Never mind that there's every reason to doubt that any of their story is true, Fox's John Roberts and Shannon Bream did their best to help the Alito's turn the story about their unacceptable behavior into another conservative victimhood fairy tale that's all about the neighbor.

Here's Roberts and Bream on this Friday's America Reports playing stenographers for the Alitos:

ROBERTS: Let's bring in Shannon Bream, anchor of Fox News Sunday and chief legal correspondent. So here's a Justice Alito told the New York Times about the upside down flag. “I had no involvement whatsoever in flying the flag. It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor's use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”

So you talk to the Justice just a few minutes ago. Was this supporting “stop the steal” or was this in essence a middle finger to an obnoxious neighbor.

BREAM: There's clearly tension in that neighborhood that's gone on for a long time. A number of people asking questions about why this photo and why this article from the New York Times is coming out now when this is back from 2021, but he gave me a little more context and he said there were some signs out that had vulgarity on them and Mrs. Alito addressed that to the neighbor.

This is where kids wait for the school bus, a short ways away from here. That was not well received. Then apparently they say there were signs put in that neighbor's yard that directly named Mrs. Alito and accused her of fomenting the January 6 riots.

They were on a walk through the neighborhood and there were words between Mrs. Alito and the man in that house, using vulgarity and Justice Alito told me this man use the C word with relation to his wife in front of him and after that...

ROBERTS: He called her the C word in front of the judge, or the justice?

BREAM: That's what Justice Alito told me?

ROBERTS: Really?

BREAM: And said that at some point she was obviously very upset went home, did the flag, he had nothing to do with it, didn't think it was a great idea, but it was there for a short time...

ROBERTS: He's lucky that he only got the flag. He's lucky that the justice didn't pop him one in the eye.

BREAM: I think as a husband that would be a very difficult thing to try to walk away from but clearly these neighbors have had an escalated situation.

ROBERTS: All right. So here's what the left wing media is saying about all this, not knowing that this neighbor called Mrs. Alito the C word in front of her husband, listen here.

[...]

ROBERTS: Yeah, so what they could be talking about was Justice Alito defending his wife, smacked his neighbor in the eye, but no, it was just a flag that was held upside down to say, ____ you.

BREAM: Well, I feel like we're all happy that's not where the story went. I mean, for everybody involved, and clearly, this has been a tough thing. I think they all still live in that neighborhood. And, you know, Rich mentioned this, that there were, following that time, there have been protests following the leak of the Dobbs decision.

That has gone on for years now, because we're a couple years into that. And as recently as last Saturday, I'm told there were protesters at the Alito's house. So, there is tension constantly.

As Amanda Marcotte noted, Samuel Alito's snide denial of his Jan. 6 flag is just as ugly as flying it in the first place:

Additionally, Alito's snide dishonesty is insulting, and it is meant to be.

For someone who feigns outrage at curse words, he is basically throwing a big middle finger to all American citizens. He's not just rejecting his duty as a public official to uphold democracy, but sneering at the idea that he even owes an explanation to the people he was supposedly hired to serve, who pay his salary. He feels no need to put the effort into a better lie. After all, what are any of us little people going to do about it?

Alito's quasi-denials operate as confessions, and not just of his and his wife's sympathies for fascist seditionists. His open contempt for the idea that he has to answer to anyone radiates through these fake excuses. It ends up underscoring why he and the Mrs. were so enthused about Trump's attempted coup: They agree with the foundational sentiment that the American people should not be in control of their government. As Adam Serwer recently wrote in the Atlantic, Alito "expects the public to silently acquiesce" to his authority, "without scrutiny, criticism, or protest." Alito sees us as subjects whose duty is to bend the knee to him and his preferred leaders, like Trump. With this flag gesture, he's signaled support for violence as the enforcement mechanism.

And Fox is right there with him. It's shameful, but we all know none of them are capable of feeling shame.