The Slatest

Today in Conservative Media: Neil Gorsuch “Obliterates” the Democrats

Judge Neil Gorsuch is sworn in for his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

A daily roundup of the biggest stories in right-wing media.

As confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch entered their second day, conservative media outlets focused on how Trump’s pick was faring.

Heading into the hearings, most conservative commentators remained enthusiastic about the nominee. Glenn Beck, for example, proposed on his radio program that Gorsuch would be “better than Scalia” when it comes to not deferring to bureaucrats.

Some sites, however, warned about Democratic obstruction, even as they were amused by liberal complaints. Breitbart, in particular, ran multiple posts on perceived griping from the left, featuring headlines such as “Al Franken: Gorsuch Represents Ideology That Has Already ‘Infected the Bench’ ” and “Leahy: Gorsuch ‘Selected by Extreme Interest Groups,’ ‘Nominated by a President Who Lost the Popular Vote.’ ” Neither of those posts directly criticized the senators’ remarks, apart from some light snark, but each generated thousands of comments from the site’s vociferous readers.

On Tuesday afternoon, Breitbart continued to promote a Charles Hurt post from Monday that began with an elaborate narrative about the United States Botanical Garden’s rare-to-bloom corpse flower. “Yes, in most of America, good people see a skunk and quickly scurry the other way. Here in Washington, it’s called a homecoming,” Hurt wrote, before comparing congressional Democrats to flies converging on the hearing. It was not clear what Gorsuch represented in this odoriferous metaphor.

As the hearing carried on, conservative outlets suggested that Gorsuch was deftly holding his ground. A Daily Caller post discussed a former University of Colorado law student’s claim that Gorsuch believes women in the workforce abuse maternity benefits, comparing her accusations to those of Anita Hill. The article concluded by noting, “The University of Colorado is most famous, of course, for launching an on-campus spying campaign encouraging students to report incidents of ‘bias’ to government officials at the school.” Other sites suggested the nominee needed little assistance to defend himself. Fox News, for example, wrote, “President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee on Tuesday swiftly batted down” the accusation by explaining that it had simply come up in a discussion of hypothetical scenarios.

Similarly, in “Gorsuch Obliterates Charges of Not Standing for ‘Little Man,’LifeZette ran through a list of his opinions that, he claimed, show he does not always favor corporations over the people. The Daily Caller also praised Gorsuch’s response, writing, “It’s almost as if Judge Neil Gorsuch knew this question was coming.” National Review wrote that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who had asked that question, paid too much attention to his political beliefs, revealing that she fails to “set impartiality as a requirement for Supreme Court Justice nominees.” And a Fox News headline read, “Gorsuch Rebuffs Leahy on Trump Travel Ban Questions.”

Some sites focused on Gorsuch’s emotional state. The Blaze ran an article titled, “Gorsuch Reveals How He Felt When He Heard He Was on Trump’s SCOTUS List,” though it did not actually reveal how Gorsuch felt at the time. Likewise, on its home page, Fox News promoted its live blog by quoting the nominee’s assertion, “I regret putting my family through this,” a remark that he apparently delivered in reply to a question about the Citizens United decision.

Meanwhile, the Federalist offered an admiring appraisal of Gorsuch’s capacities as a prose stylist in “5 Writing Myths Neil Gorsuch’s Lively Opinions Bust to Bits.” Those busted myths include the premise that you shouldn’t use contractions in formal prose and that long sentences demonstrate a writer’s intellect. To show that Gorsuch “brings a breath of fresh air to the field of legal writing,” the Federalist quoted from an opinion in which Trump’s pick asserts that one who has merely conspired with the Aryan Brotherhood cannot be called a member of the organization.

On social media, conservative Facebook sites continued to work through Monday’s James Comey hearing, featuring widely shared memes suggesting collusion between the Democrats and Russia:

Another popular post suggested that the president could fire Comey: