Text 14573, 97 rader
Skriven 2005-08-12 22:12:46 av Alan Hess
Ärende: unfair attack on Roberts
================================
I think this column is right on.  There is a right way to take issue with a
nominee's (or candidate's) policies, and a wrong way.  The ad in question was
definitely the wrong way.  

Release of Roberts' papers for examination is also the right way.

*******


washingtonpost.com
Stop the Roberts Bombing

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, August 12, 2005; A19

Can we please come up with a better way of arguing about Supreme Court
nominees?

Fellow liberals, face it: The advertisement created by NARAL, the abortion
rights group that opposes John Roberts's nomination to the Supreme Court, is
outrageous. It ties Roberts to people who bombed abortion clinics. If this
isn't guilt by association, I don't know what is.

Here's what the ad says: "Seven years ago, a bomb destroyed a women's health
clinic in Birmingham, Alabama." The ad then quotes Emily Lyons, whose clinic
was bombed in January 1998: "When a bomb ripped through my clinic, I almost
lost my life. I will never be the same." The announcer returns: "Supreme Court
nominee John Roberts filed court briefs supporting violent fringe groups and a
convicted clinic bomber." Text on screen: "Roberts filed court brief supporting
clinic protestors." Lyons again: "I'm determined to stop this violence so I'm
speaking out." The announcer: "Call your senators. Tell them to oppose John
Roberts. America can't afford a justice whose ideology leads him to excuse
violence against other Americans."

You can consult FactCheck.org, a Web site run by the Annenberg Public Policy
Center at the University of Pennsylvania -- not a haven for the right-wing
conspiracy -- to find out all that is wrong with the ad. Just consider: Roberts
filed the brief in question on behalf of the United States government (i.e.,
the administration of President Bush's father) in the spring of 1991, seven
years before the Alabama clinic was bombed . The brief did not support clinic
bombings. There is a difference between "bombers" and "protesters," as any
civil libertarian knows. The Supreme Court, by a vote of 6 to 3, sided with
Roberts's interpretation, and Congress then, rightly, passed a federal law
aimed at preventing violence against abortion clinics.

Let's give NARAL all the benefits of the doubt here. The group has every right
to disagree with the stand that Roberts and the first Bush administration took
on this question. A lot of other people disagreed, including Justice Sandra Day
O'Connor in her dissent. Roberts's views on women's rights, which entered into
his interpretation of the law in this case, matter. And whether anyone likes it
or not, where Roberts stands on Roe v. Wade is a central concern to people on
both sides of this battle.

One other point: I'm among those who have criticized liberals for a reluctance
to stand up and fight the Bush administration and the right wing. NARAL's
defenders could say that the organization is simply being as tough on the right
as the right is on the left. In the current climate, the argument goes, only a
really harsh attack (the Swift Boat Veterans' attack on John Kerry comes to
mind) can force the public and the media to pay attention to issues that would
otherwise go unnoticed. The very fact that I am writing this column, unfriendly
as it is, can be taken as a sign of NARAL's success.

But if all this is true, why were so many liberals upset by this ad -- some
publicly, many privately? It is not, I would submit, because they are wimps.
Rather, the over-the-top suggestion that Roberts is someone who would "excuse
violence against other Americans" is a distraction from the core issues
surrounding his nomination.

"The ads, whether they come from the right or the left, are beside the point,"
said Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat who sponsored the bill to
protect abortion clinics from violence. "The issue is: What are Roberts's
views?"

That, in turn, is why the administration is wrong to resist the release of all
documents that would illuminate Roberts's career as deputy solicitor general
from 1989 to 1993. Most of what we know so far comes from documents reflecting
his views as a scrappy, twentysomething conservative. What are his more
considered views -- for example, on women's rights, civil rights, disability
rights?

Precisely because he has such a thin record of public writings, Roberts himself
has an obligation to be forthcoming in answering questions about his views,
especially on cases that have already been decided. The debate over Roberts
should be civil. But you cannot have a civil debate on "the issues" if
Roberts's supporters insist that "the issues" cannot be discussed and that he
is perfectly free to decline any exploration of his outlook on important
matters that will face him as a justice.

So let's embrace a Civility Compact: Roberts and the administration will agree
to be more open about the issues that matter, so that phony issues and
distortions will be left by the wayside, where they belong. Any takers?

postchat@aol.com
+ 2005 The Washington Post Company

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