Ad Campaign Says Roberts Backed Violent Protesters

[tuvor]

Ad Campaign Says Roberts Backed Violent Protesters
Judge's Allies Defend His Work on Abortion Case

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 9, 2005; Page A03

A prominent abortion rights group launched a television ad yesterday 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, an accusation that Roberts's supporters immediately condemned as a flagrant distortion.

The ad, sponsored by NARAL Pro-Choice America, focuses on Roberts's role in a case involving whether a 19th-century anti-Ku Klux Klan statute could be used to shut down blockades of health clinics by abortion protesters. The solicitor general's office filed a friend-of-the-court brief siding with the clinic protesters, including Operation Rescue. The high court ruled 6 to 3 against the health clinics in January 1993.

The NARAL ad, set to begin airing tomorrow on local channels in Maine and Rhode Island and nationally on the CNN and Fox News cable networks, features Emily Lyons, a clinic director who was badly injured when a bomb exploded at her clinic in Birmingham in 1998. The ad ends by urging viewers to call their senators to tell them to oppose the federal appellate judge's confirmation to the Supreme Court.

"Supreme Court nominee John Roberts filed court briefs supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber," the ad states. The ad concludes by saying, "America can't afford a justice whose ideology leads him to excuse violence against other Americans."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/08/AR2005080801460.html

(Use bugmenot.com to log in.)

[geek tragedy]

1. How about some fire, scarecrow?

Dude, that's seriously inflammatory. Shrill, even.

[murielm99]

2. The only way to fight the bastards is to fight dirty.

No coat hangers for my daughters.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. kick

[SuperWonk]

4. There is dirty...

and there is stupid.

This seems to be the latter.

[Whoa_Nelly]

5. Not that I support Roberts in any way, FactCheck.org says...

http://www.factcheck.org/article340.html

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.

<snip>
The ad is false.

And the 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 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.

more at link

[SuperWonk]

6. Thanks for posting...

And getting the truth out there...

[caitlyn]

7. Roberts record is scary enough...

...so let's stick to the facts in campaigning against him, OK? Is that too much to ask.

I still don't think the Senate Democrats are going to find the backbone necessary to filibuster this guy... which is a real shame. -C

[SuperWonk]

8. Welcome, caitlyn

You are right on the money. Telling lies only sets back the cause.

NARAL has a credibility issue they need to adress now.