8/11/2005

11 Responses to “Phony NARAL Ad Withdrawn”

1. the damage is done. I wonder why pull it.

   actus (5b2f21) — 8/11/2005 @ 8:33 pm

   
   

2. […] Via Patterico, the staunchly pro-abortionchoice National Abortion Rights Action League has abortedchosen its infamous ad that slandered John Roberts as an abortion clinic bomber sympathizer because he thought abortion clinic blockaders were a different class of criminals from the Klan. If, however, you thought an apology was forthcoming, that there’d be wrong. Here’s what NARAL president Nancy Keenan had to say “We regret that many people have heard about our recent advertisement smearing Mr. Roberts’s record. It was our hope that only true-blue abortion freaks would hear it. Y’know, people like the average commenter on Kevin Drum’s site or Daily Kotze. It wasn’t meant for consumption by anyone who had actually, like read Bray v. Alexandria Clinic 506 U.S. 263 (1993) or knew who Eric Rudolph is. We sure as hell didn’t mean for it to air on FoxNews, only to lie and claim it was going to run there so we could later lie again and claim we’d be censored when it wasn’t. Hell, even CNN wasn’t supposed to touch this turkey. I only presented it to them on a dare. I never thought for a minute that they’d take the bait. […]

   damnum absque injuria » NARAL: We’re Sorry You People Are So Stooopid (38c04c) — 8/11/2005 @ 8:34 pm

   
   

3. “We regret that many people have misconstrued our recent advertisement about Mr. Roberts’ record,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

   “Unfortunately, the debate over that advertisement has become a distraction from the serious discussion we hoped to have with the American public,”

   Serious discussion? oh please… one is quite obviously disinterested in serious discussion when their opening statement is flat-out lies.

   bains (8ffb96) — 8/11/2005 @ 9:53 pm

   
   

4. When the Daly Show makes fun of a leftist ad, you know it is counterproductive. That is why they withdrew it.

   This is just one more instance in the parade of lies used by backers of abortion to rationalize their slaughter of innocents on the altar of irresponsibility and selfishness. If they deny the inherent meaning of their own lives, what regard for truth should we expect them to have?

   Paul Deignan (664c74) — 8/11/2005 @ 11:49 pm

   
   

5. My apologies for posting this here, but I could not find your email address. I found this at Michele Malkin’s regarding the Air America scandal:

   [The NYTimes reports:

   “I don’t know why he did it,” Mr. Franken said, according to a transcript of the broadcast made by the Department of Investigation. “I don’t know where the money went. I don’t know if it was used for operations. I think he was borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.”
   Here’s what Franken actually said (via audio at Brainster’s Blog and transcript
   at Brian Maloney, who busted this story wide open in the blogosphere the Times sneers at):

   I don’t know why they did it, and I don’t know where the money went, I don’t know if it was used for operations (softer, especially fast), which I imagine it was. I think he was robbing Peter to pay Paul.
   The omission of those five little words matters because Al Franken’s actual statement suggests that the money was in fact stolen from poor kids to pay Air America’s bills–a speculation that the Times attributes to “conservative-leaning blogs,” but not to the Times’ favorite liberal talk show host who said it himself.] END M.Malkin CITATION

   I’m asking you because you are a lawyer and, more importantly, you have expertise in observing newspaper ethics and understanding the difference between unfair or biased versus unethical reporting. So, my question is this: Is it considered ethical for a newspaper to actually change a direct quote for any reason, even if Franken himself would not be the one to complain? I’m not asking if it is fair or if it is good journalism. It is obviously not, at least to the readers. I’m asking if the NYT could actually do this and realistically believe they are still operating in an ethical manner.
   Thanks.
   (Also, I noticed that the NYTimes changed “they” to “he”, the better to play the scandal off as about one rogue executive, rather than the organization, “they”, itself.)

   mikem (fd2aad) — 8/11/2005 @ 11:50 pm

   
   

6. “We regret that many people have misconstrued our recent advertisement…”

   They’ve been taking lessons in apology from Dick Durbin. They regret that everyone “misconstrued” the plain meaning of their viscious dishonest ad.

   Funny thing is I suspect Roberts is a pro-choice vote. But that doesn’t raise money for NARAL now does it? And those folks gotta stay in Guccis and Lear jets after all.

   Dwilkers (a1687a) — 8/12/2005 @ 5:11 am

   
   

7. “They’ve been taking lessons in apology from Dick Durbin.”

   I’d say anyone busted making a racist comment apologizes like that.

   actus (a5f574) — 8/12/2005 @ 5:24 am

   
   

8. “I’d say anyone busted making a racist comment apologizes like that.”

   Huh? I’m unaware of anything in the NARAL ad or that Durbin said that was racist.

   Some other blogger recently, think it was someone named Mithras, posted about Malkin being an affirmative action hire with tits. Now THAT was both racist and sexist.

   More generally though, that isn’t an “apology” at all. What I’d like to see is if people like Durbin or NARAL (or Bush or whomever) feel the need to apoligize they should just issue a freaking apology – like Novak did recently. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said/done whatever it was”. If they don’t think an apology is due then they should defend their actions/words.

   An apology is more for the apologizer than the apologizee. It cleans your conscience of guilt for a wrong. If you aren’t sorry you shouldn’t apologize. If you ARE sorry you should gut it up and apologize like a man.

   Of course that really doesn’t apply to an organization like NARAL, just a pet peeve of mine. In any case NARAL is *not* sorry about anything in this episode. Like I said, they got what they wanted: money.

   Dwilkers (a1687a) — 8/12/2005 @ 5:50 am

   
   

9. “Huh? I’m unaware of anything in the NARAL ad or that Durbin said that was racist.”

   I’m not saying they did it. I’m comparing it to that.

   actus (a5f574) — 8/12/2005 @ 6:34 am

   
   

10. “A NARAL spokesman said it will remain on the air for another day or more until the substitute ad is produced and made available.” —WaPo

    Andrew (a63e3b) — 8/12/2005 @ 2:44 pm

    
    

11. Actually, the ad wasn’t “phony” at all. It was a very real ad. The charges against Roberts were phony.

    🙂

    David (10149b) — 8/12/2005 @ 3:20 pm