FATS BOWS TO REALITY

Fats Limbaugh issued a retraction of his claim that the AZ Supreme Court Chief Justice banned the use of the words "illegal" and "aliens." In his retraction, he said he got the original story from Judicial Watch. Because Fats rarely admits to a mistake, this is worth noting. Here's his retraction:

November 11, 2008

Story #1: Arizona Supreme Court Didn't Ban Any Words

RUSH: Yesterday we had a story from Judicial Watch, which said that the Arizona Supreme Court had acquiesced to a demand by a Latino bar group that the word "illegal" and "aliens" and so forth was not permitted to be uttered in the courtroom. Apparently a firestorm was created over this story, and we heard from the communications director of the Arizona Supreme Court yesterday afternoon, who tells us that the Judicial Watch story is factually incorrect. The office of Chief Justice Ruth McGregor received a letter from a Hispanic group of the bar, it was seven pages long, and among the issues in the letter that this group wanted the court to address was the use of the word "illegal." As is the process when the court receives letters from constituents or groups, these letters are passed along without regard to what point of view or suggestion the letters contain. The communications director, Cari Gerchick said these letters come from both sides. There was never a ban on the word illegal. There was never any action by Judge McGregor taken off of the letter. It was simply distributed within the court. No edict was made, no executive order was written. She couldn't say even whether any action would result from the letter one way or the other, simply put out there for people to see, this is how we do things, but they have not acquiesced to the demands of the Hispanic bar group.

So they're claiming that the Judicial Watch website was factually incorrect. They're also very disturbed about what kind of reporting this can do to the image of the judicial system in the United States, and they cite a AP story here that was running late yesterday afternoon that basically said a Hispanic lawyers group has asked Arizona's chief justice to end state court use of words it's members consider inflammatory, such as "illegal aliens," but Cari Gerchick, spokesman for the Arizona Supreme Court said Monday there's been no ban on any words nor is chief justice Ruth McGregor considering one. Maybe they didn't want to look like the Ninth Circuit, but what court would want to look like the Ninth Circuit except, of course, for the Ninth Circuit, which takes pride in the way it looks. But I wanted to get this out because they got hold of us, it was late in the day yesterday, five or 5:30 or so, and I just wanted to let you know that they're claiming at the Arizona Supreme Court that the Judicial Watch story was factually incorrect. And that's good because it was deeply troubling. As Tom Daschle used to say, "We were concerned about this and we're happy to hear that the story is not true."