Ad Campaign Says Roberts Backed Violent Protesters

[steve2470]

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

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."

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[MrBenchley]

1. Our hypocritical right wing...

Pointing out that Roberts actually DID jump in to defend the terrorists in a clinic bombing case is wrong....but slandering a Silver Star winner with lies is okey-dokey.