Ed Martin's "Evidence"

Ed Martin's right-wing outfit, the Missouri Roundtable for Life, wants a constitutional amendment to prohibit public money from going toward abortion services or certain kinds of human embryonic stem cell research. Yesterday, Martin and his legal team went to court to convince a judge to rewrite the proposed summary language so that it's more suitable to their agenda. 

The Roundtable is contending that 10 different words or phrases in proposed ballot summary are unfair.  The disputes are both big and small.  Big:  the Roundtable desperately wants to keep out language informing the public that their amendment does not provide exceptions for rape, incest or the health of the mother. Small: Martin doesn't like the word "illegal" -- he prefers the far less incendiary word "unlawful."

To back up their claims, they trotted out their own "evidence" from a conservative Republican pollster, McLaughlin & Associates. McLaughlin's principals have worked for a whole host of Republican candidates and offiicals, including former Senator Jesse Helms (R-Dixie), former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Fred Thompson (R-NBC), Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO), the RNC, the NRSC, the NRCC.... you get the idea. 

It's what you might call "fair and balanced" evidence.