Conservatives are on “the Dark Side” in the world of Newsweek reporter David Kaplan who was presumably applying an analogy from the Star Wars movies in which the evil characters, such as “Darth Vader,” represented “the Dark Side.”
In a portion of his new book, The Accidental President, excerpted in this week's Newsweek, Kaplan recounted how Justice David Souter felt that “if he'd had 'one more day'” to make his case for not stopping the Florida recount, “he believed he would have prevailed. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, along with Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, had long ago become part of the Dark Side. O'Connor appeared beyond compromise. But Kennedy seemed within reach.”
Kaplan's book has a 26 word title, which might explain why the Newsweek articles never actually list it in full. But here it is: The Accidental President: How 413 Lawyers, 9 Supreme Court Justices and 5,160,110 Floridians, Give or Take a Few, Landed George W. Bush in the White House. In what helps explain the skew of the book, the justices who talked to Kaplan were all on the losing side of the case.
“The Secret Vote that Made Bush President: The Untold Story of the Supreme Court's 5-4 Ruling,” screamed the large type on the cover of the September 17 Newsweek. “Secret vote”? Didn't we all learn last December which way each justice voted?
On Monday's Today [September 10], NBC brought Kaplan aboard to discuss his new book. Katie Couric picked up on how “Justice Breyer was very outspoken. He said this was 'the most outrageous, indefensible thing the Court had ever done.'” Kaplan confirmed that he said that to a Russian judge visiting the Supreme Court.
Couric then relayed the Russian's lecture on democracy: “Well, one of the Russian judges says, said, to, apparently, to members of the Supreme Court or to someone in particular: 'In our country we wouldn't let judges pick the President.'” Kaplan elaborated: “Exactly. You're a Russian judge in a new democracy. You've been hearing all these years about the American system. You kind of scratch your head and say 'run this by us again.'”
The Russians should now be scratching their heads over how Newsweek's slanted story upholds the idea of a balanced and fair press.
(This update courtesy of the Media Research Center.)
