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Times Watch for February 6, 2004

"Conservatives" Against Death Penalty, Patriot Act

     The latest edition of "Public Lives" from anti-war reporter Chris Hedges, "Ex-Judge vs. the Government's Law-Free Zone," ostensibly deals with a conservative Republican figure, retired federal judge John Gibbons. As it turns out, Gibbons is one of those so-common conservatives that just happen to also be passionately anti-death penalty, against the detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, and who considers the Patriot Act "a serious erosion of the rule of law."

     Hedges nonetheless insists: "A Republican, his politics tend to veer to the conservative….But Mr. Gibbons, in his role as a gadfly, is also one of the state's leading crusaders against the death penalty. He oversees an effort by three lawyers known as Gibbons Fellows, who work free on the cases of those who could not otherwise afford legal representation, many of whom are on death row….He has, he said, always been outraged by the use of the death penalty, which is why he has his firm file 'friend of the court' briefs in almost every death penalty case in New Jersey. 'It is horrible that in a civilized country the arbitrary imposition of revenge continues to exist,' he said. 'This does not exist in any other industrialized democracy in the world. [Editorial Note: Does Japan know it's not an industrialized democracy"?] We are completely out of step. We should be ashamed.'" Spoken like a true right-winger.

     Reporter Hedges then lectures: "Law for Mr. Gibbons is not partisan. It is not about choosing those we do not like, or do like, and then determining if they receive full legal rights."

     As if the U.S. was holding prisoners at Guantanamo not because of terror concerns, but because we just don't like them very much.

For the rest of Hedges' latest "Public Lives" profile, click here.

• Death Penalty | John Gibbons | Guantanamo Bay | Chris Hedges | Patriot Act | Public Lives

The "Non-Ideological" Massachusetts Supreme Court

     The Massachusetts Supreme Court may have ruled Wednesday that it was unconstitutional for gay couples to be deprived of marriage rights, but that doesn't necessarily mean its liberal. So argues reporter Pam Belluck in her Friday story: "All but one of the justices were appointed by Republican governors. They are not, for the most part, considered ideologues, and their views are often difficult to pigeonhole, experts say."

     But as MRC's Brent Baker noted last November, the Republican factor may not mean much in Massachusetts: "The Bay State’s three most recent Republican Governors, Bill Weld, Paul Celluci and Jane Swift, were hardly conservatives and hardly had a deep pool of conservative judges in place from the Dukakis years from which to choose."

     Belluck adds this blast from the past about retired Times paleo-liberal columnist Anthony Lewis: "Chief Justice Marshall, who is married to Anthony Lewis, a former columnist for The New York Times, is frequently considered the most liberal of the justices, although experts say her opinions are not always predictable."

For the rest of Belluck on the "non-ideological" Massachusetts Supreme Court, click here.

• Pam Belluck | Gay Rights | Labeling Bias | Anthony Lewis | Massachusetts

E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org