The liar was not just a judge, but the Chief Justice of the United States.

The lie was not just a lie, but a bad, bald, whopper of a lie.

Kurt Schlichter, the witty and passionately conservative columnist, writes about it at Townhall:

Call it an “aspirational lie”, the kind of lie that an establishment-type tells you that is manifestly, obviously, what-the-hell-are-you-kidding-me false, but he/she/xe tells it to you anyway because he/she/xe really really really wants it to be true and because he/she/xe does not want to admit that his/her/xir institution is broken.

Take Justice John Roberts’s astonishingly untrue statement from last week:

We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.

Every word of this is blatantly false …

The worst part is how transparently false it is, how indisputably and insultingly incorrect it is, how in-your-face-daring-you-to-not-burst-into-laughter wrong it is. Didn’t we just have a national mudwrestling match over a justice Donald Trump appointed? Was it because everyone was really concerned about [Brett] Kavanaugh’s high school antics, or was it the fact that he would be a Trump judge? Are liberal weirdos offering Ruth Bader Ginsberg their ribs for transplantation because there is no such thing as a Clinton judge?

Everyone knows the truth. What’s the first thing every single client ever asks me when we get a new federal case in?

“Who appointed the judge?”

Duh. Because it does matter, more than anything else, and everyone knows it matters more than anything else. Wishing doesn’t make it not so. The judge’s political origin is the threshold factor in knowing how the case will likely go – not law, not evidence, but the preexisting political preferences of the guy in the robe. In every political case, you can know the result with about 90% certainty based on the judge. …

This is why the Founders, in their amazing wisdom, created a system where the people indirectly appoint the judiciary via their elected executive and representatives. Judges are still supposed to strive toward neutrality and adherence to the law, but human nature is what it is. At least when the judges represent the views of the people who appointed them, they indirectly reflect our views. That can be a feature, not a bug – but only when it does not extend to utterly ignoring the law, which it does today.

So, it’s just not true that judges are fungible. Who appointed them matters, period. But John Roberts and his establishment ilk want it to be true, so darn it, they’re going to keep saying it in the hope that someday it becomes true through sheer force of repetition. …

Roberts utters this utter nonsense because he places the stability and prestige of the institution he has been charged with managing above all else, which is exactly wrong and will have exactly the opposite effect that he intends in the long run. …

The geeks giddy at Justice Roberts’ ill-advised finger-wagging thought this would put Trump in his place. But Trump’s place is at the vanguard of the backlash against the baloney the elite keeps feeding us about its own alleged disinterested, competent stewardship of our institutions.

Everyone sees that these Obama and Clinton judges are creating a special kind of law, Trump Law, where different standards apply because he is not one of the in-crowd, and because he represents the interests of the Normals, not the elite. Every other president has broad powers over immigration, but not the one we just elected. Why? Because the judges who so rule don’t like the way he is exercising his power.

That’s literally it. You parse away all the fluff and dross, and the rationale behind all these rulings is that Trump isn’t pursuing policies the judges personally approve of so his acts are somehow unconstitutional for reasons and because.

That’s not how things are supposed to work, but that’s how things do work today – and it’s indisputable that it correlates with who appointed the offending judges. That’s what John Roberts should be focusing on, the utter failure of his beloved institution to perform its duties at even the minimal standard of dedication to the principles it supposedly enshrines and from which it derives its deteriorating legitimacy. 

Instead of speaking the painful truth, Chief Justice Roberts chose to attack the one guy who was telling it like every single one of us knows it is. Instead of calling on his robed solons to do the hard work of applying the law and not their personal policy preferences, Chief Justice Roberts compounded the problem that is undermining the judiciary.

The lie cannot but harm the reputation of the Supreme Court, bring it into disrespect.

Kurt Schlichter sees the harm as very severe. He concludes with a flourish that may be extravagant, but it underlines the seriousness of what has happened: a Supreme Court justice – the Chief Justice himself! – made a public statement that is manifestly false in a display of extremely bad judgement.

John Roberts thinks pushing pretty falsehoods is going to save his institution. He’s wrong. His aspirational lie and his sadly all-too-typical elite refusal to confront the bitter reality that his institution has utterly failed to do its job will do exponentially more damage to the judiciary than a million Donald Trumps ever could.

A million Donald Trumps is an indigestible concept. All we need is one Donald Trump, and we are lucky to have one.

Now that even the Supreme Court has let us down, and the House of Representatives has fallen to the fearsome, raving Democrats, what or who do we have to save us from decline into serfdom and impoverishment?

At least for a time we have President Trump.