Toobin corrected error regarding Alito position in search case
SUMMARY: CNN's Jeffrey Toobin corrected a previous misstatement that Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. was in the majority of the Doe v. Groody decision, a 2003 case involving the physical and visual search of a 10-year-old girl. In fact, Alito dissented in the case, while the majority ruled that the search went beyond the scope of the warrant, in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
During CNN's special coverage of Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s confirmation hearing, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin corrected his previous misstatement concerning Alito's opinion in a 2003 case involving the physical and visual search of a 10-year-old girl, a mistake Media Matters for America noted. On January 10, Toobin had wrongly asserted that Alito was in the majority of the Doe v. Groody decision. In fact, Alito dissented in the case, while the majority ruled that when police officers searched the 10-year-old girl and her mother during the execution of a search warrant on their house, they went beyond the scope of the warrant, in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
From CNN's January 11 coverage of the Alito hearing during a special edition of The Situation Room, which featured host Wolf Blitzer:
TOOBIN: Speaking of our qualifications, I'd just like to raise something. Yesterday, I said that Judge Alito was part of the majority in the decision about searching the 10-year-old girl and he was, in fact, a dissenter in that case. And the blogs and the emailers were after me and they were right and I was wrong. And that was just, yet another nail in my coffin for being a Supreme Court justice.
BLITZER: We're only human; we all make mistakes from time to time.
TOOBIN: I know, but I just wanted to correct it.
BLITZER: It's nice of you to admit that.
TOOBIN: And I just thought we should do that.
Kudos to Toobin for having the guts to admit a mistake and correct it on-air. "They were right and I was wrong." Beautiful! Now when will we hear Rush say that?
"We're only human; we all make mistakes from time to time."
Wolf, please don't use the soft bigotry of low expectations as an excuse for your flubs and fibs. We expect more from a million dollar beard.
Wolf also said "it's nice of you to admit that [the mistake]," indicating that it was a matter of Toobin being gracious and polite to correct an on-air slip that was of considerable substance in context.
"Nice"? Not quite, Wolf - it was a matter of Toobin being responsible.
I posted yesterday that I felt that Toobin was normally quite fair and objective when reporting from my observations. He is FAR from the worst offender on CNN, and my personal opinion is that of the CNN correspondents, he tends to avoid showing any bias in his reporting. I think he does quite a good job, and did say I thought he deserved the benefit of the doubt on this one. I, as most on here seem to feel, prefer my news sans opinions. Just the facts, please.
... he took the time to admit he was wrong and corrected his mistake. i've always kind of liked him. i read his book "too close to call", a good overview of the florida recount. he covered the volusia county negative 16000 vote count on election night that had al gore concede because he thought he was about 50000 votes behind bush. when that was "corrected" he pulled within a few hundred votes. to this day there has never been a real investigation or explanation of that "mistake".
Finally something positive! Someone makes a mistake, he gets called on it, and he corrects himself publicly. Not that the error really mattered that much, but it's good to see an error admitted and corrected. That's what MMfA is really for... too bad the rest of the time it's just spitting into the wind. If only every mainstream media personality and organ would have the character to correct its errors -- left and right.
-mid
Kudos. And I agree with "MIDSIZE." This is the way it ought to be. In a way, Toobin shouldn't be congratulated for doing what they all should be doing.
But I'm very proud of Toobin. And if more of them did this - were required to do this by broadcast standards, their would be fewer misstatements and falsehoods.
See my post on the recent Gwen Ifill listing. PBS, as far as I know, is the only network that has detailed standards posted on their website. And they're very high standards.
now that's why we have media matters!!!
Toobin should NEVER have MADE this egregious error in the first place. He INSISTED upon its correctness, using it to denigrate Alito's critics. I.e., it was the HEART of Toobin's argument. So just to say, "I was wrong" ain't good enough; he wasn't just wrong about a detail. Toobin was wrong is his entire argument, therefore, that Alito is NOT a radical. It's the ARGUMENT that should now be shown to be "wrong".