Columns, Courts, Media, Politics, Supreme Court

Poetic License: How Press and Pundits are Reframing Personalities to Fit Our Politics

Below is my column in The Hill on the sudden embrace of bipartisanship in Washington … by some of the most partisan figures in our political system. Press and pundits are suddenly reframing Vice President Kamala Harris as a moderate while heralding Justice Amy Coney Barrett for her independence. It is enough to give you vertigo from the media and political spin. Update: GovTrack has responded to the column, which is discussed at the end of the column.

Here is the column:

The late New York Gov. Mario Cuomo once famously observed that “you campaign in poetry; you govern in prose.“ One of the greatest poetic licenses in this election has been the claim of bipartisanship from some of the most rigid partisans in our politics.

Many in the media are reinventing history to appeal to citizens who want more moderation in government. This theme was picked up by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in his speech before the Democratic National Convention, when he claimed that Vice President Harris was not just a moderate but “never hesitated to reach across that aisle if it meant improving your lives, and she’s always done it with energy, with passion and with joy.”

Harris was one of the most liberal members of the Senate and was never viewed as someone likely to form a compromise on key votes. She was not one of the Democrats commonly referenced as moderates in that body on close votes.

Harris was even rated to the left of socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). After her ranking by GovTrack was cited widely in the media as showing her as the most liberal member of the Senate, the site took down the page, which had been up for years.

Harris is now to be portrayed as a moderate, whether it is true or not.

What was so striking is that Harris was valued by supporters precisely for being so uncompromising and consistently voting with the left. In her prior unsuccessful presidential run, she moved even further left. Harris was the only candidate other than Sanders to say that she wanted to abolish private insurance plans, a position which, like so many others, she has now recanted.

These same advocates of bipartisanship are lionizing Republicans who support Harris while demonizing Robert Kennedy Jr. for doing the same for Trump. To them, one is a profile of courage, the other a profile of corruption.

The poetry of politics was also evident this week after Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the three liberal justices in voting in dissent in a case involving Arizona’s voter identification law. Barrett was praised for opposing the ruling to set aside a lower court order blocking enforcement of a 2022 law requiring registered voters to provide proof of citizenship. The majority (with the liberal justices) also blocked a provision that would have prevented tens of thousands of prior voters in Arizona from voting.

Conservatives were irate at Barrett, particularly after Virginia claimed to have found hundreds of non-citizens on its voting rolls. Other states such as Georgia found a smaller number of non-citizens registering to vote, but polls show widespread support for voter ID laws. None of that seemed to matter to Barrett, who ruled based on her conscience and understanding of the law.

The left’s response to Barrett’s vote was the most telling. Her willingness to cross the ideological divide was celebrated. These are some of the same voices who denounced Barrett in her confirmation hearing as a robotic conservative stooge.

Few Democrats were willing to vote for this obviously qualified nominee. That included the newly minted moderate Harris, who voted “nay.”

While some of us at the time challenged this media narrative, given Barrett’s impressive scholarship and proven independence, she was denounced by senators, and her home was even targeted by protesters. Bloody dolls were thrown on her lawn with her young children inside after the location was revealed by activists.

Some of these activists might even take credit for Barrett’s repeated votes with the left of the court. But it is not their coercion, but Barrett’s convictions that led to these votes. She has always been a jurist who shows a willingness to follow her principles wherever they take her.

Barrett continues (with Justices Roberts and Kavanaugh) to moderate many decisions with three colleagues on both ends of rulings. Roberts and Kavanaugh routinely rank as the most likely to vote with the majority of the court.

This brings us back to the poetry. In her confirmation hearings, senators such as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) attacked her nomination in the same way that they attacked the nomination of Justice Neil Gorsuch. Whitehouse portrayed both nominees as adding guaranteed votes for a conservative agenda, reading off the many decisions where conservatives voted as a block.

As I stated in my own testimony in the Gorsuch confirmation hearing, Whitehouse and his colleagues often seem to ignore that the liberal justices in those cases also voted like a block. Justice Sotomayor shows the same low percentage of voting with the opposite end of the court as do her colleagues Justices Alito and Thomas. Yet in her case, the pattern of voting was not viewed as partisan, but as simply getting cases right.

Both Gorsuch and Barrett have routinely voted with their liberal colleagues in major cases, despite the attacks of critics on their independence and integrity.

Most cases before the Supreme Court do not break along ideological lines, despite the portrayal in the media. Indeed, most are resolved unanimously (roughly half) or nearly unanimously by the court.

Take the 2023 cases. Only half of the 6-3 splits featured the six conservative and three liberal justices on opposite sides. Only eight percent (five of 57 cases) were decided 6-3 with the six Republican appointee/three Democratic split. The rest mixed up alliances. The least likely to join the majority of their colleagues were the three liberal justices, Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson.

The liberal justices, however, are rarely portrayed as ideologues in the media, which consistently portrays the court as controlled by a six-conservative block of rigid partisans. In reality, they are all conscientious jurists trying to get cases right from their jurisprudential viewpoints. The consistency in voting reflects their adherence to their fundamental principles.

Politicians and pundits, ignoring the facts, continue to claim that the court is dysfunctional and ideologically divided. When elections or nominations come along, Democrats attack those on the other side as refusing to compromise or “cross the aisle.”

Many value the poetry of bipartisanship in politics but demand the prose of strict partisanship in governance. Calling Harris a moderate and Barrett a partisan is just part of the poetic license of American politics.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster).

Update: Joshua Tauberer, Founder of GovTrack.us, wrote to me on August 27 to object to the portrayal of the decision to remove the ranking of Harris as more liberal than Sen. Bernie Sanders. He claimed that the portrayal was “false and defamatory,” which I believe is untrue. However, as we have done in the past, I wanted to share his objections so you can reach your own conclusions.

While Tauberer does not deny that ranking was taken down after being posted for years, he objected that the context for the decision was omitted:

“The implication that a “sudden” change was made to the GovTrack website is false and defamatory. In fact, I warned of the unreliability of the statistic in question back in a 2020 — that’s four years ago — article in The Washington Post.”

He also objected to the line about how the media is now portraying Harris as a moderate. He noted, in reference to how his own company has treated Harris, that:

* GovTrack ranks Harris as the leftmost Democratic senator during part of her Senate tenure and very nearly leftmost for her entire Senate tenure.
* GovTrack ranks Harris as the least likely to join bipartisan bills among Democrats during part of her tenure.

87 thoughts on “Poetic License: How Press and Pundits are Reframing Personalities to Fit Our Politics”

  2. Gee, what a non surprise. The biggest whiners side, the dEMONCRATS, is the most ideological and corrupt and unwilling to be fair.
    “The least likely to join the majority of their colleagues were the three liberal justices, Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson.”

    Wow, no kidding. totally and absolutely predictable, and despicable. All for the Party, comrades, all the time.

    1. Above address explained:

      The most viewed speech in the history of the United Nations: in only 90 seconds the Son of Hamas left the assembly stunned & speechless. See the faces of the two guys in front—and the PLO rep. I was there right behind him. The whole UN was in shock. The amazing
      @MosabHasanYosef
      :

  5. OT

    The Fed does its political duty.

    The irrefutably unconstitutional Federal Reserve Board will lower rates in September just in time to aid and abet the “Swamp,” Deep Deep State, Regime, communist candidate. 

    The Federal Reserve Act illicitly and unconstitutionally subsumed the banking industry.

    That Act denied the rights and freedoms of individuals and free enterprises of the private sector and free market banking industry. 

    One of you brilliant constitutional scholars please cite the Constitution for a legal basis for the Fed and the Federal Reserve Act in Article 1, Section 8.

    The singular American failure is the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court. 

    1. One of you brilliant constitutional scholars please cite the Constitution for a legal basis for the Fed and the Federal Reserve Act in Article 1, Section 8.

      The Interstate Commerce clause (even by its pre-New-Deal interpretation). Also the Coinage clause.

  6. How is this for framing personalities:
    Trump participated in a wreath laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.
    Biden and Harris issue statements.
    Meanwhile, Biden Pentagon spokesman insisted Afghan withdrawal wasn’t chaotic but his emails say otherwise
    “Defense Department internal memos made public three years after crisis undermine the official narrative of the Afghanistan withdrawal, showing the Pentagon was acutely aware of a chaotic and deteriorating situation.”
    They were lying, and 13 were killed as a result of their gross incompetence.

  7. “SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY TO OURSELVES AND OUR POSTERITY”
    ___________________________________________________________________________________

    Forget the poetic license and the political obfuscation, let’s talk about the laws and intent, the word and the spirit, of the American Founders.

    John Jay and George Washington proposed the “natural born citizen” requirement to preclude foreigners from “…Government; and…the Command in chief of the american army….”

    The Framers included the phrase “natural born citizen,” without definition, as a presidential requirement in the Constitution.
    _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

    “Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expresly that the Command in chief of the american army shall not be given to, nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.”

    – John Jay Letter to George Washington, 1787
    ___________________________________________________

    The only scholarly definition of “natural born citizen” in history:

    The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758)

    BOOK 1, CHAPTER 19

    § 212. Citizens and natives.

    The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.
    _________________________________

    Immigration Law of the American Founders:

    Naturalization Act of 1790

    United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person,…may be admitted to become a citizen thereof…
    ___________________

    Foreigners in Government and Command in Chief of the American Army:

    – De facto President – Barack Obama

    – President – Kamala Harris

    – Secretary of Defense – Lloyd Austin

    – Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff – Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr.
    _________________________________________________________________

    Kamala Harris and Barack Obama will never be “natural born citizens” or eligible for the office of president.

    What happened, America?

    Abraham Lincoln.

    He ruled not in “democracy” by legislation but by unconstitutional martial law, military dictatorship, and brutal kinetic force.

    The very same corruption of “democracy” and the design and intent of the American Founders is happening now, and the republic of the Founders is succumbing to communism.

    1. You’re lying, and you keep lying. At the time of that exchange between Washington and Jay, there is no evidence that either of them had read Vattel, or cared what he had to say. Most of the delegates at the 13 ratifying conventions had certainly not read Vattel, or even heard of him. And the general public did not understand “natural born citizen” through his strained and foreign definition.

  8. Oh, Look a Butterfly! You know that it has wings to fly, isn’t it so beautiful, colors galore, they fly in a helter-skelter pattern, and did you know they can coil the proboscis. You see, a butterfly flaps it wings in order to go hence and hither. Isn’t it so beautiful, full of color! The butterfly has two wings unlike the Dragonfly who has four. Oh, back to the Butterfly, I marvel at its flight; in watching one you’ll learn it can turn about with ease, hover and fly oh sooo high it disappears. Oh, Look a Butterfly!

    Sgt. Shultz famous line “I know nothing” has been modified “She didn’t really mean it” or “She’s now for it”. Oh, look a butterfly! I talk to you about Butterfly’s because I’m a Chameleon and they taste great. I’ve always liked them because they can change colors and rotate their eyes to suit the moment.

    I’ll end by saying to my comrades, hear me clearly, “I’M A CRETAN”.

      1. Upstate
        Thanks> I was thinking a comparison to a bull with lose bowels at first but changed my mind. Why a bull, remembering a line in a song by Roger Miller, [“you can’t roller skate in a Buffalo head”] and thought of the absurdity of the Democrats candidates and unknown platform: ) which I assume is the same as the last (.

  11. Reframing my eye. They are *lying*, and they know perfectly well they are gaslighting us. It is despicable, and it IS the modern DNC. Obama was the worst thing that has ever happened to our country, and if you don’t want him to have a fourth term, hold your nose if you must, but vote differently this year. Conservatives holding onto the likes of Ann Coulter or Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh (not personally a fan of any of them) need to wake the eff up. This will never be that country. If you’d like it to be a country you can actually live in, you are going to have to grow your mindset and do the right thing. The time for partisan pettiness is so long dead it isn’t even worth mentioning. Do you believe in the Constitution, or not? If so, get off of your consternation and give a crap about ALL of us. Because that is what we are facing.

  12. @seanmdav

    “RFK Jr. is 100% correct. Our government is immoral. It is corrupt. It is authoritarian and tyrannical. It hates the people. It hates the rule of law. And if our nation is going to survive, the regime running this country has to be defeated and destroyed.”

    1. After you “destroy” the current regime, you’ll find you have to rebuild government (you would hate lawless anarchy!). You’ll come up against the same problems, namely all organizations gravitate toward self-interest, taking expedient shortcuts, slacking off. Effective govt. in a pluralistic democracy requires checks and balances, continuous oversight, and citizen awareness and involvement. Lobbying in secret by special interests has to be exposed and deterred. Media journalists have to play a skeptical role as watchdogs on behalf of “the people”.

      There will be constant gaming by insiders and special interests, which must be detected and reforms put in place to curtail each game. Slack off on pushing through effective reforms? — and govt. becomes corrupt and self-serving.

      I understand the frustration that leads to “burn it all down” rage. I get it. But, it doesn’t face up to the challenge of good government, which is crafting the right reforms in the right timeframe to reign in corrupt gaming. This will always be the case, even after a “revolution” sweeps in a new “regime”. So why not just skip over the revolution ideation part, and undertake the reforms. The child in each of us fantasizes the perfect revolution, but the adult knows the hard, messy work of reform is inescapable to have an orderly free society.

    1. “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.
      –Matthew 7:15–

  14. Jonathan, when your close dear friend Dennis McIntyre shows up for work today to post his carefully written screed on behalf of Kamala Harris, could you ask him if he could take a few minutes to explain why she brags about how proud she was to be the last one in the room when she and President Biden decided to desert thousands of Americans and our allies in Afghanistan to the Taliban terrorists.

    It was three years ago today that 13 very young soldiers were murdered by a hajji terrorist while Biden/Harris were abandoning Afghanistan to the Taliban and chose an airfield in the middle of a city with millions of people for the evacuation – rather than the secured airfield at Bagram? Dozens more of our troops were wounded while hundreds of Afghans who had served us and were waiting for the promised evacuation (that never came) were slaughtered by the same terrorist mass murderer.

    It was three years ago today that Biden as Commander In Chief, with Harris at his side with her claimed one of always being the last one in the room, denied snipers providing overwatch permission to take out the hajji terrorist when they saw him approaching.

    Jonathan, can you get your dear close friend Dennis McIntyre to give an explanation to Americans as to why those decisions by Kamala Harris as the last person in the room during those decisions show her suitability to be the next Commander In Chief?

    1. @charliekirk11

      “Remember, Joe Biden’s poll numbers never recovered after the Afghanistan disaster. It was a disgrace to our nation that offended the pride Americans feel about our military and soldiers. Kamala Harris doesn’t want to relive that moment three years ago, but she was the last one in the room who made the call.

      We will not forget what she did.”

      2. We will never forget, but unfortunately the Democrat Party and their media handmaidens have already done so.

  15. Democrats use the the term “bi-partisan” in much the same way they use the term “democracy”.

    1. Democrats use the the term “bi-partisan” in much the same way they use the term “democracy”.

      As long as they can find a Liz Cheney or Adam Kitzenger – or Marco Rubio if it’s about legitimizing Illegal Aliens – it just takes one out of 435 to be “bi-partisan”.

      Here in Montana, our Commie Tele-Tubby, Jon Tester, is once again running for reelection (again, after initially vowing he would only serve one term) as a good ol’ Montana small rancher whose work in the Senate is always bi-partisan – while his voting record shows he voted 95+% in support of Bribery Biden – and before that against Trump, and before Trump, to be the one vote needed to pass Obamacare and other Obama legislation.

      Somebody out there says that many Republicans in office are more like Democrats than they are Republicans – but you can’t name a single Democrat who’s more like a Republican than a Democrat.

      There is no such thing like a Cheny, a Kitzenger, a Romney, a McCain, etc on the Democrat side.

  16. There is nothing that could improve the mainstream media more than all their headquarters become a smoking ruin. My opinion of course. Don’t want people to think I’m inciting anyone.

    1. There is nothing that could improve the mainstream media more than all their headquarters become a smoking ruin.

      You really SURE about that? They watched video shot by the hajji terrorists sawing the head off their fellow journalist Daniel Pearl while he was screaming and it didn’t change their mind in the slightest.

      Didn’t change their justification and defense of the terrorist mastermind instrumental in Pearl’s murder – instead they attacked Bush for “war crimes” after Nancy Pelosi who had agreed to enhanced interrogation methods decided that politics required her to call them war crimes.

      They watched footage of a hajji mob gang raping and assaulting one of their fellow female journalists – didn’t change their minds; in fact, they attack that woman now when she doesn’t get with the program of providing cover for and advancing the cause of Obama’s Third Term.

      They have supported 12 years of Obama and Obama’s Third Term enabling and funding Iran’s Mad Mullahs while they have been the instrument of death for our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq and now during Obama’s Third Term.

      Didn’t bother them when the Iran funded and directed hajjis murdered 13 of our troops three years ago – just as it didn’t bother them that Obama’s Third Term abandoned Afghanistan to the Taliban (and Chicoms) along with enough weaponry to equip a small NATO nation.

      Didn’t bother them when Obama’s Third Term allowed Putin to invade Ukraine for a SECOND time. Just as it didn’t bother them the first time after Obama got caught on a hot mic promising Putin he’d give him space if he behaved himself until he had his last election behind him. (Imagine if it had been Trump caught on a hot mic making that same promise)

      Doesn’t bother those journalists that Obama’s Third Term will not allow Israel to drive a stake through the heart of Iran’s Hamas terrorists after the October 7th genocide – while doing exactly NOTHING to get back Americans being held as protective hostages by those same murdering hajji terrorists that they’re protecting AND FUNDING.

      Doesn’t bother those journalists that Obama’s Third Term has become the home of the America’s genocidal terrorist supporting New Hitler Youth Movement.

      They don’t show the slightest concern when we now know that Mayorkas has enabled hajji terrorists to illegally enter the country.

      You really think these people are EVER going to change? No matter what happens to the country, the economy, our troops, ordinary Americans who can’t pay their bills… or their headquarters?

    2. GEB.
      Sure there is something you can do.
      Become a paying subscriber to alternative media, like The Free Press, or Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald etc. Buy one of their tee-shirts and wear it to someplace where MSM will be present.

      1. * To tell the truth no one ever heard of Barack Hussein Obama and it caused utter chaos in the digital world and made many stark raving mad.

        It could be the EU is concerned with cyber security. A crash of the entire system would be devastating to all except the Amish maybe.

        Harris, Biden and the rest are hostage puppets. Don’t ever tell the net what you like or dislike.

        Enjoy politics when you’re unburdened by the burden of the past … 🙏

    3. Not anything most every American conservative has not thought o themselves.

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