For the past 16 years, news organizations have been repeating an obvious falsehood about the 1992 Democratic convention. According to countless news reports -- in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Associated Press, ABC, NPR, Time, Newsweek, CNN, MSNBC, The Wall Street Journal, and on and on and on -- then-Pennsylvania governor Bob Casey was denied a speaking role at the convention because he opposed abortion rights.
Really? Give us your evidence.
It's also important to keep in mind that Casey didn't merely want to speak at the convention. He wanted to devote his entire speech to opposing the Democratic Party on a single issue. After the convention ended, Casey released the text of the speech he would have delivered had he been given the chance. The speech ran more than 1,000 words -- and not one of those words was "Clinton." Nor was the word "Gore" mentioned. Casey's speech did not include a single word of praise or support for the ticket being nominated at the convention he wanted to address. Instead, it accused the party of being "far out of the mainstream and on the extreme fringe" on abortion. That's what the entire speech was about: disagreeing with, and insulting, the Democratic Party on abortion.
Ah, so the Democrats didn't want to keep Casey from speaking because he was Pro-Life, they wanted to keep him from speaking because he wanted to speak about Pro-life views.
I'm supposed to believe this amounts to a real difference?
Last time I checked many other things go on at a party convention than the ritual back slapping of the Presidential nominee, including the setting of the goals of the party as a whole. If Casey wanted to address the convention's role in writing the party platform, which it seems clear he did because he didn't address the presidential race at all, then why shouldn't he have been allowed? The notion that he wasn't allowed to speak because because he didn't add to his remarks a stroking of the nominee, regardless of the rest of the content of his proposed talk, is asinine. Even if you granted this rather dumb suggestion it still amounts to silencing Casey because he wasn't going to say what the party bigwigs wanted him to say. Once again, that's a meaningful difference how?
The intellectual shallowness of Media Matters is staggering.
The whining is also a little disconcerting:
Yet here's The New York Times, just last week: "Sixteen years ago, the Democratic Party refused to allow Robert P. Casey Sr., then the governor of Pennsylvania, to speak at its national convention because his anti-abortion views, stemming from his Roman Catholic faith, clashed with the party's platform and powerful constituencies."
No. That is not true. That cannot be true. It cannot be the case that he was not allowed to speak because of his views -- other people with the same views were allowed to speak. [ed. The petulant emphasis is in the original.]
Did the other people speak about abortion at the convention? Why, no they didn't. So, it seems the policy was that Pro-life Democrats could be seen always, but heard only when they didn't speak about abortion. Nothing presented by Media Matters disputes that in the least.
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