OPINION:
According to a new Pew Research Center poll, most Americans favor at least some limits on abortion, but you would never know it by witnessing the outbursts from the corporate media. When a draft U.S. Supreme Court opinion leaked, indicating that the Roe v. Wade abortion case could soon be overturned, the media erupted.
Some launched an assault on the Supreme Court itself.
“The perception for 70% of Americans waking up this morning is going to be, most likely, that this is an illegitimate decision by an illegitimate court,” said MSNBC morning show co-host Joe Scarborough.
He was joined by NBC historian Jon Meacham, who said, “if you have any reservations about the system’s capacity to deliver justice, they have just been affirmed.”
“The court will surely suffer for this shattering self-own to its own legitimacy,” wrote Dahlia Lithwick in Slate.
Others had a hard time recovering from the impact of the news, like MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, who apologized out of the gate: “I’m just sort of composing myself here as I process this.”
But once they got themselves together, it was time to spin outlandish tales about what such a ruling might mean, and what others could be lurking in the near future.
Former CBS News abortion correspondent (yes, an abortion correspondent) Kate Smith, who now does communications for abortion-giant Planned Parenthood, guaranteed without substantiation that women who suffer miscarriages will soon be incarcerated, thanks to the Supreme Court. She said the nation of El Salvador arrests women for miscarriages, which is what she predicted will happen in the United States.
“This isn’t a theory. We don’t need to speculate. We have actual facts that can inform what happens,” she said on CNN.
The CNN host, Brian Stelter, did not take issue with Ms. Smith’s proclamation.
“Next they’ll go after gay marriage and maybe — what is it? — Brown vs. Board of Education,” said constitutional scholar Joy Behar, without evidence, on ABC’s “The View,” referencing the 1954 Supreme Court ruling desegregating public schools.
“Maybe even interracial marriage,” chimed in political analyst Gloria Borger, without foundation, over on CNN.
The August New York Times editorial page took the idea of outlawed interracial marriage and used it as a for-instance in an editorial bashing the apparent ruling.
“Imagine that every state were free to choose whether to allow Black people and white people to marry,” The New York Times wrote, even though that’s not happening. “Some states would permit such marriages; others probably wouldn’t. The laws would be a mishmash, and interracial couples would suffer, legally consigned to second-class status depending on where they lived.”
The secret plan of the Supreme Court’s majority to abolish interracial marriage would probably come as a shock to Justice Clarence Thomas, who is Black, and his wife Ginni, who is white.
But the real breakthrough winner for over-the-top reaction came on MSNBC from The Nation’s Elie Mystal, who blamed the politics of the late 1780s for a looming court ruling 234 years later.
The Constitution is silent on the issue of abortion, which means that under the 10th Amendment, the issue is left to states to decide. But Mr. Mystal has discovered the reason for that.
“The Founding Fathers didn’t recognize abortion as a fundamental right because the Founding Fathers were racist, misogynist jerkfaces who didn’t believe that women had any rights at all,” he ranted.
That’s right: jerkfaces.
In light of all the anger and hysteria from leftists, CNN sprung into action and warned viewers of possible violence from … conservatives.
Really.
“There’s a potential for violence against abortion clinic providers, abortion clinic staff, members of the judiciary — that would include the justices here — as well as the federal government,” said CNN law enforcement correspondent Whitney Wild from outside the Supreme Court.
Because apparently at CNN, the winning side in an argument is often known to explode in anger.
The concern about violence seems misplaced, at least for now since the irate crowds actually have been gathering outside the homes of the conservative justices.
But at the White House, there was little concern for their safety from press secretary Jen Psaki, who said that the “protests have been peaceful to date. And we certainly continue to encourage that outside of judges’ homes and that’s the president’s position.”
That’s just in case anyone wanted an update on the progress of the media’s long-stated desire for a return to civility.
All the hyperbole and misdirection serve an important function, however, because they reveal that the left doesn’t believe that their legitimate arguments are strong enough. If they were more persuasive, there would be no need to lie by claiming that the U.S. suddenly turned into El Salvador.
• Tim Murtaugh is a Washington Times columnist and the founder and principal of Line Drive Public Affairs, a communication consulting firm.
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