Flashback to Flashback: Nets Were Quick to Tag Alito and Roberts as 'Ultra' and 'Hardline' 'Conservatives'
Re-post of Flashback from Tuesday,
May 26, 2009:
Network anchors and reporters didn't hesitate to apply strong
ideological labels (not just quoting others) to President Bush's two
Supreme Court nominees, John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Will they be as
willing to tag President Obama's nominee, U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia
Sotomayor, as "staunch," and "hardline" and "ultra" liberal, or at
least as "very liberal"? [No, see Flashbacks: #1,
#2
and #3]
In July of 2005, on the night Bush announced Roberts, ABC's George
Stephanopoulos and Ted Koppel both described him as not just
conservative, but as "very conservative." NBC's Brian Williams
called Roberts "a kind of 'bedrock conservative,' not what is
called a 'movement conservative.'"
The next night, CBS Evening News anchor John Roberts
(now with CNN) wanted to know of his namesake: "Has President Bush
attempted to move the court further to the right with this pick?"
On NBC, Chip Reid (now at CBS) highlighted how one liberal activist
"says he worries that Roberts might be a stealth candidate, moderate on
the outside but as conservative as Justices Scalia and Thomas on the
inside."
And there was no doubt in NPR reporter Nina Totenberg's mind that
Judge John Roberts is "very conservative," it's just a matter of how
"very." On NPR's All Things Considered she prefaced "conservative" with
three verys, describing him as "a very, very, very conservative
man." But in a taped soundbite on the next day's Good Morning
America on ABC, she cut back to two modifiers, dubbing him merely "a
very, very conservative man."
A little more than three months later with Alito, several reporters repeatedly applied a conservative tag or
added adjectives to suggest he's out of the mainstream. On ABC's
October 31 Good Morning America, Jessica Yellen (now with CNN) issued
five labels in under 50 seconds, describing Alito as someone who
will please Bush's "conservative base," has "established
conservative credentials," is "a law and order conservative,"
who is "in the mold of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia" and
whose "writing is so similar to the conservative justice's,
he's sometimes nicknamed 'Scalito.'" Just before Bush's announcement,
Charles Gibson called Alito "very conservative" and "the most
conservative member" of the otherwise "liberal appellate court."
Gibson soon repeated himself: "The President has picked somebody
very conservative."
Over on CBS's Early Show, Gloria Borger dubbed Alito "quite
conservative," the same label applied a few minutes earlier on
CNN's Daybreak by Carol Costello before Jeffrey Toobin applied the "very
conservative" tag. NBC's Katie Couric asserted that Alito "could
be a controversial choice" because he's "a favorite on the right and he
would replace moderate justice Sandra Day O'Connor."
The ABC and CBS evening newscasts distorted his role and position on
the husband-notification abortion case and pegged him as a "staunch"
or "hardline" conservative, but NBC managed to correctly describe his
role in the abortion case and depicted him as "dependably conservative,
though with an independent streak."
On ideological labeling,
ABC anchor Elizabeth Vargas asserted on the October 31, 2005 World
News: "Conservatives are thrilled, liberals incensed." She went on to
relay that "he is said to be brilliant and a staunch conservative."
CBS anchor Schieffer saw Democrats not liberals when he touted how
Bush has "made the conservatives happy, but the Democrats are upset."
John Roberts proceeded to assert: "Alito's judicial philosophy so
mirrors that of the Supreme Court's hardliner, Antonin Scalia,
that he's been nicknamed 'Scalito.'" Roberts ominously warned: "If
confirmed, Alito would wipe out the swing seat now occupied by Sandra
Day O'Connor, tilting the Supreme Court in a solidly conservative
direction for years to come."
The following week on NBC's
Today, co-host Matt Lauer applied an extreme ideological tag to
Alito, telling former Senator Fred Thompson: "Let's face it, he is an
ultra-conservative and his track record on the bench is that he,
he, [talking over Thompson] he goes to the right on key issues."
Thompson rejected the label. Lauer also fretted that if Alito is
confirmed, "eight of the nine Supreme Court justices will be men, eight
of the nine will be white, eight of the nine will have law degrees from
either Harvard or Yale, five of the nine will be Catholic. What does
that say about the, the Court's ability to reflect and, and, and rule on
behalf of the diverse population of this country?"
- Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at
the Media Research Center. Click
here to follow him on Twitter.
