Norma McCorvey, the Jane Roe of Roe vs. Wade fame, is among antiabortion protesters tossed at Sotomayor hearing

One of the antiabortion protesters tossed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor today was none other than Norma McCorvey, the Texas woman whose pregnancy led to the court's landmark 1973 decision legalizing abortion, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported earlier this evening.

At least three times during Monday's hearing, antiabortion protesters interrupted the proceedings by yelling. Each time, they were quicky escorted out of the hearing room.

Abortion is not expected to be a focus of senators' questions Tuesday, and Sotomayor's feelings about the issue are not well known. In her only known ruling on an abortion-related issue, she upheld a ban on federal money going to foreign groups that provide abortion services -- the so-called Mexico City rule.

As for McCorvey, after she lent her name to the case that had an immediate and drastic effect on the choices available to pregnant women, she had a change of heart, and has campaigned against Roe vs. Wade.

Earlier in the day outside the Hart Senate Office Building, she told the Journal Sentinel, "I'm here to overturn Roe and defeat Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court. She's unworthy of the position. She’s Catholic. She’s even unworthy of taking communion because of her pro-abortion stance."

The Supreme Court's decision in Roe vs. Wade came too late to affect McCorvey's 1970 pregnancy. By the time justices ruled 7 to 2 in her favor, she had long since given birth.

-- Robin Abcarian

AP file photo of Norma McCorvey from 1995 by Nick Ut

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Nixon on blacks, Jews and women: Talk about impeachable offenses

We have always wondered if Richard Nixon, who designed the Republican Party's infamous Southern Strategy, was motivated by racial distrust or sheer political ambition.

You may recall that it was Nixon's political genius to co-opt the all-Democratic South by appealing to white conservatives to bolt to the Republican Party with not-so-subtle signals -- opposition to school busing and affirmative action -- that it would welcome their support.

Now, from the latest batch of tapes released by the Nixon Library, come fresh evidence that the 37th POTUS -- the only president to resign from office under threat of impeachment -- had at best stereotypical opinions about blacks, Jews and women.

Responding to the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision to legalize abortion, Nixon told aide Chuck Colson that generally abortions were a bad thing, "It breaks the family," he said. But, Nixon added, "There are times when abortions are necessary -- I know that. ... Suppose you have a black and a white," he said, adding, "or a rape."

In one exchange that's received a lot of attention, Nixon rings up George H.W. Bush, then head of the Republican Party, to suggest that he recruit attractive female conservatives to run for office, like those Nixon had seen on a visit to the South Carolina Legislature.

"I noticed a couple of very attractive women, both of them Republicans, in the Legislature," Nixon tells Bush, who became the 41st POTUS. "Let's look for some ... I think maybe a woman might win someplace where a man might not. ... So have you got that in mind?"

"I'll certainly keep it in mind," Bush replies.

"Boy, they were good-lookin' and bright," said Nixon who, to be fair, was a rare Republican supporter of  the doomed Equal Rights Amendment that would have guaranteed women equal rights under the U.S. Constitution.

In another conversation, with evangelist Billy Graham, Nixon responded to Graham's complaints that Jewish-American leaders were opposing his efforts to promote evangelical Christianity, like Campus Crusade. The two men agreed that the Jewish leaders risked setting off anti-Semitic sentiment.

“What I really think is deep down in this country, there is a lot of anti-Semitism, and all this is going to do is stir it up,” Nixon said. “It may be they have a death wish. You know that’s been the problem with our Jewish friends for centuries.”

For your listening pleasure, or disdain, 150 hours of tapes are available on the Nixon Library's website.  They are part of a years-long effort by the National Archives to declassify and make public documents and tapes from the Nixon era.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Photo: Nixon prepares to turn over transcripts of his recorded Oval Office conversations to Congress during the Watergate investigation. Credit: Associated Press

Political science shocker! People click on headlines they agree with

There’s a reason you’re reading this blog right now. And it’s probably because you agree with at least some of what we publish here.

That’s not arrogance on our part. It’s science.

Researchers at Ohio State University recently released a new study that suggests that people aren't looking for a wide range of perspectives when they tune in to the media. Instead, they're looking for views that conform to their personal beliefs. Who knew?

Researchers came to these conclusions after monitoring the reading habits of 156 college students. First, students were asked to fill out a lengthy questionnaire about their political views.

Then researchers tracked how the students spent their time reading online articles about gun ownership, abortion, healthcare and minimum wage. The articles reflected a variety of views, but students gravitated to the articles that had headlines that paralleled their own politics. The students spent up to 36% more time reading those articles, the study found.

This challenges the notion that more information will lead to better understanding among people of opposing views, the study's authors say.

"If citizens favor messages in line with their views and avoid opinion-challenging content, the cornucopia of media choices, on the Internet in particular, could hinder informed opinion formation, lead to a more polarized and fragmented electorate, and also reduce political tolerance," Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick and Jingbo Meng write.

The study's findings probably don't surprise anyone familiar with the political blogosphere.

Most opinion bloggers write for an audience of like-minded people, in insider language, and are not out to convert people of other political persuasions. Spend a few minutes with a blog like Daily Kos or Hot Air and you’ll see what we mean. 

-- Kate Linthicum

Photo: L.A. Times.

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"What's the Matter with Kansas?" movie clips show abortion doctor George Tiller and foes

We've been covering the murder of Dr. George Tiller, the Kansas physician who was one of only a few providers of late-term abortions in the country, if not the world.

We were in the very tense Wichita courtroom last March when after only 45 minutes a jury acquitted him of breaking Kansas abortion laws. So our curiosity was piqued by a story in Salon today about a movie based on the popular Thomas Frank book, "What's the Matter with Kansas?"  It sought to explain why a traditionally liberal state had turned conservative in recent years, although in truth, given the fact that its recent Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, currently the secretary of Health and Human Services, is a pro-choice Democrat, one has to say it's a place where conservative and liberal strains keep the state in a perpetual political pendulum.

In the 1990s, the state became a ground zero in the abortion wars when Tiller and his clinic, Women's Health Services, became a focal point for the protests of abortion foes. Scott Roeder, a 51-year-old man with ties to right-wing militia groups, has been charged with murder and awaits his fate in a Wichita jail.

Salon posted a clip from the documentary, by Laura Cohen and Joe Winston, which features interviews with Dr. Tiller and his foes including Troy Newman, the California pastor who moved to Wichita from San Diego to put Tiller out of business. And there's an interview with Mark Gietzen, who protests legal abortion by driving a panel truck around Wichita festooned with photographs of aborted fetuses.

To get a sense of the calm, purposeful way that Tiller thought about the path he had chosen -- which lead to one previous assassination attempt as well as bombings of his clinic -- the clip is revealing. As is the button he wears: "Attitude is Everything."

The movie will have its premiere in August.

Here's a clip:

-- Robin Abcarian

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Liberal bloggers point finger at Bill O'Reilly in George Tiller's death [Updated]

It's no secret that Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly was instrumental in publicizing the activities of George Tiller, the 67-year-old Kansas doctor who was one of the few physicians in the country to perform late-term abortions in the face of protests, bombings at Tiller's clinic and death threats.

Tiller was slain over the weekend, as he stood in his church in Wichita, Kan., serving as an usher. President Obama decried the killing, saying, "However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence." Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion activist and former member of a right-wing militia group, has been arrested.

Now, liberal bloggers are speculating that what one called O'Reilly's "jihad against Tiller" may have contributed to the doctor's death.

"There's no other person who bears as much responsibility for the characterization of Tiller as a savage on the loose," said Salon.com's Gabriel Winant. Tiller has been vilified in 29 episodes of O'Reilly's "The Factor," Winant reports, usually described as "Tiller the Baby Killer" and often as a doctor who "destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birth date for $5,000."

On March 15, 2006, O'Reilly said Tiller was the moral equivalent of Al Qaeda. On Nov. 9, 2006, he likened the physician who gave women legal abortions to China's Mao, Germany's Hitler or the Soviet Union's Stalin. And on Dec. 12, 2006, he unleashed all his hatred in this episode. See what you think.

For the most part, both pro-choice and antiabortion groups of the mainstream variety were careful to condemn Tiller's slaying.

But Operation Rescue, which ran a Tiller Watch on its website, called Tiller "a mass murderer." In a statement, the group's founder, Randall Terry, said, “We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God.”

Maybe, as MSNBC's political team suggested this morning, the culture wars are about to return big time.

Corrected, 7:25 p.m.: An earlier version of this post said that the right-wing blogosphere was defending O'Reilly by blaming the Obama administration, and quoted John Aravosis, who blogs for AmericaBlog.com, as noting that the White House withdrew a domestic terrorism report that warned of abortion protest violence. AmericaBlog is a liberal outlet, and its sarcastic post took us in. We apologize for mislabeling AmericaBlog and for misunderstanding Aravosis' intent.

-- Johanna Neuman

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What Obama actually said to graduates at Notre Dame

Yesterday, as we reported here at The Ticket, it was the Mrs offering rhetorical advice to happy about-to-be-college graduates at UC-Merced's first senior class graduation.

Today, the Great Change Agent himself went out to Indiana of all places to give his second commencement address as GCA. The first one, early last week at Arizona State University, netted him a longlasting scholarship for students yet to come.

All he got from today's at Notre Dame was an honorary degree to go in the drawer with all the other honorary pieces of paper yet to come. Plus, he got a reignited national controversy beyond the usual crowd of puffed-up Domers, over abortion and stemcell research, with cardinals carping and bishops boycotting and the gruesome, head-turning-the-other-way photos of aborted fetuses.

Predictably, the president of the United State (as opposed to the president of the UND) handled today's affair with the usual, chin-high Obama aplomb and requisite self-deprecatory jokes, despite the eruption of a shouting protester. He noted, for instance, that he's only batting one-for-two in the honorary college degree department.

(FYI, his political partner Joe Biden, who had the entire weekend off up in Wilmington of all places, is batting 1.000 in that category. But, of course, Biden served 10 times longer in the U.S. Senate than his much younger boss and got a real degree from Syracuse before getting the pretend one last week.)

Obama also spoke of how he came to his religious faith -- which his spokesmen describe as "Christian," not Catholicism -- through his anti-poverty community organizing work on Chicago's South Side jointly with the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, still widely-revered in the Midwest. Obama called him "saintly" to audience applause.

One tradition the GCA isn't changing yet is that POTUS gives three graduation addresses each spring -- one public school, one private school and one military service academy. Obama's third college graduate sendoff....

Sunday Shows: Kaine, Steele, Kyl, Webb, Orszag

ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos: Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Jim Webb (D-Va.) and a roundtable with James Carville, Liz Cheney, Steve Schmidt, The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel and ABC's George Will.

Bloomberg's Political Capital with Al Hunt: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation chairman Sheila Bair, Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haass, Bloomberg's Hans Nichols and Kate O'Beirne.

CBS' Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), ACLU Director Anthony Romero, Slate/CBS' John Dickerson and USA Today's Joan Biskupic.

CNN's GPS with Fareed Zakaria: Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

CNN's State of the Union with John King: White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.).

Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace: Notre Dame professor Rev. Richard McBrien; National Director of Priests for Life Rev. Frank Pavone; Sen. Mitch McConnell; a round table with Fox's Brit Hume, Fortune's Nina Easton, Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol and Jennifer Loven of the Associated Press; and "Power Player" Smithsonian Board of Regents chair Patty Stonesifer.

NBC's Meet the Press with David Gregory: Chairmen of the Democratic and Republican National Committees: Tim Kaine and Michael Steele plus a round table with Haass, Newsweek's Jon Meacham and Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photoo: Associated Press (Steele).

Obama's speech to Notre Dame reveals rift among white, minority Catholics

The long-awaited, much-debated commencement address by President Obama to the graduating seniors at the University of Notre Dame takes places this weekend.

As our colleague Robin Abcarian pointed out in a previous post, news that Obama was to address the graduating class at the nation's premier Catholic university re-ignited the culture wars over abortion that had quieted during the last election. The Fighting Irish were fighting mad — protests erupted, the university president took a lot of heat, the local bishop announced he would boycott the speech of a president who supports a woman's right to choose abortion.

But now the Quinnipiac Poll has released a new survey of American Catholics, showing that opposition to the appearance splits white religious Catholics from minority and more secular Catholics.

Obama won 54% of Catholic votes in the 2008 presidential campaign, slightly higher than his overall total. His approval rating from Catholics is even higher.

"One of the reasons Obama was able to win the Catholic vote outright — and maintains very high approval ratings — is minority Catholics," said John Green, senior fellow in religion and American politics for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. As Green told NPR this morning, Latino Catholics, African American Catholics and Asian Catholics give the president far higher marks than their white counterparts.

Maybe it's their focus on larger issues — like the economy and jobs, a home-grown concern in Indiana. Maybe it's their pride in seeing another minority in the nation's highest office.

Throw in another factor, religious observance, and the divide grows even starker. Half of self-described Catholics do not attend church regularly. Most Catholics, according to the Quinnipiac Poll, think Obama should be allowed to speak. But the highest number who want the invitation rescinded, some 43%, are Catholics who count themselves as regular churchgoers.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Photo Credit: Notre Dame University

Obama's Notre Dame visit sparks renewed abortion culture wars

President Barack Obama's upcoming commencement speech to graduating students of the University of Notre Dame, scheduled for May 17, has become more than a fight over whether a president who favors legal abortion should be honored by a Roman Catholic university.

The occasion of the speech has morphed into one of many political sparks that we daresay are leading to a re-ignition of the semi-dormant culture wars.

Those clashes died down during the Bush administration when social conservatives were placated by having a friend in the Oval Office who could, with the stroke of a pen, keep them happy on issues such as stem cell research, the so-called global gag rule about abortion, and the "conscience rule," which George W. Bush signed before leaving office. Also, the conflagration in Iraq and an economy melting down kept attention focused elsewhere.

But now, with a pro-choice (and pro-embryonic stem cell research) president and Congress, and a push for gay marriage that is not going away, the embers of the culture wars are glowing bright.

Right now, Ground Zero is South Bend, Ind., home to Notre Dame. 

The resurgent antiabortion activist Randall Terry, who became a Catholic in....

Orange County setback for Lila Rose, anti-Planned Parenthood activist

Our colleague Paloma Esquivel reports today that a divided Orange County Board of Supervisors, which  had suspended a grant of nearly $300,000 to Planned Parenthood for sex education programs, voted to reinstate the funding on the advice of attorneys.

Last Sunday, we reported that some Orange County citizens were perturbed about the funding for Planned Parenthood after seeing videos made by UCLA student Lila Rose, who has posed as a pregnant 13-year-old with a 31-year-old boyfriend.

Tustin businessman Mark Bucher brought the matter to the attention of Supervisor John Moorlach, whose chief of staff told us recently that Moorlach had not realized money from the state's tobacco settlement fund was being allocated to Planned Parenthood.

Moorlach was one of two supervisors who voted against restoring the funding today.

On her website, Rose has posted videos that appear to show Planned Parenthood staffers telling her to lie about the age of her boyfriend so they didn't have to report the case to authorities as statutory rape.

In a second vote, this one unanimous, Esquivel reports, the supervisors agreed to have the county Health Care Agency adopt policies requiring tobacco settlement money to be spent on direct health services, not education.

And she writes: "In addition to eliminating health education, the new rules say services can't be provided in the same place where abortions are performed."

Planned Parenthood exec Jon Dunn told Esquivel: "Clearly this is an effort to target Planned Parenthood. It's much more costly to treat people once they have a symptom than to provide them with the information they need to prevent an infection from occurring."

-- Robin Abcarian

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Photo: Live Action Films