Abortion Rights Group Withdraws Roberts Ad

[markalot]

Abortion Rights Group Withdraws Roberts Ad

By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 33 minutes ago

After a week of protests by conservatives, an abortion rights group said Thursday night it is withdrawing a television advertisement linking Supreme Court nominee John Roberts to violent anti-abortion activists.

"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," she said in a letter Thursday to Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., who had urged the group to withdraw the ad.

Specter, himself an abortion-rights supporter as well as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that will question Roberts next month, earlier Thursday had called the ad "blatantly untrue and unfair."

The NARAL ad criticizes Roberts and links him with violent anti-abortion protesters because of the anti-abortion briefs he worked on as a government lawyer.

"The NARAL advertisement is not helpful to the pro-choice cause which I support," Specter said in a letter to Keenan.

Keenan's response said the group will replace the ad with one that "examines Mr. Roberts' record on several points, including his advocacy for overturning Roe v. Wade, his statement questioning the right to privacy and his arguments against using a federal civil rights law to protect women and their doctors and nurses from those who use blockades and intimidation."

The original ad has been airing on broadcast television in Maine and Rhode Island and on CNN.

At least one television station had already refused to run the ad. Mike Young, vice president and general manager of WABI in Bangor, said his station ran the ad before deciding to pull it Thursday after receiving a challenge from the Republican National Committee.

"After careful thoughtful analysis, we determined the ad was at worst false, and at best misleading," he said.

Conservatives and Roberts supporters have been calling all week for NARAL to pull the ad.

NARAL had planned a $500,000 campaign to show the ad for two weeks.

"This ad grossly distorts the record of John Roberts from start to finish," said former Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "It has only one goal: to associate John Roberts with violent extremists."

Senate Democrats have not taken a position on the ad. Sen. Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record) of Vermont, the Judiciary Committee's top Democrat, told The Associated Press that ads for and against Roberts won't sway senators weighing the confirmation.

"There has been much furor over these ad campaigns, but I believe that television advertisements are not the point, and should not be the focus of debate or discussion," Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., said Thursday. But Schumer said he would ask Roberts about the constitutionality of abortion clinic protesting at his confirmation hearing.

In 1991, Roberts helped write — on behalf of the government — a Supreme Court brief in Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic. In that case, the court limited the federal help available to abortion clinic owners who seek to stop blockades by protesters.

Meanwhile, in documents released by the National Archives Thursday, Roberts advised then-high court nominee Sandra Day O'Connor not to answer certain questions in her confirmation process.

Roberts — then special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith and assigned to help O'Connor through her confirmation process — wrote O'Connor in 1981 to rebut a university professor's memo. The memo argued that senators can only determine a nominee's views through asking specific questions about specific cases.

In the memo, the professor wrote that answering those questions would not put a justice in danger of having to be disqualified from hearing future cases on that subject if it was made clear the nominee was not promising to vote one way or the other. Roberts rejected the theory saying it could bring up impropriety and possibly disqualification issues later.

O'Connor later refused to talk to senators about specific cases and was confirmed by the Senate.

Roberts has been nominated by President Bush to replace O'Connor on the Supreme Court this fall.

[markalot]

What's really opened my eyes during this process is the attitude of those who believe a good judge will rule based on his opinion of a subject and not on the facts.

So they look at every decision and freak out, thinking he will rule this way all the time, while the other side freaks out because he's ruled the other way in other cases.

*GASP*

It's almost like this guy looks at each case individually.

Dangerous, if you ask me. :rolleyes:

[tobedawg]

This pisses me off because:

If the shoe was on the other foot, and a Democrat President was nominating a liberal judge, the right wing would not only get their 527's to run relentless attack ads, but would be unapologetic for it..

I love how liberals and progressives love to bitch, whine, and complain about how conservatives are winning everything and how the Bush Administration has "taken so much away" but when it comes time to throw it back at them and put up a fight, they back away like pussy-faced cowards!

[drworm8]

I see where you're coming from tobedawg, but I think the Dems should leave their strong opinions and not back down to economic concerns rather than this culture war horseshit that the conservatives always bring up. As for Roberts, it could be a lot worse coming from Bush.

Bill Maher on Larry King Live tonight said it best for me:


MAHER: Yes. I think the liberals should get over it. That's about as good as it's going to get for them. You know -- I mean, the time to stop a John Roberts from being on the Supreme Court was the election and the liberals and the Democrats didn't do well there. They failed.

Bush got reelected and of course, he's going to nominate a conservative. They're lucky he didn't nominate a more fire-breathing conservative. If they shoot this guy down, I don't know who Bush is going to appoint next, because Bush is not the kind of guy who wants to be conciliatory.

He's not the guy who ever really wants to compromise. He speaks a good game about that, but he never does it. This is about as good as they're going to get. And, you know, he looks the part. He looks like a reasonable person. He's actually very far to the right, but his track record indicates that he really wants to follow the law.

So, at least he has a shot, I think. We don't know what he'd do if he had to rule on Roe versus Wade, but at least he has a shot, I think, at becoming the kind of justice that is not in the hip pocket of the right wing. Having said that, ladies, get your abortions now. If you need one, go now!


I also really don't think liberals should focus on culture war issues like this. There are so many people who don't vote that don't care about these issues.
Once again, Maher puts it best for me when he was asked about the voting fraud in the 2004 election:

The Democrats have to take responsibility to win an election by getting a considerable amount of votes more than the Republicans do, even with the cheating factored in. And they don't do that by trying to be Republican, which is what they try to do.

There are 79 million people in the last election who didn't vote, 79 million. That's a big pond to fish in. Start fishing in that pond, instead of the Republican pond.


http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0508/11/lkl.01.html

I know the election is off topic, but I just wanted to make my stance by saying abortion is just one issue of many, and probably one that won't ever be brought to the Supreme Court again. Roberts is a conservative judge with an apparent respect for the law of the land. Let it go. We need to start thinking about 2008, and to win votes, we need to focus on big issues that actually matter and we need to quit fighting back when conservatives start yelling. They've already gained enough support with this culture war madness.

[markalot]

nice post drworm.

[BigSugar]

The Democrats have to take responsibility to win an election by getting a considerable amount of votes more than the Republicans do, even with the cheating factored in.

exactly. like when the republicans slashed the tires of the 50 or so Democrat "get out the vote" vans in Ohio last election.....

ooops. that was the democrats slashing republican tires. my bad. i forgot that only Republicans cheat in elections and that Bill Maher was not a raging idiot masquerading as a comedian/political commentator.

[tobedawg]

I know the election is off topic, but I just wanted to make my stance by saying abortion is just one issue of many, and probably one that won't ever be brought to the Supreme Court again. Roberts is a conservative judge with an apparent respect for the law of the land. Let it go. We need to start thinking about 2008, and to win votes, we need to focus on big issues that actually matter and we need to quit fighting back when conservatives start yelling. They've already gained enough support with this culture war madness.

I see your point but I disagree.. The Dems should be fighting on ALL fronts as the Repubs would do if they were in the same situation..

Example: when John Kerry ran for President and the Swift Boat Liars for Rove put out their attack ad, many liberals were saying "Just let it go and don't attack back.. be above that!".. The following week, Bush's poll numbers rose, while Kerry's dropped.. not significantly, but enough to make a difference in the election..

The American public loves "Bring it on" Politics and spoke on November 2nd.. Many of the Red Staters went out and voted based on Cultural Issues... Remember the "Moral Values" Voters that won Bush the Election? Many people voted AGAINST their own interests (the economy and the war) to assure that "The Queers won't get married"..

The Dems and Liberals NEED to get a message and pound it into the skulls of the American public relentlessly, similar to what the Republicans have done.. They need to master the populist language and the fighting spirit rather than backing down at every turn..

I am to the point however, where I actually hope that Roe V. Wade is overturned.. Maybe it'll wake these damned liberals up!

[BigSugar]

The Dems and Liberals NEED to get a message and pound it into the skulls of the American public relentlessly, similar to what the Republicans have done.

they have. raise taxes, more social programs, national healthscare, abortions on demand (even for 12 year olds and without parental consent), capitulate to the UN, cut the military, appease the Islamic extremists, fuck Israel.

that message has been drilled home, and it's losing. badly. every year.

[tobedawg]

they have. raise taxes, more social programs, national healthscare, abortions on demand (even for 12 year olds and without parental consent), capitulate to the UN, cut the military, appease the Islamic extremists, fuck Israel

I Rest my Case...

[Buzzstein]

they have. raise taxes, more social programs, national healthscare, abortions on demand (even for 12 year olds and without parental consent), capitulate to the UN, cut the military, appease the Islamic extremists, fuck Israel.

that message has been drilled home, and it's losing. badly. every year.

I don't see anything wrong AT ALL with those particular 2 things.

[aqualou]

lies in government?
commercials that make inaccurate claims?
you mean colgate won't get my teeth the whitest?

[purple_octopus]

I don't see anything wrong AT ALL with those particular 2 things.
I do with the first, but not with the latter. We've been in bed with them so long, we might as well fuck them.

[wombat18]

they have. raise taxes, more social programs, ...

Well, you could use the Bush approach ... give tax breaks to the rich, hugely increase the size of government, run up a big deficit, transfer jobs to India, and bankrupt the country. At least Clinton could balance a budget.

[markalot]

washingtonpost.com
Democrats Conflicted on Playing Rough
Lack of Support for Roberts Ad Raises Question of Tactics

By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 13, 2005; A04

The decision by the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America to pull an incendiary ad attacking President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court has produced a fresh round of recriminations within the Democratic Party and a return to a nagging question: Has the opposition lost its nerve?

When conservatives complained about the ad -- which suggested that nominee John G. Roberts Jr. condoned violence against abortion clinics -- a number of prominent liberals joined in the criticism and elected Democrats ran for cover rather than defend the ad, which was dropped.

Amid similar criticism against another controversial ad, most Republicans brushed aside demands to repudiate Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that had taken aim at John F. Kerry's war record. Some Democrats said the difference revealed on their side an ambivalence about modern political combat that helps explain why their party is out of power.

"Republicans don't mind running an ad that's entirely false, but Democrats have never learned, and I'm not sure many of them want to learn, how to play that kind of politics," said Robert Shrum, an adviser to several Democratic presidential campaigns. NARAL had to pull the ad, he said, because "they weren't getting support from any substantial quarter."

Democratic strategist Chris Lehane, who like Shrum favors hardball politics, protested that "we Democrats bring a well-thumbed copy of Marquess of Queensberry Rules while the other side unsheaths their bloody knives, with a predictable outcome." Lehane said the NARAL ad "was great, and exactly the type of offensive that breaks through in the modern age."

Republican operative Greg Mueller, who advised the Swift boat group, said the NARAL ad was pulled not because of Democratic wavering but because "it was so false, so outrageously false, that they were hurting the Democratic Party." He said Republicans have done "nothing even close" to that level of dishonesty.

The NARAL case was the latest incident to provoke Democratic recriminations. In June, Democrats demanded that Bush aide Karl Rove apologize for saying that liberals wanted "therapy and understanding for our attackers." Rove refused to apologize, and Republicans leapt to his defense. Just before the Rove episode, Republicans demanded an apology from Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), the number two Democrat in the Senate, who likened U.S. treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay to techniques used by Nazis. Democrats joined in criticizing Durbin, who eventually delivered a tearful apology on the Senate floor.

Republicans say that they have been no more severe or dishonest in their rhetoric than the Democrats, and that they are no more apt to circle the wagons than Democrats are. "They play as nasty and as dirty as you can," said GOP strategist Grover Norquist, who called the NARAL ad a success because "they got the cheap shot out there."

While both parties have participated in their share of nasty and dishonest politics over the years, a number of Democrats have come to the conclusion that they need to be tougher. "You can't blame your opponents for applying a strategy that beats your brains out," former president Bill Clinton said in a speech last month, in which he mocked Democrats for responding to attacks like Pavlov's dogs by saying, "Oh, how mean they are."

"You can't ask them to stop being mean to us," the former president said. "You've got to be tough enough to beat it."

But the Democrats have had trouble shedding a tendency to complain. When GOP ads in 2002 showed images of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and portrayed Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.) as soft on terrorism, Democrats howled. But a version of the ad continued, and Cleland, who lost limbs in Vietnam, was defeated.

Democratic protests were similarly ignored in the 2004 campaign, when GOP ads said the president's critics attacked him "for attacking the terrorists." More recently, Democrats have complained about conservative charges that their opposition to some of Bush's judicial nominees means Democrats are anti-Christian -- but the accusations persist.

A number of Democrats still say the party's best hopes are on the high road. "We have to define the reckless left of our party and differentiate ourselves," said former Clinton aide Lanny Davis, who denounced the NARAL ad. He said such "smear and innuendo" has caused his party to lose recent elections.

Still, there is evidence of Democratic punches pulled. In the 2000 campaign, some aides to Al Gore proposed an ad juxtaposing Gore's service in Vietnam with photos from Bush's days as a young sports cheerleader -- but the idea was dismissed as inappropriate.

Some Democratic operatives say their trouble is congenital. "The problem is our politically impractical insistence on always residing on the moral high ground," said Jim Jordan, who was a longtime adviser to Kerry. "A large part of our ethos goes to what we perceive to be moral superiority and the sad truth is in politics that's sometimes inconvenient."

But if this is the case, it was not always. Few who remember the treatment of Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas or Newt Gingrich would assert that Democrats have trouble being mean. Nor are Democrats always inclined to eat their own: When Clinton was impeached, Democrats were almost unfailingly loyal, while Republicans have turned on party leaders such as Gingrich, Trent Lott and Bob Livingston.

David Sirota, a former congressional aide who is forming a group of liberal state legislators, said the behavior has been learned. "Washington Democrats are afraid of their own shadow," he said. "They've internalized all the Republican attacks and made it part of their psychology. It's like if you're a kid and you've been bullied you begin to think you're a wimp."

Republicans, attacking the NARAL ad, trumpeted the finding of the nonpartisan FactCheck.org that the abortion group's ad was "false" and "misleading." But that same organization had labeled the Swift boat ads "dubious" and found "a serious discrepancy in the account of Kerry's accusers," which was at odds with military records.

But Mueller said he never considered pulling the Swift boat ads when Democrats reacted with fury and independent arbiters declared the ads to be misleading. "There was never any question in our minds," he said.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company