Judiciary

Despite referring to it as "landmark" and "huge," the network morning shows on Tuesday mostly ignored Monday's Supreme Court ruling, which declared the Second Amendment a fundamental right that cannot be violated by state governments. Good Morning America, The Early Show and Today devoted just two minutes and 34 seconds to discussing the important decision. ABC's GMA offered 21 seconds with a…

While ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's Today spent little time on the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan on Tuesday, the CBS Early Show featured a report from legal correspondent Jan Crawford, who cheered Kagan finally being able respond to Republican "attacks" in a "very agile" way. Good Morning America devoted only a single news brief early in the 7AM ET hour to the…

MSNBC's Chris Matthews framed Sen. Jeff Sessions' criticism of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan as a "brutal assault," during MSNBC's live coverage of the Senate hearing Monday afternoon."It's a brutal assault on this nomination," Matthews complained about the Alabama Republican's remarks.Matthews also seemed to cast Sessions as an unsophisticated country bumpkin challenging Kagan's prestigious…

Are the Elena Kagan confirmation hearings an occasion for media explanation...or celebration? The Washington Post Express tabloid ran this headline Monday: "Kagan's Big Day Finally Arrives." The copy underneath by AP reporter Nancy Benac sounds like a proud mother more than an objective journalist. She suggested "it may be her own words that best explain her success at charting an undeviating…

The Monday morning shows on CBS, ABC, and NBC all worked to portray President Obama's Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan as a moderate and open-minded legal scholar, downplaying her liberal views. All three network programs also minimized her controversial decision to ban military recruiters on campus while Dean of Harvard Law School.On CBS's Early Show, legal correspondent Jan Crawford touted…

"Supreme Court extends gun rights" a headline on the Web site for the Chicago Tribune erroneously claims today.The link on the page brought readers to a story entitled "Supreme Court extends gun rights in Chicago case." Here's the opening paragraph:WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court reversed a ruling upholding Chicago's ban today and extended the reach of the 2nd Amendment as a nationwide…

When President Bush nominated John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court in 2005, the media did not hesitate to describe both men as "very conservative," but when President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor in 2009 and Elena Kagan this year many in the press couldn't seem to identify any liberal ideology. The Media Research Center has produced a video compilation of examples to further…

Lord have mercy, even when it hits him in the face, the Associated Press's Mark Sherman won't concede the obvious: "Cast doubt"? Is that what court rulings do now? A USA Today item has it right:

Did you know that President Obama has nominated for a federal judgeship someone who believes a serial killer and rapist's "sexual sadism" should be a cause to give him a less serious punishment? Probably not, since the media have given it almost no coverage.Robert Chatigny, nominated for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, believes that sexual sadism should be what's known as a "mitigating…

Via the Associated Press (link may be dynamic and subject to change):  A federal judge in New Orleans has blocked a six-month moratorium on new deepwater drilling projects that was imposed in response to the massive Gulf oil spill. The White House says President Barack Obama's administration will appeal. Several companies that ferry people and supplies and provide other services to offshore…

How committed is the Washington Post to its crusade to see Congress abridge free speech under the guise of "campaign finance reform"? So much that it's willing to be a political bedfellow with the National Rifle Association, a group it detests for its persistent advocacy of Americans' Second Amendment liberties.In a June 17 editorial, the Post voiced its support behind a bill that Democrats and…

The “deeply polarized confirmation process in the Senate” has “undercut Obama's effort to significantly infuse the federal courts with more women and minorities,” USA Today's Joan Biskupic fretted in a Wednesday front page article in which she refused to identify Obama's nominees as liberals as she attached the positive “diversity” patina to Obama's agenda without any regard for the irony such “…

Borrowing a line from one of her Harvard colleagues, the Washington Post entitled its June 10 front-page profile of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, "Her work is her life is her work."*But the 60-paragraph story by staff writers Ann Gerhart and Philip Rucker shed barely any light on the judicial philosophy that Kagan's life work demonstrates. Instead, Gerhart and Rucker presented a gauzy…

In his June 9 "case study" feature for Time.com, Adam Cohen, formerly of the New York Times editorial board and Time magazine, tackled the question "Are Liberal Judges Really 'Judicial Activists'?" Cohen's short answer: yes, but so are conservative judges, and it's the conservatives on the Supreme Court that have been on an activist kick lately. To bolster his argument, Cohen complained that…