AP Media Bias Shows Again

Well, now here's the deal: The AP (or maybe LegalTimes.com—more on this later)reports that Supreme Court Justices Ruth Ginsburg and Sandra O'Connor have received death threats due to Republican extremist provocations! First up:

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter joked earlier this year that Justice John Paul Stevens should be poisoned. Over the past few months O'Connor has complained that criticism, mainly by Republicans, has threatened judicial independence to deal with difficult issues like gay marriage.

My, oh, my. And the pro-death lobby doesn't threaten judicial independence? But wait, there's more:

Ginsburg said the Web threat was apparently prompted by legislation in Congress, filed by Republicans, that would bar judges from relying on foreign laws or court decisions.

"It is disquieting that they have attracted sizable support. And one not-so-small concern _ they fuel the irrational fringe," she said in a speech posted online by the court earlier this month and first reported Wednesday by LegalTimes.com.

According to Ginsburg, someone in a Web site chat room wrote: "Okay commandoes, here is your first patriotic assignment ... an easy one. Supreme Court Justices Ginsburg and O'Connor have publicly stated that they use (foreign) laws and rulings to decide how to rule on American cases. This is a huge threat to our Republic and Constitutional freedom. ... If you are what you say you are, and NOT armchair patriots, then those two justices will not live another week."

Very interesting. The article goes on to describe Justice Ginsburg's love for international law:

Justices, in some of their most hotly contested rulings, have looked overseas. Last year, for example, justices barred the executions of juvenile killers on a 5-4 vote. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said then that "it is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty."

In an angry dissent to that decision, Justice Antonin Scalia said capital punishment policy should be set by states, not "the subjective views of five members of this court and like-minded foreigners."

Ginsburg said, "Critics in Congress and in the media misperceive how and why U.S. courts refer to foreign and international court decisions." She said those decisions are used for guidance only.

Wrong answer, Justice G. Leftists in the judiciary themselves misperceive "international law" (usually socialist international law) as superior to US jurisprudence which contains enough of its own precedents to more than suffice in any context. But if a Justice like the wobbly Kennedy can't find his point of view here, he's obviously more than happy to find support overseas, indulging in the usual fallacy that all other countries are always right, apparently, particularly if they're Euro-socialists.

Do we support death threats against Justices like Ginsburg or O'Connor? Of course not. But the main reason we posted this is not to air the erroneous reasoning of leftist judges or to quarrel with the hyperbole of Ann Coulter.

Basically what we have here is another non-story by the lefty media that puts a total distortion field around reality. In the first place, I flat out guarantee you that ALL Supreme Court Justices get death threats. I also guarantee you that the conservative Justices get their death threats from the moonbats who flutter about the likes of the Soros-funded Daily Kos where vile comments on and threats to conservatives are the average daily fare.

The AP story fails to pursue these threads, thus creating the erroneous implications that left wing Justices are always correct and are wrongly persecuted; and that all death threats to sitting leftist judges come from the right. And that all people on the right, including Justice Scalia, are nuts and, above all, "angry." Now, the reporter doesn't flat out say this, but the implication is purposely left. The implication is further bolstered by the addition of allegedly conservative Justice O'Connor to the stew, showing just how evil these righties are.

The citation of Scalia above is particularly telling, alleging an "angry" dissent and quoting a single line. But let's provide a little more context to Scalia's remarks by citing more, as in this paragraph from a different writer addressing the same issue:

Citing criticisms of the practice by Justice Antonin Scalia and 7th Circuit appeals Judge Richard Posner, Ginsburg cautioned that “Foreign opinions are not authoritative; they set no binding precedent for the U.S. judge. But they can add to the store of knowledge relevant to the solution of trying questions. Yes, we should approach foreign legal materials with sensitivity to our differences, deficiencies, and imperfect understanding, but imperfection, I believe, should not lead us to abandon the effort to learn what we can from the experience and good thinking foreign sources may convey.”

Heavens, now, what's "angry" about this. "Angry" is the AP reporter's editorial comment, not a fact, something journalists aren't supposed to do unless they're writing opinions pieces. (We'll provide you with the mystery source of this paragraph below.)

Fact is, the story is at best a half truth and is again merely an attempt to smear Republicans by tarring them with the irrational acts of a few, something the lefties will never allow you to do to them without screaming bloody murder, accusing you of McCarthyite tactics, and calling the ACLU.

An interesting postscript: Reason we listed both sources above is that it looks, at times, like the AP reporter may have plagiarized the more thorough LegalTimes story. Check it out for yourself. (Our snips are from the AP story, save for the mystery quote.) Bits of evidence abound, including one case where precisely the same ellipsis is employed in a quotation.

This kind of laziness and casual borrowing is not uncommon in today's media. But it also leads to misleading reportage when juicy pieces are taken out of context and used to paint the smear and hit pieces so favored by the advocacy media, particularly by the lesser known reporters laboring for the AP and Reuters. You'll note that the LegalTimes.com story, while scarcely flattering to crazies on the right, is also far more fair and balanced, providing responses from Justice Scalia on the international law flap along with plenty of context for the story. And the LegalTimes.com story is also where we took the more balanced view on Scalia's opinion that we provided in the mystery quote above.

Like the phony Iran "report" we punched out in this morning's post, it's precisely this savage onslaught of hit pieces, like this one from the AP, that has us losing the war in Iraq when we're winning it, losing friends across the world when we're starting to gain great new ones like India, and so forth ad infinitum. The Gramscian left, particularly those working for the MSM, labor 24/7 to create a false reality that is uniformly damaging to United States interests and above all, reliably slanderous and invariably false or misleading when referencing President Bush or Republicans. Then, by borrowing each false meme, passing it on, borrowing it again, trumpeting it, and amplifying it, the leftist MSM spreads the false reality so extensively that, within days, it magically becomes the truth.

But they forgot about HazZzmat.