11 Alive News

VA State Sen. Creigh Deeds (D) is on the air in Northern VA today with a spot -- titled "Tradition" -- that pitches his endorsement by the Washington Post.

Script: "On June 9th, which Democrat has the most experience to carry on the policies of Mark Warner and Tim Kaine? The Washington Post says it's Creigh Deeds. Deeds 'would make transportation his first priority.'"

"Tradition" will air on broadcast and cable stations in NoVA, putting Deeds on the airwaves in every in-state media market through the 6/9 Dem primary. It's his first spot in the vote-rich DC suburbs and airs as one poll shows him surging past rivals Terry McAuliffe and Brian Moran.

Crowley talks to a member of the group:

Despite the fact that American politics has been fixated on terrorism for almost a decade, we've failed to establish a clear and concise definition for terrorism. I don't think it's because terrorism is so amorphous that it requires the pornography standard ("I know it when I see it"), but rather because any proper definition might implicate us as a nation in having participated in terrorism in the past. Ann has described the murder of Tiller as terrorism, and I think she's right.

My working definition of terrorism is pretty simple: Terrorism is the deliberate murder of civilians or destruction of property in order to achieve a political objective. I think this definition works because it covers everything from cross-burnings and lynchings to the Weathermen bombings to the attack on the World Trade Center.

Viewed in this light, the murder of George Tiller is undoubtedly terrorism. It was done with an audience, as Tiller was in church with his wife in the room at the time -- in other words, with the exact kind of theatricality terrorists require to achieve their objectives. The point was not simply to murder a man who performs abortions, it was to dissuade any one else from providing similar services. As Matthew Yglesias points out, this has been remarkably successful at dissuading potential abortion providers from providing this kind of care -- in other words, the murder of Tiller is likely to achieve the political outcome that was sought.

Andrew Sullivan has also pointed out that Tiller was a frequent target of Bill O'Reilly, who referred to Tiller as a "baby killer" and his practice as a "death mill." He also compared Tiller to Nazis and warned of "judgment day". Interestingly enough, O'Reilly, who has a degree in journalism but no understanding of libel law to speak of, seemed confused on a recent program as two lawyers explained to him that his rights are not actually being violated when people single him out for harsh criticism. O'Reilly furiously disagreed.

O'Reilly thinks his own rights are being violated when people criticize him in ways he disagrees with. I wonder if yesterday he thought Mr. Tiller's civil rights were violated.



-- A. Serwer

by Mark Silva

As President Barack Obama prepares to depart Tuesday for a trip that will carry him from Saudi Arabia to France -- with an address to the Muslim world from Cairo in the middle of the journey -- he is starting to aim his megaphone at a global audience.

In an interview with the BBC on the eve of the trip, the president was asked about delivering his appeal for peace to the Muslim world from a city, Cairo, where many political prisoners are being held, and how he can reconcile the two.

"The message I hope to deliver is that democracy, rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of religion those are not simply principles of the West to be hoisted on these countries, but rather what I believe to be universal principles that they can embrace and affirm as part of their national identity,'' Obama said in an interview airing this evening.

"Now, the danger, I think, is when the United States or any country thinks that we can simply can impose these values on another country with a different history and a different culture .. our job,'' Obama tells BBC interviewer Justin Webb.

"Absolutely we'll be encouraging ......and I think the thing that we can do most importantly is to serve as a role model, and that's why, for example, closing Guantanamo from my perspective -- as difficult as it is -- is important, because part of what we want to affirm to the world is that these are values that are important even when it's hard, maybe especially when it's hard -- and not just when it's easy."

Part of the interivew will be broadcast on BBC World News and BBC World Service radio at 9 pm United Kingdom time, and the full interview will air on Tuesday a 04:30 am UK time. The BBC Obama interview also will be shown online.

The president leaves Tuesday evening for Saudi Arabia, where he will hold private meetings with the king before traveling to Cairo for his public address on Thursday, and then on to Dresden, Germany, for a visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp, and finally to Paris for commemoration of the 65th anniversary of the Normandy landing.

My full post out of the first day of the America's Future Now! conference in DC is below. But I wanted to highlight Howard Dean's strong push for a public option, which I wrapped into the story:

During a lunchtime press conference, Howard Dean, recent past chair of the DNC and a doctor, said that it's more important to have a public plan than a bipartisan plan. "Bipartisan," he said, "is not an end in and of itself."

He said that Republicans haven't helped Obama with the stimulus package nor do they seem poised to offer an assist with approving his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the nation's highest court.

"If they're in there to shill for the insurance companies, I think we should do it with 51 votes," Dean said, suggesting that it be accomplished via budget reconciliation.

Dean added: "The American people voted for real change. They knew exactly what he was proposing when he was on the campaign trail."

(JENNIFER SKALKA)

On Friday's Special Report with Bret Baier, FNC host Baier informed viewers that the Justice Department had dropped charges against New Black Panther members who engaged in blatant voter intimidation in Philadelphia last November. As previously documented by Newsbuster Noel Sheppard, last November Fox News ran a report by Rick Leventhal detailing the activity which was ignored by the mainstream media. On Friday's Special Report, Baier quoted a former 1960s civil rights lawyer: "The most blatant form of voter intimidation. They were positioned in a location that forced every voter to pass in close proximity to them. The weapon was openly displayed and brandished in plain sight of voters."

Below is a transcript of the report from the Friday, May 29, Special Report with Bret Baier on FNC, which aired during the show's "Political Grapevine" segment:

BRET BAIER: A lawsuit brought by the Bush administrationNew Black Panther Party has been dropped by the Obama Justice Department. The move comes despite an eye witness account of a You Tube video of the men seemingly attempting to scare away would-be voters on Election Day, an apparent violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The civil complaint accused the men of coercion, making threats, intimidation, and hurling racial slurs while at a Philadelphia polling station on November 4. Prosecutors say one of the men brandished a night stick, which they called a deadly weapon.

A former 1960's civil rights lawyer said in an affidavit that it was, quote, "The most blatant form of voter intimidation. They were positioned in a location that forced every voter to pass in close proximity to them. The weapon was openly displayed and brandished in plain sight of voters." A Justice Department spokesman said officials obtained "an injunction that prohibits the defendant, who brandished the weapon, from doing so again. Claims were dismissed from the other defendants based on a careful assessment of the facts and the law."

Just last week, Denver Post and Reason.com columnist David Harsanyi asked, "Is The Abortion Debate Changing?" Based on a recent Gallup Poll, which found that a majority of Americans considered themselves "pro-life" for the first time since the question started being asked in 1995, Harsanyi suggested "that Americans are getting past the politics and into the morality of the issue" after decades of legalized abortion. And, he argued, the morality of abortion is a lot more complicated than most pro- or anti-abortion slogans let on.

Earlier today, in response to killing of Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller, Jacob Sullum asked why anti-abortion activists rushed to condemn the death of a man who by their own accounts was slaughtering innocents. Jacob understands why the activists might say that, but argues that it's really a tactical response: That they need to distance themselves from murderous extremists.

So what do Reason readers think? Will the killing of George Tiller push more Americans to identify as pro-life? Or will it push voters in the other direction? Does it matter that Tiller was known for doing late-term abortions, which are statistically rare but gruesome?

You go back to that Gallup Poll and one thing sticks out on the basic question of whether abortion should be legal under some circumstances: Since 1976, the percentage answering yes has been around 50 percent or higher (there are a few years where it dipped into the high 40s). That is, it's been pretty stable at or around a majority number.

And the percentage of people saying abortion should be illegal under all circumstances has rarely cracked the 20 percent figure (though it has again in recent years). Similarly, the percentage saying abortion should be legal under all circumstances, which peaked at 34 percent in the early 1990s, has always been a minority position (which currently stands at 22 percent and has been dropping lately).

I suspect that as abortion becomes rarer (as Reason's Ron Bailey pointed out in 2006, abortion has been getting rarer since the 1990s and also occurs earlier in pregnancies than before), it's quite possible that the either/or positions might change, but that their movement will have little effect on the middle position of abortion staying legal under some circumstances. Even those, such as Harsanyi, who is plainly troubled by the logic of abortion, generally concede that prohibition would cause more problems than it would fix ("I also believe a government ban on abortion would only criminalize the procedure and do little to mitigate the number of abortions.").

Back in 2003, on the occasion of Roe v. Wade's 30th anniversary, I argued that regarding abortion the country had reached a consensus that

has little to do with morality per se, much less with enforcing a single standard of morality. It's about a workable, pragmatic compromise that allows people to live their lives on their own terms and peaceably argue for their point of view....

This isn't to say that the debate about abortion is "over"-or that laws governing the specifics of abortion won't continue to change over time in ways that bother ardent pro-lifers and pro-choicers alike. But taking a longer view, it does seem as if the extremes of the abortion debate - extremes that included incendiary language (including calls for the murder of abortion providers) - have largely subsided in the wake of a widely accepted consensus. Part of this is surely due to the massive increases in reproduction technologies that allow women far more control over all aspects of their bodies (even as some of those technologies challenge conventional definitions of human life).

That isn't an outcome that is particularly satisfying to activists on either side of the issue or to people who want something approaching rational analysis in public policy. But it's still where we're at and it's unlikely the Tiller case will do much to move things one way or the other. The one thing that would likely change it would be if there was a massive shift toward later-term abortions, which seems unlikely based on long-term trendlines and technological innovations.

Over the weekend, there's been a minor uproar over New York Representative Charlie Rangel's remarks about President Obama's visit to New York. When a reporter asked Rangel what Obama should do when he visits the city, Rangel replied, ?SMake certain he doesn?"t run around in East Harlem without identification.?

The remark was a reference to the killing of police officer Omar J. Edwards by fellow officer Andrew Dutton. Edwards was in plainclothes, and chasing after someone who was breaking into his car. He had his weapon out. Three other plainclothes officers arrived and yelled for them to stop. One, Dutton, shot Edwards three times as he turned around.

The thing about Rangel's joke is that he's not wrong: We're living in a country where a black man can be president but where black men are still so at risk of accidental violence from police that even black officers are concerned about it. That said, Rangel is a public official whose constituency includes some of the officers he was criticizing. It's his responsibility to make sure that when he does criticize the police, he does so in a respectful and constructive manner. His remark would have been appropriate for a comedian, not a congressman.

In the meantime, it's worth pondering the significance of such an event. There's no indication that Dutton harbors any special animosity towards black people -- rather, racial bias is so socially ingrained that we draw on our biases subconsciously, when we aren't even thinking. That kind of racism is a much greater problem than the forthright prejudice of yesteryear, which for the most part has become socially unacceptable.



-- A. Serwer