At a black-tie charity event earlier this month for the Supreme Court Historical Society, an undercover journalist, posing as a Catholic conservative, cornered Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, asked them provocative questions, and surreptitiously recorded their remarks without telling them that she was a journalist and that they were being recorded.

In such an unguarded and potentially embarrassing confrontation, Roberts showed integrity; Alito didn't. And the media's response seems to mirror that conclusion. When the poser, Lauren Windsor, a member of the society who claims to be a documentary filmmaker, tried to provoke Roberts by asserting that the court has a duty to guide the country on a more "moral path," Roberts responded: "Would you want me to be in charge of putting the nation on a more moral path? That's for the people we elect. That's not for lawyers. No, I think the role for the court is deciding the cases."