Monday, August 08, 2005
NARAL assumes John Roberts is a principled jurist
John Hinderaker shreds -- as in fisks with rage -- the National Abortion Rights Action League's television ad in opposition to the nomination of John Roberts. NARAL is accusing Roberts of filing briefs supporting the terrorist lunatics who blow up abortion clinics, and Hinderaker accuses NARAL of lying:
I'm not holding my breath.
Activist groups have been raising money for years to oppose Republican nominations to the Supreme Court. Whole organizations exist for this purpose, and they have had nothing to do for a very long time. Now they have their shot and what happens? Bush appoints a manifestly decent man (however gay he may or may not be!) who was by no means the instinctive choice of the social conservatives. Do they hold their fire? Not a chance.
The most interesting thing about NARAL's tactics is that they presuppose that Judge Roberts is more principled than they are. Nobody -- not even NARAL -- knows whether Roberts will vote to overturn Roe if given the opportunity. One would think, therefore, that NARAL would not want to infuriate a judge in front of whom they may well appear. Is NARAL at all concerned that smearing Judge Roberts will make him hostile to the cause of abortion rights when -- and I use the word when advisedly -- he is confirmed? No, because NARAL assumes that Roberts is sufficiently principled that he would not vote to overturn Roe simply out of disgust at NARAL's smear campaign against him. NARAL is in fact counting on Roberts being more honorable than they are.
It is not easy to fit so many lies and distortions into a 30-second commercial. The case referred to by NARAL is Bray v. Alexandria Clinic...
...NARAL misrepresents the Bray case in every particular. Roberts didn't "support violent fringe groups" or a "convicted clinic bomber." He supported the federal government's position on a specific question of law--correctly, as the Court found. NARAL's reference to a "convicted clinic bomber" is especially outrageous. The Bray case had nothing to do with bombing or with Eric Rudolph, and Rudolph bombed the Birmingham clinic--the bombing that is referred to in the NARAL ad--eight years after Roberts wrote the brief on the Section 1985(3) issues.
For NARAL to suggest that John Roberts has ever done anything to support violence against abortion clinics (or anything else) is so far outside the bounds of civilized debate that one can hope that, even in today's far-gone Democratic Party, sane voices will be raised to denounce NARAL's advertising campaign.
I'm not holding my breath.
Activist groups have been raising money for years to oppose Republican nominations to the Supreme Court. Whole organizations exist for this purpose, and they have had nothing to do for a very long time. Now they have their shot and what happens? Bush appoints a manifestly decent man (however gay he may or may not be!) who was by no means the instinctive choice of the social conservatives. Do they hold their fire? Not a chance.
The most interesting thing about NARAL's tactics is that they presuppose that Judge Roberts is more principled than they are. Nobody -- not even NARAL -- knows whether Roberts will vote to overturn Roe if given the opportunity. One would think, therefore, that NARAL would not want to infuriate a judge in front of whom they may well appear. Is NARAL at all concerned that smearing Judge Roberts will make him hostile to the cause of abortion rights when -- and I use the word when advisedly -- he is confirmed? No, because NARAL assumes that Roberts is sufficiently principled that he would not vote to overturn Roe simply out of disgust at NARAL's smear campaign against him. NARAL is in fact counting on Roberts being more honorable than they are.
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