Call it 'gotcha' journalism, or perhaps just a revealing look inside the liberal media mind, but Katie Couric just engaged in a stunning leap of logic on this morning's Today show.
She was interviewing long-time Harriet Miers friend and colleague Nathan Hecht, who worked for years with Miers at the same law firm, and is now a member of the Texas Supreme Court. An aside: Hecht is an affable and impressive combination of aw-shucks gentility and acute, articulate advocacy. If W had been looking for an outside-the-beltway Texas pick, he could have done much worse than Hecht himself!
In any case, Katie immediately honed in on the abortion issue. Hecht acknowledged that when it came to abortion, he and Miers have "probably talked about it some," then flatly averred: "she's pro-life."
That's when Couric made her stunning leap of logic, as she stated: "so she believes that woman should not have a legal right to abortion in this country" and wondered if Miers is prepared to overturn Roe.
Hecht immediately set Katie straight: "what she thinks about legal rights and legal cases and Roe v. Wade is totally different from watch she thinks about her pro-life views. Harriet is a lawyer and soon to be I hope a judge, and you separate those things."
Katie still couldn't get it right: "So you believe that she would not push to overturn Roe v. Wade?"
An indulgent Hecht again sought to enlighten Couric: "I just don't know. There's no way to know that. A person who is serious about judging couldn't tell you."
Almost as stunning as Couric's bad journalism was the insight it provided into the liberal mind. In Katie's universe, if you're pro-choice, you must support Roe, and vice versa. It apparently never occurred to Couric that someone who is pro-choice could recognize that Roe is terrible constitutional law, or that a pro-life justice might nevertheless respect the Roe precedent.
