Another day, another misleading headline.
Democratic lawmakers are thirsty for any information leading to the scuttling of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s seemingly inevitable Supreme Court confirmation. More than a few in the news media seem to want the same.
On Monday, CNN published a headline reading, “Trump Supreme Court pick: Presidents can ignore laws they think are unconstitutional.”
The story’s body opens with this paragraph: “Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2013 asserted that it’s a ‘traditional exercise’ of presidential power to ignore laws the White House views as unconstitutional, as he defended the controversial practice of signing statements prevalent in George W. Bush’s White House.”
The second paragraph reads, “The comments could put a renewed focus on Kavanaugh’s time serving as White House staff secretary, who had a role in coordinating Bush’s statements accompanying legislation he signed into law. Critics contend that the Bush White House abused the use of signing statements to ignore laws passed by Congress, though Bush and his allies said such statements were no different than the practices of other administrations.”
The story goes on for a few more paragraphs before the reader is introduced to the precedent regarding the White House’s approach to laws it considers unconstitutional:
Kavanaugh said in 2013 “that the president can’t ignore the law “simply because of policy objections” – and that the White House must abide by the law “unless the President has a constitutional objection” to the issue at hand,” the story reads.
It adds:
[Related: Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on the major issues]
The CNN article itself is well-reported, and it’s pretty thorough (though the information about the president’s objections being based on constitutional objections should probably to be a bit higher up in the report).
The headline, on the other hand, leaves much to be desired in terms of context and background. It’s confusing at best, misleading at worst.
As attorney and Washington Examiner contributor Gabriel Malor noted, the CNN headline “is unnecessarily misleading because it omits a critical caveat. Kavanaugh said a president can decline to enforce a law believed to be unconstitutional ‘unless and until a final Court order dictates otherwise.’ He also noted that Congress also plays a role.”
Attorney Thomas Crown added in a far more critical note, “The tweet is clickbait. All he said was the each branch must make Constitutional assessments subject to final judicial review. Sort of like how the Obama DOJ decided not to support DOMA.”
He added, “The real story is that CNN considers this a story.”
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Full disclosure: This author is a paid contributor with CNN/HLN.
