While Arizona's "Show Me Your Papers" provision spawned plenty of controversy, it was still upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court on Monday. But CNN's John King thought it was more than "controversial," blasting the law as "notorious" not once, but twice on Monday.
Near the beginning of the 11 a.m. hour of Newsroom, King called the provision "that one -- and I'll call it 'notorious' – part, the controversial part about 'Show Me Your Papers,' part of the Arizona law left into effect". [Video below the break. Audio here.]
Later in the hour, he dropped the label again while analyzing the Supreme Court decision. "[I]t's a mixed decision, the federal government won on some counts, the state of Arizona won on that notorious 'Show Me Your Papers' provision."
As a negative label, "notorious" alludes to some malicious or dubious intent, and "controversial" was the term CNN used most to describe the law, which did indeed stir up controversy. However, as a journalist King had no qualms about using the label normally reserved for obvious wrongdoing.
The provision in question allows law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of someone they have "reasonable suspicion" to be an illegal immigrant, if the officers are already enforcing some other law. The law was widely decried, mainly by the left, in the wake of SB 1070's passage.
