I received this great “heads up” from Saint Jeff of Edwards, personal friend and a common folk using his common sense.
From Reuters:
A sharply divided U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, backing a second conservative nominated by President George W. Bush in his effort to move the nation’s highest court to the right. [emphasis mine]
Jeff started his email to me with “Could it BE any more slanted? Look at all the editorial comments in just the opening line.”
Reuters did, later, calm down their original article by removing the phrase “sharply divided”:
Samuel Alito was sworn in as a U.S. Supreme Court justice on Tuesday after a divided Senate confirmed him as a second conservative appointed by President George W. Bush in his effort to move the high court to the right.
(1) The vote by the Senate was 58-42, hardly a sharp division.
(2) How can it be that Bush is chided as moving the Supreme Court to the right when Clinton, in appointing Breyer and Ginsburg, was never scolded for moving the Court to the left? If anything Bush is merely taking the Court back to the center.
(3) Does Reuters always describe the ideology of other justices or members of Congress, or only when writing about Conservatives?
All this in only one sentence. Reuters is one of the largest news outlets in the world, especially in Europe. So today many Europeans read about Alito’s confirmation via Reuter’s printed words. It’s easy to see why so many Europeans have a negative attitude about the U.S. when the news they read has already been slanted before they read it.
The article goes on to say that Alito is “replacing Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, a moderate conservative”. Huh? I’ve heard O’Connor referred to using many descriptors but never “moderate conservative”. It is entirely possible that Reuters should actually do some research before writing their articles instead of depending on what the New York Times belches out.
Is anyone surprised that Bush, a somewhat comservative himself, would appoint someone that shares his own beliefs? Is Bush supposed to appoint someone that has different beliefs, morals, and ideology than himself? If you were President would you pick someone for the Supreme Court that thinks differently from yourself? All of this weeping and moaning is the highest form of hypocracy.
Then the article says “He is expected to align himself with the court’s solidly conservative bloc and could affect the outcome of votes on key social issues such as abortion and civil rights.” Every new justice could affect the outcome of future votes, but there seems to be concern only when such votes come from a Conservative, not a Liberal. That is only a concern when Reuters, as an organization, has a Liberal agenda that they feel is threatened. Is the court’s solidly Conservative bloc any different from court’s solidly Liberal bloc?
And Reuters finally admits what it’s been wanting to say all along: “abortion”. The rest of the world could burn down to the core, but as long as abortion remains legal in the U.S. everything else is OK. It’s what I’ve been saying from the start - abortion is the locus of the Liberal’s entire world. It’s a great thing that women have the OK from the federal government to kill their unborn. Such a sad commentary on a group that tells the world how much they care about life. They care more about trees and salamanders than they do humans. Maybe Liberals are actually aliens intent on conquering the Earth.
But there’s no Liberal, anti-U.S. media bias, right? al Reuters, al Jazeera - what’s the difference?
Reuters, Alito, Supreme Court, conservative, Bush
