Potential Supreme Court Nominees Targeted in YouTube Attack Ads
Some conservative groups aren’t waiting for President Obama to announce his choice to fill the seat of retiring Justice David H. Souter. They are taking aim at three potential Supreme Court nominees in attack ads posted on YouTube.
The Judicial Confirmation Network has posted the videos on a website called Obama’s Frontrunners, the DC Dicta blog reports.
In one video, Judge Diane Wood of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is derided for a ruling on the application of RICO laws, the Chicago Tribune reports. “Wood ruled that peaceful abortion demonstrators should be punished under the same law that applies to mob bosses,” the ad says.
Solicitor General Elena Kagan, the former dean of Harvard Law School, is criticized because she “kicked the military off campus during a time of war.” The ad features “ominous music” in the background, according to the Tribune.
And Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals apparently believes “the content of your character is not as important as the color of your skin,” according to the ad. The ad targets her vote rejecting a challenge by white firefighters who sued after a fire department threw out a promotions test that produced no minority candidates.
Supreme Court practitioner Thomas Goldstein, who created SCOTUSblog, told the Tribune that the Internet and blogs have helped distribute information about the possible nominees. “The downside is that there is an equal leveling effect in which totally idiotic wing nuts can go off—that’s true on both the far left and far right.”
SCOTUSblog reports that Wood’s RICO ruling “was a judgment primarily about injunctive relief and the breadth of the racketeering statute, not on the right to provide an abortion or to protest.”
