices are political appointees, the court pretends to rise above politics. It conducts its work under a veil and depends on the press to fetishize the mysteries of the temple.

The SCOTUS press may not be obviously on Team Roberts or Team Sotomayor, but they are on Team SCOTUS, the way that Royal Correspondents in Britain are certainly on Team Royal (if not necessarily Team Charles). Preservation of the majesty of the institution, and by association themselves, is always a priority. That anyone associated with journalism reacted to "the leak" with any other response than "good, if it's accurate" says much.