Bury Me Broken

Objections to Justice Brown in Times a Day Late

The Daily Howler asks how come one day after Janice Rogers Brown is confirmed that the front page tells of the legitimate objections that Democrats had with this nominee:

THE DAY AFTER: Finally! David Kirkpatrick was really smokin’ in his New York Times profile of Janice Rogers Brown. “[S]ome Senate Democrats have even singled her out as the most objectionable of President Bush's more than 200 judicial nominees,” the Times tough-talker said. Nor did he shrink from explaining Dem fury; Dems had been “citing [Brown’s] criticism of affirmative action and abortion rights but most of all her sweeping denunciations of New Deal legal precedents that enabled many federal regulations and social programs—developments she has called ‘the triumph of our socialist revolution.’” Indeed, at the very start of his piece, he laid out the justice’s oddball views. The headline in our hard-copy edition: “Seeing slavery in liberalism:”

KIRKPATRICK (pgh 1): Janice Rogers Brown, the African-American daughter of Alabama sharecroppers...often invokes slavery in describing what she sees as the perils of liberalism.

(2) ''In the heyday of liberal democracy, all roads lead to slavery,'' she has warned in speeches. Society and the courts have turned away from the founders' emphasis on personal responsibility, she has argued, toward a culture of government regulation and dependency that threatens fundamental freedoms.

(3) ''We no longer find slavery abhorrent,'' she told the conservative Federalist Society a few years ago. ''We embrace it.'' She explained in another speech, ''If we can invoke no ultimate limits on the power of government, a democracy is inevitably transformed into a kleptocracy—a license to steal, a warrant for oppression.''

(4) To her critics, such remarks are evidence of extremism.Indeed, it was wild and wacky stuff—and Kirkpatrick was fearlessly laying it out, right on page one of the Times! Why, he even took an extremely cursory look at some of Brown’s judicial decisions!

But there’s one slight problem with Kirkpatrick’s report; it appears in this morning’s Times, the day after Brown’s confirmation! Much like its cowardly buddy (the Washington Post), the Times refused to profile Brown in the weeks before her Senate vote, when a tough-talking front-page profile like this might have sparked some real debate. But then, this is exactly what the fearless Times did in the case of another disputed judge, Priscilla Owen. Kirkpatrick did a front-page profile of Owen last Thursday—also on the morning after the Senate voted to confirm.

With these day-after profiles, the Times announces a fact; the paper has officially stood down from traditional journalistic duties. The paper will hide from the day’s leading issues; it will only lay out a few facts after the issue is settled. Did readers deserve to read about Brown before the Senate took its vote? To all appearances, that obvious course would be too risky for the greatest of all Gotham papers. Instead, its editors took the view—the rubes could read about Owen and Brown after George Bush got his druthers.

These occurrences on the part of what is labeled the "liberal media" demonstrate why more and more Americans are seeking alternative media sources as well as blogging in order that at least a few facts are introduced into the Bizzaro media-compliant, political environment of present.

posted by niteskolar @ 7:19 PM