Broadcasters quick to cast Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland as appealing ‘moderate’

Liberal? What liberal? In the first 24 hours after President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, the big three networks deemed the federal judge either a “moderate” or a “centrist” according to Scott Whitlock, a Media Research Center analyst who sat through the follow-up news coverage on ABC, CBS and NBC.

“Liberal” was not much part of their vocabulary. Mr. Garland was instead cast as an appealing, middle-of-the-road figure.

ABC and NBC reporters never called him a liberal even once; CBS correspondents used the word just twice, also tucking in the phrase “moderate liberal” on two occasions. In all, the three networks identified Mr. Garland as a comfy moderate nine times.

“The journalistic effort to stamp Garland as a moderate comes despite the judge’s past ruling against Second Amendment rights and a history of campaigning for Democratic presidential candidates,” said Mr. Whitlock. “This conclusion also flies in the face of declarations of other outlets, including the liberal New York Times which noted that Mr. Garland is ’substantially more liberal than Justice Scalia’ and ’is expected to be ideologically similar to Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s previous picks for the court’.”