Introduction
In July of 2002, C. Boyden Gray established the Committee for Justice “to offset the influence of People For the American Way” (Washington Post, July 23, 2002) and to lobby on behalf of President George W. Bush’s judicial nominations. One year later, after having debated Mr. Gray many times on television and radio, watched his two televisions ads attacking People For the American Way and a number of Democratic senators, reviewed his group’s written materials, and seen media coverage of its fundraisers sponsored by members of the Bush family and allied corporate interests, I believe two conclusions can be drawn.
First, as he does for the other corporate front that he co-chairs, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Mr. Gray is working hard for all the corporate special interests that he represents. This time, rather than working on behalf of President Bush’s anti-government tax cuts and privatization schemes, Mr. Gray is helping President Bush pack the federal judiciary with extreme right-wing judges who will be expected to, among other things, consistently decide cases on behalf of corporate interests and against the interests of ordinary Americans. Mr. Gray embodies both prongs of the grand right-wing strategy for drastically reducing the role of the federal government in protecting Americans’ liberties and acting on behalf of the common good – take away the legal authority by packing the courts with states’ rights extremists and take away the financial foundation of the social safety net with massive deficit-inducing tax cuts.
The second conclusion is that in his TV ads and in his public statements, Mr. Gray and the Committee for Justice make one misrepresentation after another. Several of the more egregious misrepresentations follow: