NARAL tries to stir up Roberts fight

Let the interest group hysteria begin!

NARAL, playing the role of the middle school crowd that taunts kids into fighting each other, has released a nasty ad that "accuses Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. of siding with violent extremists and a convicted clinic bomber while serving in the solicitor general's office," as the Washington Post put it.

After showing a woman injured in a bombing of an abortion clinic, the ad states that "Supreme Court nominee John Roberts filed court briefs supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber," with the announcer later adding, "America can't afford a justice whose ideology leads him to excuse violence against other Americans."

I have no opinion right now on the argument Roberts made to the Court -- I'm not familiar with it, and I'm not a lawyer. But the implications of NARAL's attack are troubling. Our society is based on the rule of law. That means that if a statute is being applied incorrectly, it is wrong to enforce no matter how loathsome the defendant may be. Would NARAL have the government cease to file amicus briefs on behalf of violent criminal defendants? And remember, Roberts was working for the government at the time. The brief he filed may or may not reflect his personal views.

Here's the context the ad omits (from the Post):

The case came during a period of widespread blockades of abortion clinics, including in the Washington suburbs, and involved figures convicted of anti-clinic violence. The issue before the court in Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic , however, focused more narrowly on whether the anti-discriminatory Ku Klux Klan Act could be applied against abortion protesters.

In his oral argument before the court, Roberts said, according to a transcript of the proceedings, "The United States appears in this case not to defend petitioners' tortious conduct, but to defend the proper interpretation" of the statute.

Roberts's allies said his views on violence were clear from a 1986 White House memo, endorsed by Roberts when he served in the White House counsel's office during the Reagan administration, which said violent abortion protesters should not receive special consideration for presidential pardons. "No matter how lofty or sincerely held the goal, those who resort to violence to achieve it are criminals," the memo said.

And of course, even though the ad clearly implies Roberts was "supporting" the clinic bombers and "excuse[d]" their actions, NARAL denied this to the Post, with their president saying that "We're not suggesting that Mr. Roberts condones clinic violence."

Right.

The irony is that this is the same sort of black-or-white logic that liberals denounce when the shoe is on the other foot. Criticizing the execution of the war on terror doesn't mean you support Osama bin Laden. And filing a brief against the application of a law to violent anti-abortion protestors doesn't mean you support their actions. If we can't make these sorts of elementary logical distinctions, our democracy is doomed.

Update 8/9: Here's FactCheck.org on the ad:

[T]he ad misleads when it says Roberts supported a clinic bomber. It is true that Roberts sided with the bomber and many other defendants in a civil case, but the case didn't deal with bombing at all. Roberts argued that abortion clinics who brought the suit had no right [to] use an 1871 federal anti-discrimination statute against anti-abortion protesters who tried to blockade clinics. Eventually a 6-3 majority of the Supreme Court agreed, too. Roberts argued that blockades were already illegal under state law.

The images used in the ad are especially misleading. The pictures are of a clinic bombing that happened nearly seven years after Roberts signed the legal brief in question.

Comments

[Scott Ferguson]

"We," white man?

I vote for democracy being doomed. :(

[Scott Ferguson]

Oh, some context is in order.

The Lone Ranger and Tonto are riding through a mountain pass.

Lone Ranger: "Look, Tonto! Apaches in front of us. Apaches behind us. Apaches to either side. We're surrounded!"

Tonto: "We, white man?"

* * *

I'm on my way back from a weekend on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. One of my nephews who lives there is trying to stay sober, but his chances of doing so without any meaningful support within the community is slim.

Likewise moderate political discourse. There are people of discernment like yourself who are appalled at the purple rhetoric eminating from organizations and people who ought to know better. Holocaust trivialization is now a cottage industry among the yammering classes; desensitizing us to true injustices and horrors in the present day.

Yet I don't see a strategy that people of goodwill can take to promote civility in rhetoric. I try to put the more civil blogs up on punditdrome.com ; but on a larger scale, how can we encourage people to talk nice and stay within the bounds of reality?

[Brendan Nyhan]

The conclusion to All the President's Spin lays out our ideas for how political discourse could get better -- more aggressive media coverage, fact-checking on blogs, and satire of outrageous spin. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. Most political and monetary incentives point in the opposite direction, which is why we need to change the incentive structure. It will take time.