Posted on 08/10/2005 6:18:19 PM PDT by wagglebee
RUSH: This NARAL ad, you know, if I were an American woman, I would be outraged at this, because this NARAL ad is setting women back 50 years. I mean, the ad is not only false, it's misleading and dishonest. It is an assault on women. It's a setback to all the progress women have made over the years. Every negative cliché, every cheap shot that demeans women comes back big time in this ad and women everywhere can thank that ad, NARAL and the NAGs for getting so upset about Roberts, but the main thing is the ad is a lie. The NARAL ad, you may have heard about this now. They've got this ad running about Roberts supporting bombers of abortion clinics, and it's been put through the mill by FactCheck.org which is the Annenberg Center where Kathleen Hall Jamison works. I mean, here's their headline: "NARAL Falsely Accuses Supreme Court Nominee Roberts; Attack Ad Says He Supported an Abortion Clinic Bomber and Excused Violence. In fact, Roberts Called Clinic Bombers 'Criminals' Who Should be Prosecuted Fully -- An abortion rights group is running an attack ad accusing the Supreme Court nominee of filing legal papers supporting a convicted clinic bomber and of having an ideology that leads him to excuse violence against other Americans. It shows images of a bombed clinic in Birmingham, Alabama. The ad is false and the ad misleads when it says that 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 of the clinic bombing that happened nearly seven years after Roberts signed the legal brief in question," and then there's three pages. I printed it all out. No, actually there's five pages of analysis and documentation and proof about how virtually everything in the NARAL ad is a lie -- and yet CNN is, after examining the ad, decided they're going to run it, and I tell you, it looks to me... If you look at where this ad is going to be running on CNN, they bought some local time in the northeast, and who's in the northeast to be affected by this ad? This ad is clearly intended for senators. Who's up in the northeast that might be affected by the ad? Well, you've got two of them in Maine. You've got Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. Then you've got Lincoln Chafee over there in Rhode Island. But this has backfired so big time on these people, it's just comical to watch this -- and then we've got a companion story today in the New York Times that started this way: "Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman whose case provoked congressional action and a national debate over end-of-life care became an issue on Tuesday in the Supreme Court confirmation of Judge John Roberts when a Democrat senator pressed him about whether lawmakers should have intervened." Let me just give you the summary here of what happened. Judge Roberts is making his goodwill tour of various senators, senate offices, and he happened to show up in the office of Ron Wyden of Oregon yesterday, and when Roberts left, Ron Wyden talked to the New York Times and reported to the New York Times what Roberts had said -- and he lied through his teeth.
He lied through his teeth about what Judge Roberts said to him. Judge Roberts in fact said, "I don't know anything about the Schiavo case. I have no answer for you. I didn't study it," and yet you look at the New York Times today. The Senator, Ron Wyden of Oregon, "said that Judge Roberts while not addressing the Schiavo case specifically made clear he was displeased with Congress' efforts to force the federal judiciary to overturn a court order withdrawing her feeding tube." This is from the New York Times story. It's amazing to sit here and watch these once-great liberal institutions implode -- and I'm telling you, I know exactly why it's happening. It is happening because they now face opposition. They no longer have a monopoly, and they don't get away with lying anymore. They always have gotten away with this stuff, but now it's pure panic that's set in, and it's beyond my comprehension. This is silly. The New York Times doing this is as silly as Rafael Palmeiro thinking he can get away with using steroids after his appearance before Congress in March. And for NARAL to think that they can get away with this ad is as silly as Rafael Palmeiro thinking he can get away with using steroids after appearing before Congress and knowing the testing was coming up. So let CNN go ahead and run it. Let CNN destroy whatever credibility it's got left at the same time, too. Fine with me. I think this is a classic illustration of a bunch of elitists who have run the school, who have run the schoolyard, who have been in charge of everything for years -- and know they are losing their grip but can't figure out a way to hold on, and, of course, all they do is resort to their age-old tactics which have since been discovered and are successfully rebuked and defeated on a daily basis. "Wyden said in a telephone interview after the hour-long meeting, 'I asked whether it was constitutional for Congress to intervene in an end of life case with a specific remedy,'" and Wyden said this of Judge Roberts:
"Well, his answer is, 'I'm concerned with judicial independence. Congress can proscribe standards, but when Congress starts to act like a court and proscribe particular remedies in particular cases, Congress has overstepped its bounds.' The answer, which Mr. Wyden says his aides wrote down word for word, would seem to put Judge Roberts at odds with leading Republicans in Congress, including the Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Tom DeLay, both who led the charge for congressional intervention in the Schiavo case." Now, what's happened here -- and I don't mind admitting -- the White House has been calling everybody they can today. They've called National Review. They've called a whole bunch of people because they read this story, and obviously Roberts was brought in, "What is this about?" Roberts told them what happened, and so it's time to just try to straighten things out. Now, basically it's this. The reporter for the New York Times is Cheryl Gay Stolberg, and she attributed a quote to Judge Roberts that was provided by Senator Wyden. She herself was not at the meeting. She didn't speak with anybody from the White House who was at the meeting. She never sought to verify the accuracy of the quote from the White House nor Judge Roberts. She just accepted what this lamebrain Wyden had to say, a guy who can't find his own state on a map half the time. What Judge Roberts actually said is materially different and parts of his comments were totally deleted by the New York Times. "On the Schiavo case specifically, Judge Roberts said repeatedly he hadn't studied the case and he didn't want to opine on it. He was asked if he would have denied cert and he didn't answer because he's not examined the case. On Congress overstepping its legislative role, he said that he was aware of court precedents, cases where the court found Congress had overstepped its legislative authority.
"But it was clear that he was not offering his own opinion on the Schiavo case or any specific case or issue. He merely stated he was aware of such instances, but he specifically went out of his way to say he hadn't studied the Schiavo case and didn't want to opine on it," and even though the New York Times says, "that while not addressing the Schiavo case specifically, made clear he was displeased with Congress' efforts to force the federal judiciary to overturn a court order withdrawing her feeding tube." Now, this is as disingenuous reporting as you'll find anywhere. The senator, Ron Wyden of Oregon, "said that Judge Roberts, while not addressing the Schiavo case specifically..." Everything that follows is irrelevant. Everything else that follows that phrase is now a lie, because it does attempt to make it seem that Roberts did comment specifically on the Schiavo case. "While he didn't address it specifically, in fact, he refused to discuss it." So what's happening here is that Roberts is making his tour of the Senate; he's going up and talking to these lib Democrat Senators, and this is what I asked Fred Thompson about last week. "How is this all going? Is this going to matter?" He said, "Probably isn't going to matter much. I mean, it's all going to get blown up when the hearings start. But here these guys go up there, talk to these senators, and senators use the occasion not to get to know Roberts, but to then call their buddies in the press and lie about what Roberts said so as to advance their own cause, which is trying to defeat the guy and harm President Bush and all that -- and they've got their willing accomplices in the press helping them right along, but the fact is there's a giant magnifying glass.
We're like spies, folks. We are spying on the mainstream press every day and we're not hidden. We're right out in the open, and they simply don't get away with this anymore. They're going to get blown to smithereens all over. Now, the Times readers are going to believe it but it's not going to spread, it's not going to get the legs that it would have had years and years and years ago. It all has a deeper meaning. It all has a deep meaning. It means that they're typical. They can't defeat the guy honestly. They can't defeat the guy on substance, so they have to lie about it. They have to make it up, and they don't care because their friends in the mainstream press are never going to accuse them of lying. They're going to buck 'em up, back 'em up, and support 'em and promote them no matter what the reaction is because they're all on the same page. Before I go to the break I want you to hear this NARAL ad by the way, that has been totally debunked. I mean, I've got the audio to it, and keep in mind that the FactCheck.org has totally, totally repudiated the ad, has come out and claimed it's all false. Roberts did not do one thing this ad suggests, and they even use film or video of a burning abortion clinic that occurred seven years after this case. But the NARAL ad stars some babe named Emily Lyons and this is her.
WOMAN: When a bomb ripped through my clinic, I almost lost my life. I will never be the same.
VOICE-OVER: Supreme Court nominee John Roberts filed court briefs supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber. [SIC]
WOMAN: I am determined to stop this violence, so I'm speaking out.
VOICE-OVER: Call your senators. Tell them to oppose John Roberts. America can't afford a justice whose ideology leads him to excuse violence against other Americans.
RUSH: The thing that's funny about this is they actually think people are going to buy this, that the president's nominated a guy who is in favor of blowing up abortion clinics. We've got a guy going on the Supreme Court who is in favor of violence against women -- and that's why I say this is going to set back all the gains women have made for 50 years because how can we take this seriously? This is nothing but a bunch of women on PMS! Can I give you an example of how it's going to set women back? You used to not be able to make jokes about PMS anymore because, well, "You can't do that, Rush!" Well, here you go. This is PMS at work. This is a bunch of feminists on PMS having PMS and they're just deranged. They're hysterical. This is exactly the kind of setback I'm talking about. Who can take this stuff seriously? You read this, you see this, you hear this, you want to send these women off to the doctor. You certainly don't want them in your house. You don't want them in your office; you don't want to even be around them. If a woman is on PMS, get her out of here, you know? Give her a couple-three days and I'll talk to her then.
RUSH: You know, it will be interesting to see. I want to see if any senator comes out and defends the NARAL ad. Have you seen this, Mr. Snerdley, has anybody seen a senator come out and defend the ad? No, not yet. I want to see if one of them does, and I will bet you nobody does. I'll bet you not one Democrat comes out and defends this. Well, Maxine Waters might, but I'm talking about somebody in the Senate. I'll bet you not one Democrat senator will come out and defend this ad -- and furthermore, I think it would be fabulous, think it would be great, if during the course of the news-gathering process today if some mainstream reporters would run up to Democrat senators and say, "Do you support this ad by NARAL? Could I get your position on this ad?" No, I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it. I'm just making the point. You won't see it. You won't see any Democrat questioned on this. If this were reversed and some wacko conservative group had come out and made some wacko ad, say charging somebody with something, pick your example, you know the media would be all over every Republican and saying, "You support that ad? Have you condemned that ad yet?" But they won't ask one Democrat about this NARAL ad. You just wait and see. It doesn't matter, folks. It doesn't matter whether they do or not. It's going to be like the swift boat ads. Swift boat ads were condemned left and right, but this ad, I'm waiting for somebody to come out and praise it. I'm waiting for somebody to come out and take on FactCheck.org and say FactCheck.org is either wrong or biased or what have you, because NARAL's got a lot riding on this ad. They spent 125 grand on CNN and CNN has so few audience members, you can buy CNN cheap now. So for 125,000 you can get a lot of coverage on CNN. That will get you about two 60s on this show, but on CNN, you could buy a week's worth of time for 125 grand. They also try to put out that Fox is running it. Fox is not. Fox has not. Somebody tried to say that Fox was running this ad, too, but they are not going to do that. It's running on some Fox local affiliates, but not in any way the Fox News Channel.
To say that Roberts supports violence against anybody is reprehensible, one thing he OPPOSES is the violence of infanticide.
Why would anyone expect anything different from an outfit that ran an attack ad of Bush dragging a black man from a pick-up truck.
These people will be the last ones to let the facts get in the way of a good dirty ad.
Thank you for the reminder of just who Judge Roberts is up against! I heard Rush's rant today and he was spot on. It will be very interesting to see which senators (if any) will actually step up to the plate and defend NARAL
As I suspected, Roberts' statements were taken out of context. Actually, he never even said what he was accused of saying. The so-called private meeting that had no witnesses had several witnesses, including a White House aide, Senator Fred Thompson, and other senators.
Here is the response from the White House.
http://www.blogsforbush.com/downloads/gillespie.pdf
Please ping your lists, before this lie becomes a fact for many.
His wife certainly does, at any rate. We HOPE (and pray) he does as well.
Has anybody seen this ad yet? Or is the media saving NARAL money by just running the story about the ad over and over again?
I worry about Florida more than I worry about the nation. We are setting trends here that are immoral, unethical and illegal if you read between the lines. That's why I don't support Jeb for President. Florida is a mess.
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