'œThe Borking of John Roberts has officially begun,' said the New York Post in an editorial. NARAL Pro-Choice America last week launched a TV ad accusing Roberts, President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, of 'œsupporting' violence against abortion clinics. The ad focused on a single legal brief Roberts wrote in 1991, when he served in the first Bush administration. Roberts merely argued that an 1871 law designed to protect freed slaves from the KKK should not be used to stop pro-life groups from blocking access to abortion clinics. But NARAL twisted that position to accuse Roberts of excusing 'œviolence against other Americans.' That charge was a 'œdeliberate distortion,' said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial, although it does accurately reflect just how 'œdesperate' Roberts' foes are to muddy him. 'œIf this is a foretaste of the Roberts confirmation, better lay in the Listerine.'
Democrats will live to regret this 'œrancid attack,' said Michael Goodwin in the New York Daily News. The spot, which juxtaposed images of Roberts with a victim of a clinic bombing, mortified even some prominent abortion-rights backers. Sen. Arlen Specter, the pro-choice chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said that such 'œblatantly untrue and unfair' nonsense only hurts the abortion-rights cause. NARAL came to its senses and withdrew the ad shortly into its two-week run. But the damage was already done, and not just to NARAL. For days, not a single prominent Democrat came forward to condemn the ad, in fear of alienating the party's fired-up base. As a result, it has just become that much harder for Democrats to deny 'œthat the fringe is starting to dominate the party.'
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