New York Times Editors Illiterate About Roe
In the “New Year’s Resolution” version of the L.A. Times “Outside the Tent” column, one of my proposed resolutions was for the paper: “To make it clear in stories about judicial nominations that opposition to Roe vs. Wade is not the same as opposition to legalized abortion.”
I wish that for the editorial board of the New York Times as well.
The editors are publishing a screed against Alito today that says:
In a new Harris poll, just 34 percent of those surveyed said they thought he should be confirmed, while 31 percent said he should not, and 34 percent were unsure. Nearly 70 percent said they would oppose Judge Alito’s nomination if they thought he would vote to make abortion illegal – which it appears he might well do.
Ed Whelan says it well:
Thirty-three years after Roe v. Wade, does the New York Times really not understand that a vote to overturn Roe (which is unambiguously what the editorial is referring to) is not a “vote to make abortion illegal” but rather a vote to restore abortion policy to the democratic processes in the states? . . . [T]o misunderstand or lie about what is actually at stake ought to disqualify one from being taken seriously in public discourse on the Supreme Court.”
But does anyone really take the New York Times editors seriously on this topic?
P.S. That Harris poll does indeed ask exactly that stupid question: “If you thought that Judge Alito, if confirmed, would vote to make abortions illegal, would you favor or oppose his confirmation?” Polls ask ridiculous questions like this all the time, which is one of the main reasons I hate pollsters.
The poll should have asked:
“If you thought that Judge Alito, if confirmed, would vote to prevent the death of millions of babies, would you favor or oppose his confirmation?”
perfectsense (024110) — 1/8/2006 @ 5:43 amThe NYT has completely lost it. I found an absolutely perfect quote that I posted on my site:
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers – Thomas Jefferson
It’s been going on for a long time, hasn’t it?
Gaius Arbo (8e9f3c) — 1/8/2006 @ 5:51 amThere really isn’t ANY topic upon which the NYT should be taken seriously, or taken, at all.
It comes in handy when filling used quarries, though. Stock makes a GREAT short.
Layer Seven (ef8d43) — 1/8/2006 @ 7:20 amHell, the Supreme Court isn’t going to make abortion illegal. If that happens, it will be the doing of “abortion rights” fanatics.
The way things are going I would be surprised if the next decade does not see one or more high profile trials of “abortion rights” groups for moving minors across state lines to avoid parental notification laws. Sooner or later some little twit will commit suicide after being ‘helped’ to an abortion across a state line, or will die on the table, and there will be a big stink. Since the ‘abortion rights” fanatics don’t have the political common sense that God gave a grape, they will indignantly defend their actions, and public opinion about them will grow very ugly. Enough such incidents and the public will demand that “abortion rights” be severely curtailed, if not done away with.
And what the Supreme Court has to say about Roe V. Wade will be almost irrelevant…..
C. S. P. Schofield (9aea6d) — 1/8/2006 @ 7:40 amNY Times editors aren’t Illiterate about Roe, they’re duplicitous about Roe. This “Chicken Little” attempt to rally opposition to Alito’s nomination by inflaming the uninformed is as dishonest as it is pathetic. Since they’ve abandoned objective reporting, and run the paper into the ground, the NYT editors have taken up new jobs as presstitutes, turning tricks for Liberal demagogues.
Black Jack (ee9fe2) — 1/8/2006 @ 8:34 am“…the ‘abortion rights” fanatics don’t have the political common sense that God gave a grape….” C.S.P. Schofield
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been trying to tell these morons for years to get ready for the backlash produced by their extremism, but to no avail. I’ve come to consider them obsessive-compulsive paranoiacs.
J. Peden (11c761) — 1/8/2006 @ 10:57 amAll Things Beautiful TrackBack The Ship Of Fools
“The Democrats sin qua non has become to spend their every waking moment in slowly destroying every single bit of integrity left in the judicial process of electing a Supreme Court Judge, and turning it into a political farse.”
Alexandra (51bfeb) — 1/9/2006 @ 8:43 amPatterico – I wouldn’t be surprised if a truly conservative court majority were to rule that the 14th amendment *requires* a ban on abortion in order to protect the right of fetuses to life.
I can’t see the *current* court doing that. But that doesn’t mean I can’t imagine one which would.
aphrael (3bacf3) — 1/9/2006 @ 11:47 amAphrael, that dog don’t hunt. The 14th Amendment provision to which you allude merely prohibits the states from depriving individuals of life, liberty or property without due process of law; it does not prohibit (or require the states to prohibit) murder, kidnapping or theft by private actors. The only conceivable theory under which a court could imply a ban on abortion would be a very tortured interpretation of the equal protection clause, i.e., if the court first found that fetuses are “persons,” and then decided that states have no rational basis (a nearly impossible standard to meet BTW)for allowing the killing of the unborn while prohibiting the killing of the born. Even then, the likely result would be the invalidation of the law prohibiting murder, not the judicial creation of a new one prohibiting abortion.
Xrlq (e2795d) — 1/9/2006 @ 1:41 pmI know that the LAT keeps you busy, but please continue to monitor the NYT too. This is a perfect example of how they continually try to spin the news.
Bird Dog (a9eb8b) — 1/9/2006 @ 2:32 pm