The ACLU Sponsors an Ad Comparing Brett Kavanaugh to Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein
Such nakedly political propaganda is beneath the civil liberties organization.
The American Civil Liberties Union is not merely opposing Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court. The group has also spent a million dollars to run attack ads in several states comparing Kavanaugh to convicted sexual predator Bill Cosby.
"We've seen this before: denials from powerful men," says the ad's narrator. We then see images of #MeToo villains: former President Bill Clinton, former talk show hosts Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose, former studio executive, Harvey Weinstein, Cosby, and finally Kavanaugh. The implication is clear: Kavanaugh is just like them.
The ad is running in Nebraska, Colorado, West Virginia, and Alaska, and it is aimed at persuading fence-sitting senators to vote no on Kavanaugh.
NEW: When we said we're going to use the full force of the ACLU to stop Brett Kavanaugh, we meant it.
We're spending more than $1 million to run ads like this in Nebraska, Colorado, West Virginia, and Alaska pic.twitter.com/dWyN1XYh29
— ACLU (@ACLU) October 1, 2018
The ACLU's decision to formally oppose Kavanaugh was an unusual move for the organization, which almost never takes a position on judicial nominees. The decision to actively fight Kavanaugh by linking the uncorroborated allegations against him to the much more definitive, actually proven misbehavior committed by Cosby and others is something else: nakedly partisan.
It's one thing to say that Kavanaugh is not the best choice for the Supreme Court. It's quite another to prematurely lump him in with Clinton, Cosby, and Weinstein. I would have thought such tactics were beneath the ACLU. This is a shameful moment for a once-great organization.
