CNSNews.com is not the only Media Research Center unit that has dedicated itself to bashing Elena Kagan with the advent of her confirmation hearing. The whole organization is taking part.
The MRC primed its attacks with a June 24 “Media Reality Check” by Rich Noyes complaining that the media was not reporting discredited right-wing attacks on Kagan. That’s not what he actually said, of course. He started off complaining that the broadcast networks offered little recent coverage of Kagan (which is true as far as it goes), then highlighted “topics that the broadcast networks have either ignored or downplayed.” That’s where the right-wing complaining comes in.
The very first item on Noyes’ list is “Kagan’s senior thesis on the demise of the Socialist Party in the early 1900s, which she labeled ‘sad,'” and her Daily Princetonian op-ed “where she openly described herself a ‘liberal’ and wailed about the ‘anonymous but moral majority-backed avengers of innocent life.'” Noyes didn’t explain why Kagan should be held accountable 30 years later for statements she made in college.
Noyes also cited “Kagan’s handling of the Citizens United case as Solicitor General,” which he claims is evidence of “openness to regulating political speech.” Noyes didn’t mention the fact that Kagan was acting on behalf of the government, not necessarily expressing her personal views.
Finally, Noyes referenced that “Kagan blocked the U.S. military from using the school’s Office of Career Services because of the ban on open homosexuals serving in the armed forces, a policy Kagan said she ‘abhorred.'” That description leaves out a lot of detail, and the MRC has misled about it in the past.
That’s the lens the MRC is looking at this week’s coverage of Kagan — how much said coverage advances right-wing talking points. More on this later.