Imagine if Newtown, Connecticut massacre perpetrator Adam Lanza had lived and gone on to get convicted of the 26 murders he committed. Further, imagine, post-conviction, that his attorney claimed that "things went a little awry" that day. There would be no containing the outrage, or the establishment press coverage.
Kermit Gosnell attorney Jack McMahon was interviewed on Wednesday by Fox News's Megyn Kelly. While a great deal of commendable outrage has been directed at McMahon for his statements and conduct, not enough emphasis has been placed on a comment he made which is analogous to the hypothetical posed in my first paragraph, as it was what triggered Kelly's outrage and her subsequent epic response (YouTube; excerpt begins at 1:33 mark; HT Twitchy.com):
Kelly: ... What was your experience with Dr. Gosnell?
McMahon: as I've said before, Dr. Gosnell was a dream client. In this business, some of 'em aren't a dream, and for 2-1/2 years he's been nothing but a gentleman -- polite, understanding, fully appreciative of the work that I've done for him. Un, a complete gentleman. I mean he's a soft-spoken man. He's an intelligent man.
And y'know, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that things didn't get out of hand and things went a bit awry at that location. But as far as the totality of Dr. Gosnell, he's not just defined by the events of 2008. He's defined by 72 years of life.
Kelly: A bit awry!? I mean, Jack, the testimony was that the babies were born alive, were wiggling on the operating table, were crying, and he stuck scissors in the back of their necks.
McMahon: That's not true. First of all, that's not the testimony and I can give you the transcripts if you want to know what actually was said --
Kelly: The jury found him guilty of murder. Murder. Of babies.
McMahon: Oh absolutely, and we respect that verdict. There was eight, and he got convicted of it, and that's correct. But he was also charged with eight murders, and five --
Kelly: I know.
McMahon: And five of them were not guilty.
Kelly: I'm challenging your assertion that "things went a little awry" at the clinic.
McMahon: Well, it did, because there was no oversight for 18 years. Nobody ever came and looked at that location, and things went downhill. I would agree with that. That place should've been checked on a yearly basis. All abortion clinics --
Kelly: It should have. That was definitely one of the problems. That was definitely one of the problems -- oversight. But you know the number one problem was: Dr. Kermit Gosnell.
McMahon: That's a simplistic way to look at it, and I don't think that's accurate.
Kelly: Really? Or just factual. Or just factual.
McMahon: When you sit there and say that the babies were squirming and wiggling on the operating table, that just not true. I mean you can get the transcripts and read it and find what the true testimony was of the three babies --
Kelly: Are you disputing now that they were born alive as the jury found, before Dr. Gosnell murdered them?
McMahon: The jury found that, and we respect that, and that's their belief. Dr. Gosnell and my position throughout the trial --
Kelly: That's all we need to know. That's all we need to know. He tried to abort them, and he failed, and then he tried to kill them when they were born alive. That's what the jury found.
Watch the whole thing, especially the final 90 seconds, where McMahon ends up saying that abortion should be illegal after 16 weeks to eliminate question of viability.
Earlier, McMahon pathetically and disgracefully yammered "not true" at Kelly's statements about conditions at the clinic because they weren't said during the trial, pretending that the original grand jury report covering hundreds of pages didn't say the things which Kelly recited.
The attempt by McMahon to excuse Gosnell on the basis of the lack of regulation is like a drunk driver who kills someone else blaming the lack of DUI checkpoints.
As I asserted earlier, there is no way an attorney like McMahon could say the things that he said about Gosnell if here was defending a mass murderer of schoolchildren or adults without attracting a mountain of negative press attention. Maybe he inoculated himself against coverage by advocating a 16-week limit for abortions, knowing that the virulently "prochoice" (i.e., supporters of murdering preborn babies) wouldn't want to even think about mentioning that idea.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
