Posted on 12/07/2005 9:14:04 PM PST by nickcarraway
According to sources with ties to third-party groups opposing the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel Alito, the Knight Ridder newspaper analysis of Judge Alito's judicial record -- which ran in many of the papers operated by KR -- mirrors analysis that was pulled together by staff of People for the American Way, Alliance for Justice, and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, all groups that are coordinating their anti-Alito efforts.
"The analysis and cases are similar to what we pulled together in the first week of the nomination. Some, but not all of the same cases, that kind of stuff. You don't have to be a legal scholar to know which cases to focus on," says a PFAW source. "I don't know how widely disseminated our efforts went, but I know we shared it with reporters in Washington and New York. Our people very much wanted to get it out, but not sourced to us."
That a paper would attempt to analyze or evaluate a Supreme Court justice's record isn't surprising. Nor is it surprising that a paper's reporters would use an outside group for assistance. Reporters regularly coordinate their stories around special or exclusive access to sources and embargoed reports. And reporters of all ideologies depend on leaks and off the record and on background leads.
In the Knight Ridder article, the reporters wrote, "Although Alito's opinions are rarely written with obvious ideology, he's seldom sided with a criminal defendant, a foreign national facing deportation, an employee alleging discrimination or consumers suing big businesses." The rest of the story is structured to support their thesis.
Last week, the Senate Democratic leadership allowed third party groups opposing Judge Alito to use a room in the Hart Senate Office Building to provide background and on the record interviews with reporters the groups felt would be sympathetic to their cause. Republicans and conservative journalists were barred from the room.
"You read the KR article and as a stand-alone, it's no big deal. A law school student could write this up," says a Republican Senate Judiciary Committee staffer. "What bugs us is that you have the left-wing groups spreading the same kind of stuff and this looks very much like an organized smear campaign."
Now that the Rats are licking their wounds over the war and because they can`t complain about the economy, the only thing left is Alito. Bet by the second day of of his hearing, some Rat will proclaim that the Judge will destroy the American way of life if he gets on the Supremes.
Knight Ridder and the rest of them are all peas in a radical left-wing pod. It is somewhat comforting to know that anybody who is serious about their news is not reading newspapers. But I still wish that Knight Ridder and the rest of them would just hurry up and die already.
GREAT POST!!
Thanks, and Merry Christmas!
Yes, it is an organized smear campaign. The Republicans need to be ready to fight on this. The left has not given up in their attempts to filibuster Alito.
There is a paradox apparent in many of these Senate hearings-- if the opposition protracts the process and delays the hearings, they may uncover some information which will justify opposing a nominee who appears to be quite a reasonable choice. On the other hand, if they carry the opposition too far or for too long, this may hurt the nominee, but it may also reveal a lot of slugs under a lot of stones whose existence may ultimately damage the opposition. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind!
This analysis bothers me. . .inasmuch as there seems to be a surprised if not naive consternation here. . .a serious under estimation of those who can only be called our political enemies whose MO could not be clearer.
All I ever see is Ralph Neas and I know Norman Lear is a big funder of the group.
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