I'm sure everyone here will be shocked, shocked to read of
more misinformation from the MSM.
Mis-Reporting the Filibuster
Power Line
If you haven't already seen it, you should check out Hugh Hewitt's deconstruction of a column by the Washington Post's Terry Neal. Neal lazily swallowed a DNC press release, or some similar liberal source, and argued that the Republicans are being hypocritical, on the basis of a sentence fragment attributed to Senator Orrin Hatch:
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Eleven years ago, when Republicans were still in the minority, Sen. Orin [sic] Hatch (R-Utah) said the filibuster tool should be used because 'the minority has to protect itself and those the minority represents.'
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No self-respecting blogger would just reproduce a portion of a sentence fed to it by one of the parties without at least doing some research to determine what Hatch really said: what was the full quote, and what was the context? But Neal's standards apparently are not so high. It turns out that what Hatch actually said was:
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Mr. President, one of the games that is being played around here is that whenever the majority leader wants to move something along, he files cloture, whether or not anybody has decided to use extended debate. I have heard the majority leader-who is a person I have great regard and respect for-say how beset we are with filibusters in this body.
Naturally, in the last week or so of a session, there is going to be the threat of some filibusters. It is one of the few tools that the minority has to protect itself and those the minority represents. But this is not a filibuster. I find it unseemly to have filed cloture on a judgeship nomination-where I have made it very clear that I would work to get a time agreement-and make it look like somebody is trying to filibuster a Federal court judgeship.
I think it is wrong, and I think it is wrong to suggest in the media that this is a filibuster situation, because it is not.
I personally do not want to filibuster Federal judges. The President won the election. He ought to have the right to appoint the judges he wants to.'
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It turns out, too, that Hatch objected to the misquotation that was attributed to him two years ago, and explained:
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For the record, then, there was in fact no filibuster of Judge Sarokin's nomination, and I specifically did not support a filibuster of that or any other federal judge's nomination.
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So, to sum up: Terry Neal wrote: "Sen. Orin [sic] Hatch (R-Utah) said the filibuster tool should be used," when in fact, Hatch said: "I personally do not want to filibuster Federal judges. The President won the election. He ought to have the right to appoint the judges he wants to."
Neal could hardly have been more wrong, and there is no excuse: he was simply too lazy to check the Democratic National Committee's talking points before he repeated them.
UPDATE: It's interesting: if you Google "orin hatch," you will find that, for some reason, left-wing web sites frequently misspell his name in that way. Which suggests, I suppose, where Neal got his misinformation. But isn't the Washington Post supposed to have editors who know how to spell the names of famous and powerful Senators?
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