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August 10, 2005
NARAL Falsely Accuses Supreme Court Nominee Roberts
Pro-choice activists have started the smear campaign against Supreme Court Nominee Roberts. Their ad states:
Seven years ago, a bomb destroyed a women's health clinic in Birmingham, Alabama.
(On screen: Footage of bombed clinic)
(Tex on screen: New Woman/All Women Health Clinic; January 28, 1998)
Emily Lyons: When a bomb ripped through my clinic, I almost lost my life.
Announcer: Supreme Court nominee John Roberts filed court briefs supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber.
The only problem? The ad is false. See the factcheck.org story on it.
I also find much of this memo digging disingenous. When he was working for Reagan and G.W.H. Bush, he wasn't making rulings. He was making the argument to support the position his bosses told him to support. As a lawyer, he was making the case for his client. If we are to assume that all lawyers are ideological clones of clients they represent, then we must conclude that all defense lawyers are murderers, rapists, etc.
NARAL and others have stated that this was not a case that the government needed to get involved in, that it was some personal quest of Roberts', but that is also misleading. It was a civil suit over the interpretation of a federal law, and the federal government usually makes a "friend of the court" brief to state the government's position, i.e. "Those of us charged with enforcing that law think it means this."
(Disclaimer: I have not personally researched Roberts very much yet -- no time -- so while I have a generally favorable impression of him, it is of low intensity. I just find these NARAL tactics to be distasteful.)
Politics by Dan at August 10, 2005 01:26 PM