In a week of ignorant media fawning over Ketanji Brown Jackson, CNN may have the worst attempt.
If you have peered across the media landscape with any diligence this week, you could hardly miss how the news outlets have all but built a human pyramid on camera, as they chanted the name Ketanji Brown Jackson. Daily, there has been no shortage of journos who see the Republican senators asking questions about Justice Jackson’s work record as nothing but hateful racism, while claiming they have never before seen such offensive behavior in these chambers.
It seems seeking clarification on prior rulings is far viler than accusing someone of committing rape while a drunkard.
For a prime example of the media slant this week, note how the fact-checking outlets have been busy. Not with verifying KBJ’s record, mind you, but with diligently verifying the GOP senators’ questions.
FactCheck.org and PolitiFact each have only a few entries from the hearing, and all are centered on correcting queries by the GOP. The Associated Press typifies the practice perfectly. Here are the headlines from the three, AP fact-checks on the confirmation hearings: Republicans Skew Jackson’s Record… – Republicans Twist Jackson’s Judicial Record… — Senators Misrepresent Jackson On Abortion…
Then, as if needing to curry approval from the truth-detecting brethren, CNN’s Daniel Dale leaps to the fore with another GOP question getting the Zapruder treatment. This time, it concerned a challenge from Lindsey Graham, and in order to call out the senator, Dale manages to make a point so fine that it could be used to write a position paper on a grain of rice.
To walk through the process is a bit arduous, but hang with me. It begins with Graham addressing a time when, as a federal public defender, Jackson was assigned the case of four detainees at Guantanamo prison. The filing concerned the length of time they were held, as well as the conditions they endured, with Brown arguing the plaintiffs experienced torture and inhumane conditions.
Joined in this questioning by John Cornyn, Graham asked why, in her arguments, Jackson referred to the government as, “a war criminal in pursuing charges against a terrorist.“ He also challenged her for calling Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and George W. Bush war criminals in a legal filing: “It seems so out of character for you.”
Well, this was too much for Daniel Dale to stomach. Get ready for heavy servings of shading and nuance.
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Both Graham and Cornyn left out important context. Specifically, neither mentioned that Jackson’s allegation of war crimes was about torture. Also, Jackson didn’t explicitly use the phrase “war criminal.”
Ah, so although she accused the government of using torture and other inhospitable treatment, she never went all the way to say the government or the George Bush administration was guilty of war crimes. Except, well, she essentially did exactly that. In the court filing, under the SIXTH CLAIM FOR RELIEF, we get this language:
By the actions described above, Respondents’ acts directing, ordering, confirming, ratifying, and/or conspiring to bring about the torture and other inhumane treatment of Petitioner Alsawam constitute war crimes and/or crimes against humanity in violation of the law of nations under the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1350, in that the acts violated, among others, the Fourth Geneva Convention, Common Article III of the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols I and II of the Geneva Conventions as well as customary international law prohibiting war crimes as reflected, expressed, and defined in other multilateral treaties and international instruments, international and domestic judicial decision, and other authorities.
And just to help Mr. Dale out here, the named defendants were GEORGE W. BUSH, DONALD RUMSFELD, ARMY BRIG. GEN. JAY HOOD, ARMY COL. MIKE BUMGARNER — the last two names being the commanders of the Gitmo facility. Now, how does Daniel Dale explain that KBJ charged the leaders of our federal government with committing war crimes, but not never labeled them as ‘war criminals’?
On the most strict of technicalities. Dale writes:
Jackson and her colleague noted in each filing that “all references” to the actions of respondents were meant to cover actions performed by “respondents’ agents or employees, other government agents or employees or contractor employees.” A White House official said in an email on Tuesday that “Judge Jackson never filed habeas petitions that called either President Bush or Secretary Rumsfeld war criminals.”
This means that even as they are named directly in the suit, as well as at the top of those habeas petitions, she didn’t mean them, just whoever was responsible for doing the bad things. This means war crimes were alleged, but nobody was being cited as responsible for those crimes, despite the names seen in the petitions. She charged people in the government with committing war crimes, but she did not call anyone a war criminal, which is the way this works.
The only way this could have been better was if he simply said, “She wrote ‘war crimes’ in the court documents, but she never SAID anyone was a ‘war criminal,’ you see.” Now with that cleared up, we can move on to my colleague Jeff Charles’ column on GOP senators being called racist for referring to official court documents to make their case.
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