Conservatives foaming at the bench

As news that Supreme Court Justice David Souter will be stepping down at the end of this term thus providing President Obama with his first Supreme Court appointment continued to burn up the airwaves this week, Media Matters released an extensive report documenting and correcting common myths and falsehood propagated by the media on the subject -- an essential primer for anyone following or covering the story. Yes, there's nothing like a pending Supreme Court nomination to get media conservatives hot under the collar. Even Obama's desire for an empathetic nominee was maligned. Several media figures and outlets -- among them The Washington Post, Fox News congressional correspondent Major Garrett and O'Reilly Factor guest host Laura Ingraham -- falsely suggested that Obama said that he will seek a replacement for Souter who demonstrates the quality of "empathy" rather than a commitment to follow the law. Blinded by the rest of Obama's statement, they ignored the simple fact that immediately after stating that he saw the "quality of empathy" as "an essential ingredient for arriving as just decisions and outcomes," Obama stated that he would "seek somebody who is dedicated to the rule of law, who honors our constitutional traditions, who respects the integrity of the judicial process and the appropriate limits of the judicial role." Others advanced the bizarre claim that, in the words of a National Review editorial, "[e]mpathy is simply a codeword for an inclination toward liberal activism." Perhaps they'd benefit from a review of two recent studies of Supreme Court justices indicating that in two key categories, those most frequently labeled "conservative" were also among the most activist. Moreover, several former Republican senators have previously cited "compassion" as a qualification for judicial nominees. Of all the names on the media's short list for Obama, Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor has been the subject of the harshest criticism from media conservatives, with many misrepresenting her past comments. For example, Fox News host Jane Skinner asserted that Sotomayor "is coming under some fire for making some comments that were recorded on tape a while back, saying that it's her job, really, to make policy from the bench" when, in fact, Sotomayor did not say that. Still others, like The New Republic's Jeffrey Rosen and Fox News' Andrew Napolitano, sank to citing anonymous sources criticizing Sotomayor, including law clerks, which an American University law professor called "extremely problematic." Rosen, incidentally, has perhaps been Sotomayor's harshest critic, even resorting to misrepresenting a footnote in making his purported "Case Against Sotomayor." Conservatives in the media have also sought to prop up the profile and background of Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, who was selected to lead the Republican minority on the Senate Judiciary Committee leading into the Supreme Court confirmation hearings. The Washington Times reported that Sen. Sessions' 1986 nomination to a federal court was "blocked by Democrats," but offered no explanation for that opposition. However, two Republicans voted against Sessions' nomination, which failed amid accusations that his pursuit of voter fraud charges against three African-American civil rights activists as U.S. attorney in 1985 were racially motivated and that he had made racially insensitive comments. Which must explain why Fox News' Neil Cavuto described Sessions as "widely respected on all sides." I'll wait while you finish laughing. Finally, if you really want to get a feel for just how off the wall conservative media coverage of this story has been over the past week, you need only look at the Fox News' new website, Fox Nation which this week stated (with a question mark to play it safe): "Why aren't white males being considered for Supreme Court?"