 David Ogden |
Opposition is on the rise to the nomination of David Ogden, the man President Obama wants to be the No. 2 officer in the Justice Department, overseeing many of the cases in which the government would be involved in coming years.
According to Fidelis, a consortium of Catholic organizations working to promote religious freedom, human life and family values, Americans should be suspicious of his “confirmation conversion.”
At an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week Ogden said he belives child pornography laws are important, even though he’s previously argued against them. He also said he regretted his previous pro-porn arguments. And he said that despite his previous positions, he doesn’t think foreign law should prevail in the U.S.
Fidelis president Brian Burch said Ogden’s performances was “a textbook example of an ambitious nominee saying whatever he needs to say to get the votes for confirmation.”
Ogden’s career includes a long record of arguing against child porn laws and in favor of racial preferences and virtually unlimited abortion on behalf of clients including Penthouse, the ACLU and Playboy.
“Ogden spent his entire life arguing for far left
extremist positions,” Burch said.
“And he expects us to believe he has matured and
abandoned those views now that he is before the Senate? What we have here
is a nominee who knows that his views and Obama’s views on the law are far
out of the mainstream in America, so he is adjusting his rhetoric to get
the votes he needs.”
Fidelis is just one organization raising concerns about Ogden, a partner at WilmerHale in Washington, D.C.
Tom Minnery, a senior vice president for Focus on the Family Action, said the subjects on which Ogden fails to meet standards include child porn, abortion and homosexuality.
“He argued that ‘abortion rarely causes or exacerbates psychological or emotional problems,’ opposed parental notifications for 14-year-olds and called spousal notification a ‘burden’ that cannot be justified,” Minnery said.
Ogden also has contended there’s a constitutional right to access pornography at public libraries and stated homosexuality “is a normal form of human sexuality.” He has described traditional marriage as a “social prejudice.”
Added Tony Perkins, chief of the Family Research Council, “Mr. Ogden has built a career on representing values and companies that most Americans find repulsive.”
“Publisher Hugh Hefner outlined how he operated ‘behind the scenes’ to bring U.S. laws in line with Playboy morality,” Reismen wrote of the 2004 issue.
“In fact, David Ogden, a Playboy legal hit man with allegiance to the bunny flag may soon be the United States deputy attorney general,” she warned.
She continued, “Harvard lawyer President O would never expect justice for blacks from lawyers whose income derived from wealthy Klansmen – nor could he expect justice for women and children from lawyers whose income is derived from wealthy pornographers. No Ogden team lawyer has ever defended a single woman, man or child alleging victimization by Big Porno.”
According to Deborah O’Malley of the Heritage Foundation, Ogden also has dangerous propensities to cite other nations’ laws instead of U.S. law.
“Specifically, questions have been raised about his work on a recent Supreme Court decision that invoked foreign law to impose a radical change on American death penalty policy. Given the danger that this growing tendency to consult foreign law poses to our ability to self-govern, senators should probe Ogden about his involvement with this case,” she wrote.
In a case in which a 17-year-old planned and carried out a heinous murder of a Missouri woman, Ogden argued that among other factors, a “worldwide consensus” should be considered.
Steven Groves, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said, “Ogden argued that the laws of foreign nations enjoy a direct cause-and-effect relationship with the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.”
The Family Research Council said the Department of Justice “should not have a porn lawyer as its Deputy Attorney General, a position tasked with making the most important decisions of the department.”
Participants in an online forum for the Family Research Council agreed there were concerns.
“David Ogden is strongly opposed to what the majority of American Citizens feel is right and strongly supportive of those beliefs and values that the majority of American citizens feel is wrong. How can Obama nominate such a person who is so out-of-step with the public? One can only come to the conclusion that Obama is supportive of these negative values,” said Ken Anderson.
“Does it get any worse than this? I guess the ACLU is now running the country. It turns my stomach frankly,” wrote Michael T. McLaughlin.
On a Fox News blog, the comments were similar:
“Senators might want to hold David Ogden’s confirmation hearing after the kids go to bed,” said one.
Patrick Trueman, once head of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Justice Department, told Focud on the Family’s CitizenLink magazine, “Appointments to the Department of Justice, more than to any other department, reflect a president’s moral agenda. … He is appointing people to run the Department of Justice, to interpret the laws of our nation, to carry out the laws of our nation, who will fight fiercely against the pro-family movement.
“President Obama is a man the pro-family movement should fear, and we can see this in his appointments,” he said. “He’s not reaching across the aisle.”
“David Ogden is a hired gun from Playboy and ACLU,” said Fidelis’ Burch. “He can’t run from his long record of opposing common sense laws protecting families, women, and children. The United States Senate has a responsibility to the American people to insure that Mr. Ogden’s full record is fully reviewed before any vote on his nomination.”
