Democrats and their allies in the MSM are so eager for the minority party to keep filibustering the president’s judicial nominees that they have even misrepresented the views of a conservative jurist. Once again, CBS News is deceiving its viewers, using the filmmaking techniques of Michael Moore to edit its segment on judicial filibusters.
In the segment which aired Monday night, CBS made it appear that former Solicitor General Kenneth Starr was faulting the GOP’s effort to end the filibuster when he said, “This is a radical, radical departure from our history and from our traditions, and it amounts to an assault on the judicial branch of government.” But, in fact, Judge Starr said that he had addressed that comment “specifcially . . . to the practice of invoking judicial philosophy as a grounds for voting against a qualified nominee of integrity and experience.” In other words, he was speaking out against the Democrats’ opposition to the presidents’ judicial appointees and not against Republican attempts to end the Democrats’ filibuster of them.
It doesn’t look like things have changed much at CBS since Dan Rather stepped down as anchor.
Hat tip: Powerline and Polipundit, both of whom believe that CBS should release the unedited video of the entire interview with Judge Starr. I agree.
Other bloggers weigh in here, here and here.
UPDATE: While Mickey Kaus is not so sure that CBS distorted Judge Starr’s remarks, Patterico disagrees. JustOneMinute offers his thoughts here. Hat tip (for the update): Instapundit.