When it became apparent that the accused CO Planned Parenthood shooter was reacting to the Center for Medical Progress' bogus sting videos (heavily promoted by *Fox), some Fox talkers tried to distance their anti-choice rhetoric from that of Robert Dear. But Judge Andrew Napolitano's recent hissy fit over the CMP indictment shows that there might be less than six degrees of separation.
As one of Roger Ailes' stable of radical, anti-choice Catholics, it wasn't surprising that Napolitano would react to this week's indictment of two members of a virulently anti-choice Center for Medical Progress which produced videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood engaged in illegal selling of fetal tissue (What Fox, anti-choicers, and Robert Dear refer to as "baby parts.") Meanwhile, the Houston Planned Parenthood was cleared of any wrong doing.
On Tuesday's Fox & Friends, Steve Doocy reported on the "stunning turn" in the investigation of Planned Parenthood. He set the propaganda, that Planned Parenthood is guilty of breaking the law: "So this grand jury was looking into whether or not Planned Parenthood had broken any laws. And rather than saying, yeah, they broke the laws, they said the people who did the investigating broke the laws."
Picking up the agitprop ball, Napolitano promoted, as fact, now standard "pro-life" lies and propaganda about Planned Parenthood: "This is really a head-scratcher. And I'm beginning to think that it is a political hit job on the people who did the investigating. So you have bonafide journalists assuming identities, pretending to be medical ethicists or people in the business of dealing with body parts going to Planned Parenthood, saying all these abortions, are you really selling the body parts? Well, yeah, we are. We do that with this. We do that with this. Are you interested in any further sale of the body parts?"
Napolitano described the CMP "journalists" as "seriously pro-life people wanting to expose how government dollars are being used by Planned Parenthood." Again, he is suggesting that Planned Parenthood has broken the law. Napolitano continued to whine about how the grand jury should have indicted Planned Parenthood and not the CMP. He also whined about how the CMP's *subterfuge was similar to that used by 60 Minutes and the government.
Napolitano slammed the prosecutor and, in do doing, used incendiary rhetoric to validate the anti-choice Planned-Parenthood-Sells-Baby-Parts lie: "So why would this prosecutor appointed by Governor Perry, a former judge, a Republican woman, why would this prosecutor want to do this, other than to send a message like, I might be a Republican, but leave Planned Parenthood alone? Leave it alone -- they're using tax dollars to kill babies and sell their body parts."
At the end of the piece, Napolitano said he hadn't read the indictement which, he assured us, was "a political hit job." He also noted that Planned Parenthood is being investigated in 14 states. He didn't mention that Planned Parenthood has been cleared of any wrongdoing in Washington, Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, and South Dakota.
So there you have it. Judge Andrew Napolitano has declared that Planned Parenthood kills babies and sells body parts. After his arrest, accused CO Planned Parenthood shooter Robert Dear said "no more baby parts." And, of course, "baby killer" is standard jargon in the "pro-life" crowd (remember Bill O'Reilly's "Tiller, the baby killer" rhetoric) - jargon that has and continues to be a standard phrase for those who perpetrate violence. Words matters. And if there is any more abortion clinic violence, it's "pro-life" words like those of Judge Napolitano which will be to blame.
*This Reuters article, "First Amendment won’t shield defendants in Planned Parenthood Scandal" deftly rebuts Napolitano's claim that what the CMP does is legitimate journalism. Amanda Marcotte's article," David Daleiden’s no journalist: His Attack on Planned Parenthood Was OneThing— A Failed Takedown Operation" also eviscerates Napolitano's contention that these CMP creeps are legit journalists.
Faux would draw these homicidal maniacs a map to Planned Parenthood if they knew who they were.