An April 25 CNSNews.com article by Fred Lucas asserts that Floyd Corkins, who has pleaded guilty to shooting a security guard at the Family Research Council headquarters, is a “domestic terrorist” who “found the Family Research Council as a target because they were listed online as an ‘anti-gay’ group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.”
That’s a change of pace from how CNS treated another domestic terrorist — Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion zealot who murdered abortion doctor George Tiller during a Sunday church service in 2009.
As we noted at the time, CNS labored intensely to disassociate Roeder from the “mainstream” anti-abortion movement. CNS also played down Roeder’s ties to the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, which were much stronger than those of Corkins to the SPLC. (The father of Brent Bozell, leader of CNS parent Media Research Center, led an early anti-abortion crusade of the kind that Operation Rescue would become known for.)
CNS’ Penny Starr insisted in 2010 that Roeder is “a mentally unstable man” despite the fact that Roeder did not mount an insanity defense at his trial and a psychologist hired by the defense found Roeder competent to stand trial.
So why won’t CNS portray Roeder as the domestic terrorist that he is? Perhaps because he was doing what Brent Bozell and Co. secretly wanted to do to Tiller.