Supreme Bias: #31 - 40

An outrageous slam at conservative religious beliefs in WaPo rounds out 31-40 in our compilation of examples of media bias in the coverage of the Roberts nomination/confirmation process. After a period of forced restraint, the anti-conservative bias is getting hard to hide.

See also: Supreme Bias: #1-30

31. Delaying or phasing? In its Aug. 10 edition, WaPo made a big deal about White House lawyers reviewing Reagan-era Roberts documents before releasing them:

[L]awyers and political aides are urgently reviewing more than 50,000 pages -- at the same time denying requests from Democrats for an immediate release.

How secretive, political and rude! It's a nasty picture WaPo's painting here ... but wait! Was there really a request for an immediate release of the documents? Not according to the same story, 14 paragraphs later, in the only reference to the Democrats in the entire story:

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, wrote President Bush yesterday asking that Reagan-era documents be released on a rolling basis, as the White House completes its review. "Timely cooperation from the Administration is essential to the Committee's preparations for the upcoming hearings," Leahy said.

Anybody see the word "immediate" in there?

32. Aborting fairness. CNN continued to run the NARAL anti-Roberts ad even after it new the ad was called false and misleading by factcheck.org and the NYTimes , among others.

Of course, this might not be just anti-Roberts bias. The American Family Association points out that CNN "allows for pro-abortion ads to run but not pro-life ads. In 1998, CNN refused to run an ad produced by Fidelis, a Catholic pro-life group, featuring Mother Teresa because the cable network 'has a policy of prohibiting issue advertisements.'"

33. I scoff at your objectivity. An 8/15 USA Today article was headlined "Roberts scoffs at equal pay theory," and built on that line with the lead:

As an assistant White House counsel in 1984, John Roberts scoffed at the notion that men and women should earn equal pay in jobs of comparable importance, and he belittled three female Republican members of Congress who promoted that idea to the Reagan administration.

Wow! The two overpaid chicks who wrote this (can't help myself!) are really onto something here aren't they? You decide. Here's what they drew the words "skoff" and "belittled" from:

Roberts said the women's letter "contends that more is required because women still earn only $0.60 for every $1 earned by men, ignoring the factors that explain that apparent disparity, such as seniority, the fact that many women frequently leave the work force for extended periods of time. ... I honestly find it troubling that three Republican representatives are so quick to embrace such a radical redistributive concept. Their slogan may as well be, 'From each according to his ability, to each according to her gender.' "

Negative overstatement anyone?

34. Non-sins of the father. Capt. Ed jumped all over AP for trying to lynch Roberts, implying he's a racist simply because he grew up in a town where some neighborhoods once had racist covenants that kept minorities out. Here's AP:

Like many towns across America, the exclusive lakefront community where Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. grew up during the racially turbulent 1960s and '70s once banned the sale of homes to nonwhites and Jews.

Here's Capt. Ed:

[It] demonstrates how vile the Democrats [and their cohorts at AP and elsewhere in the MSM] will get in trying to trump up any kind of a smear against the Supreme Court nominee they desperately want to block. Now they want to hold Roberts responsible for a decision made by his parents about where they wanted to raise their children. How, exactly, did Roberts have any control over that decision?

The Capt. also points out that Roberts' childhood home was in a part of town that never had race-restricting covenants, concluding, "So, excuse me for asking this question, but what the hell is the point of bringing it up? Simply as an excuse to imply that John Roberts is a racist."

35. There's those nasty adjectives again. The Charlotte Observer reports on 8/19:

As a brash young lawyer in the Reagan White House, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts scoffed at state efforts to pass gender-discrimination laws.

And here's AP on the 2oth:

As a lawyer in the Reagan White House, John Roberts scoffed at the notion of elevating Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to chief justice as a way to close a political gender gap, calling it a "crass political consideration." (The AP report is so biased it got an entire post all to itself. Click here.)

That's three times in this listing Roberts has been caught "scoffing." I doubt if Ginsberg or Souter were ever caught in such a state during their nominations. The word implies a rudeness that does not appear to be a part of Roberts' makeup, as I read his record.

And brash? That must be what the left calls conservative humor.

36. Implied rubber-stamping. In an Aug. 22 article about the Dem's desire for more and more papers, USA Today presents a strong suite of quotes from Sen. Leahy on the need for the papers and the correctness of releasing them, then adds:

[Sen. ] Specter, not normally a rubber stamp for the administration, supports the White House. "It is my judgment the administration is not wrong in declining to provide documents from Judge Roberts' tenure in the solicitor general's office..."

The implication is subtle but obvious: In this case, USAToday wants us to know, Specter's just lap-dogging for the Prez.

37. Blacks don't matter? In the Aug. 26 WaPo, the announcment by one gay advocacy group that it was opposing the Roberts nomination got the headline, the lead, and 8 of the 10 paragraphs. Paragraph 9 was a standard White House statement. Ah, but paragraph 10!

As part of an effort to defend Roberts, a number of black leaders, including Niger Innis of the Congress of Racial Equality and Robert L. Woodson Sr. of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, endorsed the nominee yesterday. "A large segment of the African American community . . . is standing firmly behind John Roberts . . . and his judicial philosophy," Innis said.

Two prominent black groups announce for Roberts. Blacks are 20 percent of the population. One prominent gay group announces against. Gays are arguably about 3 or 4 percent of the population. And who's sitting in the back of WaPo's bus?

38. War between the lines. Used to be, one could be called a racist for using words like nigger or honky. Now, according to WaPo, all it takes is "war between the states" -- if you're John Roberts. Mining its way through 18,000 pages of documents, WaPo found an instance where Roberts crossed out "civil war" and replaced it with "war between the states." The hyper-politically correct Jo Becker tells us:

While it is true that the Civil War is also known as the War Between the States, the Encyclopedia Americana notes that the term is used mainly by southerners. Sam McSeveney, a history professor emeritus at Vanderbilt University who specialized in the Civil War, said that Roberts's choice of words was significant.

"Many people who are sympathetic to the Confederate position are more comfortable with the idea of a 'War Between the States,' " McSeveney explained. "People opposed to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s would undoubtedly be more comfortable with the words he chose."

Sez Capt. Ed:

This piece reeks of bias. Becker and the Post want to paint Roberts as a racist without having the guts or the evidence to do so, and instead takes a single flourish of rhetoric -- out of 18,000 pages of documents! -- and instantly transforms him into a Confederate sympathizer. Becker's hit piece has absolutely no news value whatsoever, not only unqualified for page A02 of the Post but page ZZ100 of any local free weekly.

39. NARAL II: When abortion-anywhere-anytime advocates NARAL ran a second ad, it got news coverage across the nation, something pro-Roberts groups could only dream of getting for their ads. The Chi Trib was particularly biased in its coverage. Here's the full report:

A leading abortion rights group launched a second TV ad attacking Supreme Court nominee John Roberts Jr. on Friday, saying his questioning of a constitutional "right to privacy" suggests he might support new limits on abortion.

"There's too much at stake" to give Roberts, 50, a lifetime appointment to the court, says the ad by NARAL Pro-Choice America. It began airing nationwide on CNN and on local cable outlets here, the group said. A print version will run in some newspapers this weekend.

Two weeks ago, the group stopped airing a more sharply worded anti-Roberts ad after conservatives, and some Democrats, said it flagrantly misrepresented his record. That ad said Roberts sided with groups that bombed abortion clinics.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will open its confirmation hearing for Roberts on Sept. 6.

ChiTrib drew from the wire services on this story and chose not to run this from the AP report:

The [first] ad was pulled the same day that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and an abortion-rights moderate, called it "untrue and unfair" in a letter to NARAL.

"NARAL lost all credibility when it ran an advertisement earlier in the month that will go down in the history of political advertisements as one of the most rancid and dishonest ads ever run," White House spokesman Steve Schmidt said. "Sadly, this ad continues this pattern of distortion."

The NYTimes gave the new ad 16 paragraphs in a story that also pointed out that NARAL had helpfully provided a fact sheet verifying its new ad, and that pro-Roberts groups have outspent anti- groups thus far. In the very last paragraph appeared the only counter-quote, again from Schmidt, but much less effective than the one quoted by AP:

"The fact that they have chosen to simply distort two-decades-old writings as opposed to personally smearing Judge Roberts does not make them any more credible."

40. WaPo broached the issue of religion and the Roberts on 9/4nomination and did an overwhelmingly bad job. The standout paragraph:

Liberals believe in a firewall between church and state, but as Christian conservatives see it, the Supreme Court should allow elected officials to restrict abortions or permit a Ten Commandments monument to be displayed on public property, if those actions have voter support.

"Voter support?" Where did that come from? Last time I checked, we religious conservatives grounded our beliefs in an accurate understanding of the constitution and the extra-constitutional concept of separation of church and state. The paragraph in the context of the Roberts nomination sets up Roberts as a "believer" in such clap-trap.


See also Scoundrel Chronicles, Cheat-Seeking Missile's list of 139 examples of media bias in MSM coverage 2004 election.