CNN's Toobin: 'Five Conservatives' on Court Ruled for Firefighters

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Heidi Collins, CNN Anchor; & Jeffrey Toobin, CNN Senior Legal Analyst | NewsBusters.orgOn Monday’s Newsroom program, CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin couldn’t find a consistent argument about the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of New Haven firefighters who accused their city of reverse discrimination. Toobin first reported that Justice Kennedy, “the swing vote in this case, as in so many others,” wrote the decision, but minutes later, he labeled it as a ruling by “the five conservatives on the Court.”

When news of the Court’s decision broke early in the 10 am Eastern hour of the CNN program, anchor Heidi Collins brought on Toobin, the network’s senior legal analyst, to comment on the five to four ruling. He began with a summary: “The Supreme Court- five to four- in a decision by Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is the swing vote in this case, as in so many others, ruled that the New Haven firefighters were the victims of reverse discrimination.”

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Collins interrupted in the middle of his explanation, and asked the analyst to give a history of the circumstances of the case. After recounting how the firefighters’ test results were thrown out by the city of New Haven, Toobin brought up how a panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, including Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, ruled in favor of the municipality. This is where he revised his earlier labeling of the Court’s ruling majority in the case, which he made only a minute and a half earlier:

TOOBIN: The Court of Appeals argued- said that the city was right to cancel the test, and most significantly, one of the judges on the three-judge panel was Judge Sonia- Sonia Sotomayor-

COLLINS: Yeah-

TOOBIN: Whom President- whom President Obama has nominated to the Supreme Court. Well-

COLLINS: Right, and obviously, there was a lot of question [sic] about that, when we were first hearing her name, and when we then first saw the nomination come- that was one of the things that came up- hey, what's going to happen with this New Haven thing?

TOOBIN: That’s exactly right, and now we know what’s going to happen with the New Haven case. Five justices- the five conservatives on the Court- have overruled the decision that Judge Sonia Sotomayor endorsed- that was her- her decision. So certainly, there will be critics who say that she was overruled by the Supreme Court, but four justices were on her side, including, of course, David Souter, whose last day is today-

COLLINS: Yeah.

TOOBIN: And she endorsed the position that Souter endorsed- but the majority ruled the other way and we also have to see- frankly, we haven’t really- the written opinion hasn’t been released yet- we just have to see how much the Court has cut back on affirmative action-

COLLINS: Yeah.

TOOBIN: Remedies by cities.

Collins then turned to correspondent Kate Boldaun’s live report from the Supreme Court, who read excerpts from Justice Kennedy’s ruling. The anchor followed this by bringing back Toobin to give further analysis. He gave additional spin, this time about the ruling’s impact on the nomination of Sotomayor:

COLLINS: Jeffrey Toobin, if I still have you there- obviously, as we began talking about it before I knew that Kate [Bolduan] had the ruling in her hand- Sonia Sotomayor- this confirmation process- this will definitely come up. It’s another reversal for her.

TOOBIN: No- no question about it- this will be a main focus of the attack against her by conservative senators, who will say that her views are out of step with the Supreme Court. Now, that will be a somewhat-tough argument to make, because it’s- her views are clearly in-step with four justices on the Court, including the justice she will be replacing. So, it’s not like her position was so far out the mainstream on this case that you couldn’t even get a single justice to agree with her- she got four justices to agree with her.

—Matthew Balan is a news analyst at the Media Research Center.


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→ Five Americans

Five Americans voted in favor of the Constitution, and four fools voted meritricious racism. 

Under my plan of a cap & trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket - BHO

Bingo.

Bingo.

Toobin didn't read the entire decision, or facts don't matter

What was that part in a minority dissent by Justice Ginsberg that slammed Sonia on the law and her decision Toobin?No 5 conservatives there you moron.

Toobin is dumber than a box

Toobin is dumber than a box of rocks...always has been, always will be, he's made a complete fool of himself so many times on CNN that he is a laughable clown to me...well, then again, he fits right in with CNN.

I tell you the spin on msnbc this morning right after this decision came down with Spitzer as some kind of a talking head guest now, and such would have been maddening if this all wasn't so comical, the twist and turns they did with their spin was simply hilarious.

They were attempting to give Sotomayor talking points to use before the Senate when she testifies...

She lost...New Haven Firefighters won...as they should have.

Simple as that...and Sotomayor was made a fool of today....again.

Victory for Ricci and the rest of the men!!! I thank you for fighting the good fight...and more of us need to do so out here.

Doubling down on stupid is not a particularly good idea. ~Andrew Breitbart

Apparently, BT,

the judge didn't realize that the SCOTUS has said that discrimination in hiring/promotions/admissions are still discrimination.  And the argument that two fellow judges agreed with her, as did the 2nd Circuit means only that they don't read the Supreme Court decisions.  And Souter ended up on the wrong side of his last big case as a Justice.  Not surprising, he's been wrong for so long, it's a habit with him. 

UN... He will always be

UN...

He will always be remembered as Kelo to me.

Good-riddance...

Of course we all know whoever takes his place, which will be Soto....they will be as left as he is, if not more....what a shame.

Doubling down on stupid is not a particularly good idea. ~Andrew Breitbart

BT,

yeah, Kelo Souter is his tag.  And I totally agree, good riddance.  And I hope the door hits him in the a$$ on his way out. 

And Soto will be as bad, if not worse.  

Thank you Toobin

I think it's great that he was clear that it was the 5 conservatives who made this decision.  There are a lot of people that don't even know the difference between liberal and conservative.  The majority of people agree with this conservative opinion, so they'll get a positive view of conservative judges.  Now he needs to connect conservatives with Republicans.

Why are they using the

Why are they using the "reverse discrimination" term? Discrimination is discrimination. Period. 

Thank Goodness

We had five conservatives on the court to ensure that justice was done. 

"If everyone is thinking alike, someone isn't thinking." - General George Patton Jr

Is Toobin a self-hating

Is Toobin a self-hating liberal? He is always upset if a verdict is in favor of a white male (straight).

Complete morons that think they're intellectual power houses.

They seem so disappointed that this discrimination wasn't allowed to continue. What is wrong with these people?

Amazing isn't it?  Those

Amazing isn't it?  Those who claim to hate discrimination, don't actually hate discrimination.  They only hate a particular direction of discrimination.  When it's direction is in favor of a minority, they're all for it.  That's called NO PRINCIPLES.

close votes

These votes are disturbing. Discrimination nearly split down the middle. Their Second Amendment ruling nearly split down the middle. Obvious moral value questions like these should be 8-1 or 7-2, but nearly half of our Supreme Court no longer knows the difference between right and wrong.

Four Liberal Idiots.

Our Supreme Court is in major trouble. When four knuckleheads vote for racism over the law, the USA has a major problem.

jessieH         The

jessieH         The law is the law. discrimination is wrong, no matter what.

Don't you just love it?

DOUBLE SWEET

Affirmative Action took a big hit by the USSC!

It was USSC Nominee Sotomayor's decision that was overturned!

As Jackie Gleason would say, "How sweet it is!"

Isaiah 5:20a Woe unto them who call evil good, and good evil. . .  KJV