The NARAL smear ad that associates John Roberts with abortion clinic bombings gives us a great example of just how bad the MSM is at providing useful and relevant information. Here's the
Washington Post version published the morning after the story broke. Headline:
Ad Campaign Says Roberts Backed Violent Protesters. So right off the bat anyone who is simply scanning the paper gets the message pushed by the NARAL ad. Read the article and what do you learn?
- A repeat of the headline message, and a generic denial by Robert's supporters
- A convoluted summary of the legal situation referred to by the ad
- A description of the message and text of the ad
- He-said, she-said style quotes from supporters of both Roberts and NARAL
- A claim by "Robert's allies" that he has never supported violence
Browse over to
Powerline's post on the story from the same morning and you learn the following additional information that the
Post deemed unimportant:
- The legal case referenced by the ad (Bray v. Alexandria Clinic) and a link to the Supreme Court's decision in the matter
- A clearer (in my opinion) explanation of Robert's role in the case
- The Bray case had nothing to do with bombing or violence of any kind, or with supporting a clinic bomber. The clinic bombing mentioned by the ad occurred eight years after Bray--and therefore the NARAL ad is a flat-out lie.
- Why the government filed a brief supporting the protesters: Because a Supreme Court decision against them could have started a chain of legal inference leading the courts to eventually overturn all federal laws excluding abortion services from medical assistance programs (such as Medicaid, I'm assuming) on the grounds that exclusion of abortion services is discriminatory toward women.
- The real story is that pro-abortion groups are willing to brazenly lie to prevent even the chance of any restrictions on abortion
UPDATE: Mini-kudos to the
Post for finally getting most of these facts straight in it's
editorial today.
No comments:
Post a Comment