Palin, Abortion, and Culture War
This piece from today’s NY Times on Palin’s tenure as mayor and governor is a must read.
And this piece from yesterday’s NY Times, on the McCain campaign comfort with lying is also important. As the Politico notes, this lying is not a glitch but a feature of the McCain strategy.
Why the silence from the political right, as McCain does his best to undermine some of the basic underpinnings of our democratic culture?
I think what we are now observing is the very real cost of treating abortion as the only issue that one need consider in evaluating a candidate for high office. Palin’s candidacy is a clear consequence of this approach. She is obviously unqualified for the office she seeks. Her repeated lying about the “bridge to nowhere,” even after the lie has been plainly exposed as such, suggests a craven ambition and utter disregard for democratic political morality. And yet opinion leaders on the right remain enthusiastic in their support of her.
And why shouldn’t they? On their view, abortion is murder (not merely a “grave immorality,” not merely “like murder,” or “similar to murder,” but “murder,” full stop). The murder of millions of innocent children is, the argument goes, the most significant political issue we confront, by a wide margin. And so whatever other shortcomings Palin has are irrelevant compared with her unequivocal support for overturning Roe v. Wade.
The question to put to supporters of Sarah Palin is how far they would take this train. If abortion is important enough that it justifies throwing away the basic rules of democratic political deliberation, or that it justifies supporting an incompetent liar to become a heartbeat away from the presidency, is it important enough to justify dismantling our constitutional system of government?
This is not an idle question. Many in the pro-life movement compare abortion with slavery. And, of course, many abolitionists thought that the existence of slavery necessitated a complete dismantling of our Constitution. For example, radical abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison once said that if the Constitution protected slavery, then it should be burnt. Do Palin’s defenders feel the same way?
Palin’s selection as a running mate, the McCain campaign’s descent into Rovian dishonesty, and the silence of McCain/Palin’s defenders on the right are a reminder that, to them, we are not merely involved in an election, we are at war. And in war, anything goes — propaganda and dirty tricks are the order of the day. The key is to defeat the enemy (in this case, Obama and his supporters). As McCain’s spokesman Brian Rodgers put it: “We’re running a campaign to win. And we’re not too concerned about what the media filter tries to say about it.”
Is this really the future we want for our democratic system?
Tahnks to Eduardo for posting this thread.
Apart from any consideration of life values, the Times piece indicates Palin is anxious to promote incompetent friends, attack any who oppose her, and revels in secrecy so that there’s no accountability .
That sounds much like the current White House way of doing busines which has brought us to such a wretched state and leaves us so perilously indebted in the world (despite our huge arms sales.)
The prospects of continuing down that road, apart from “lefe” considerations tell me we cannot afford the kind of governance Ms. Palin and McCain promise as “change.”
Instead of resorting to ad hominin, I would like to point out that it has already been determined that the Constitution did not protect slavery. Slaves were indeed, found to be persons, and thus entitled to all the Rights that are protected by the Constitution.
Mr. Penalver, do you consider those in the Pro-Life Movement to be your opponents?
So Nancy, if slaves were indeed persons as far as the Constitution was concerned and entitled to all the Rights contained therein, how do you explain the 13th Amendment (and the Civil War)?
There were some people in the United States that did not consider slaves to be persons.
Um, Nancy… You’ve made my point for me. The Supreme Court agreed with those who believed slaves (indeed, all African Americans) were not and could not be citizens (see Dred Scott), and some of their political opponents (i.e., certain abolitionists) believed that this reading of the Constitution (and its acceptance of slavery in a number of its provisions) discredited it to such a degree that it should be discarded. So what’s your beef with my question? If the Constitution, as currently interpreted by Roe v. Wade, permits legalized abortion, and if abortion is as serious as slavery, then exactly why is it unreasonable to ask how far some opponents of legal abortion are willing to go to advance their cause? Since I think abortion is a moral abomination, I do not consider all who oppose legal abortion to be my opponents. But I would so consider those who would justify the anti-democratic discourse emanating from the McCain campaign on the grounds that abortion is such an overriding issue that the fight against it permits disregard for basic democratic values. My question to them is where they would draw the line in their ends-justify-the-means logic (this is hardly an “ad hominem”).
It’s a very old tried and true tactic of democracies to take a principle, attach it to a method, and then identify the method itself as the principle. It’s like saying that obesity is a life threatening problem and people should lose weight, and then say that the only way one should be allowed to lose weight is to get liposuction. If you don’t believe in liposuction, then you are an active supporter or at least an enabler of obesity.
It has always been the case that short of a Constitutional Amendment banning abortion, even if Roe v. Wade was overturned there would still be legal abortion in some states. The fight against abortion was always going to have to be incremental. It was going to always have to be about what was possible now, not what should be possible in the future.
Instead the movement has been hitched to a party that uses it as a tool to try and get its opponents to support the parts of its platform that it actually wants to promote. One of the ironies is this approach has worked more often than not and of course, since it works, why try to change things by actually doing something about abortion?
Should one be against the “Right to Life Movement”? Yes, if the movement itself is an impediment to the elimination of abortion.
Eduardo, this anti-abortion McCain supporter is happy to join you in thinking that, notwithstanding the importance of what is at stake in this election, the “basic rules of democratic political deliberation” ought to be respected. I’m sure it won’t be productive here — maybe over a beer, someday — to explore whether the Obama campaign has in fact been respecting, or the McCain campaign in fact disrespecting, these “basic rules.” For what it’s worth, though: I am pretty sure that I am observing the campaign, and the coverage of it, as closely as you are and also that I am as committed as you are to faithful citizenship and the common good. And, with all due respect, it is not at all obvious to me that the “anything goes” train to which you allude has more McCain supporters riding it than Obama supporters. If the “bridge to nowhere” thing is puffery and lipstick-gate is silly, they seem no more damaging to democratic values than, say, the misleading accounts that the Obama campaign has offered of his abortion-related votes in Illinois or the bizarre nonsense that circulated in some otherwise-respectable quarters about Sarah Palin’s youngest child. Pax.
Eduardo, we need an Amendment to the Constitution that would clearly state that Life begins at Conception, when the Life of a new Person begins. From Conception, all Persons must be entitled to all the Rights contained within the Constitution of The United States of America.
I’m sure I’ve said this a million times before, but the problem is within the Democratic Party’s ability to address. A pro-choice stance is the sine qua non of viability as a Democrat candidate for office. Why any one issue should be so all-important (oh, the irony), I have no idea, but that is the current situation.
And it encourages mediocrity in at least two ways:
1. Mediocre Democrats who meet the minimum requirement of being pro-choice can be supported by the Party as candidates, leaving otherwise more capable but pro-life candidates behind.
2. Republicans who mediocre but strategically electably pro-life can be backed by the Republican Party.
The dirt and filth in this campaign has come from Obama supporters. Anyone with eyes and ears can observ as much. And they’re not giving up:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/12/104315/182/935/596046
The Palin/McCain ticket reflects a course of action on the part of the Republican party that deftly understands both the strengths and weaknesses of the Democratic ticket and aggressively attacks both. The only antidote for such an assault is a comprehensive and aggressive personal attack on the Republican ticket focusing on how the personal lives of Palin/McCain evidence their personal unreliability and therefore their lack of character and values to lead America coupled with an aggressive defense of the Democratic central theme of Change…
The message is simple and the professionals can refine it but essentially it should contain these elements:
“Sarah Palin? Can’t keep her solemn oath of devotion to her husband and had sex with his employee. Sarah Palin? Accidentally got pregnant at age 43 and the tax payers of Alaska have to pay for the care of her disabled child. Sarah Palin? Unable to teach her 16 year old daughter right from wrong and now another teenager is pregnant. Sarah Palin? Can you trust Sarah Palin and her values with America’s future? John McCain? Divorced from his first wife one month and marries a billionaire influence peddler and convicted felon. John McCain, a record of rash and impulsive decisions. That’s not change that’s more of the same.”
From former Democratic congressinal candidate Paul Hackett.
And have you seen what the photographer hired to shoot McCain for the Atlantic did?
And have you seen what Andrew Sullivan and the Kossites have been spinning for three week now?
With nary a denial or rejection from the Obama campaign or Obama himself? And now they’re playing the “McCain’s old” card, which is dishonest on a million levels, considering that the focus of the ad is that supposedly McCain is out of touch with computers and such, which he’s not. He just has trouble using his fingers and hands. Good move, Obama.
And Kathy’s right. If the Dems would drop the abortion advocacy, they might never lose an election again.
I don’t think that Daily Kos is the voice of the Democratic Party. Or is Drudge the voice of the Republican Party? This can cut both ways.
Prof. Penalever,
Is this the first campaign you’ve ever followed? Ever heard of Lyndon Johnson’s Daisy ad, or Nixon’s southern strategy?
I wonder if those were the pro-lifers fault too.
I think Eduardo has a very good point. IF you think abortion really is the equivalent of slavery, then, it seems to me there are two bottom-line questions:
1. Do you think that the just war theory would provide just cause to go to war to stop it in the United States? If not, why not? Because the rhetoric of people like Chaput, and the infamous First Things symposium, suggests that there would be a just cause. Is it merely prudential judgment about the proportionality prong (about which they assure us that all good Catholics can disagree) that keeps you from making this move? And why wouldn’t the proportionality arguments you make about abortion (40 million dead) justify an enormous war here too?
2. Catholics have a long and sordid history of supporting dictatorships in order to preserve “Catholic values” (democracy was only recently affirmed as a Catholic value). The Church made a deal with Franco’s Spain in order to give it a privileged place in the social order and to protect Catholic family values. IF (assume this as a fact for purposes of the hypothetical) the only way to get rid of abortion was either to institute a functional dictatorship or to accept one as a side effect of appointing anti-Roe judges (Rick, I think that the type of judges that Obama would appoint would have a very different theory on what is eupemiistically referred to as the “unitary executive” than Bush has.)
Bottom line question 2: If the only way to get rid of abortion was to give up our mixed form of government, and adopt a far more authoritarian and centralized government, would it be worth it?
I’d love to know Archbishop Chaput’s answer to these questions –and I also greatly fear the answer. Why? Because given his rhetoric and reasons, I can’t see why he wouldn’t give up everything to outlaw end abortion.
Yes or No, please. There are slippery slopes all around us, not just toward the culture of death. And I’m not sure, at this point, just what activist pro-lifers WOULDN’T give up to outlaw abortion. The rhetoric goes very far.
IF your really do think abortion is as bad as the Holocaust, or slavery, why NOT go to war? Why not accept a dictator who promises (credibly) to end the practice?
Pro-life activists have to take responsibility for their rhetoric. They are more than happy to use these analogies for some purposes. But they have to tell the country not only where they’re not willing to go, but why not.
There do not seem to be any “basic rules of democratic political discourse” these days. Winning is the only important thing, and anything you can get away with to get that done is OK. Plato was right about the dangers of rhetoric.
The Bush administration has helped move us along this road by following its own tried and true rule that saying something over and over again will make it true (for example, Iraq is the central front in the war on terror; or, Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a great job).
But those most directly to blame for the trend, in my view, are the people running political campaigns today, the professional politicos, the experts, those the candidates hire to get the job done. This is their vocation, their everyday work that they have studied to master and that they are immersed in even more so than the candidates themselves. Whatever the “rules” are, they are making them.
The same thing applies, incidentally, in the realm of education in this country. If we have been in an education crisis for decades, there are lots of factors and groups of people to blame, no doubt, and yet who gets Ph.D’s in this stuff, and who does the research and teaches the teacher? Whose job is it primarily to provide the American people with quality education? The education experts in academia and elsewhere.
If there is something wrong with our political campaigns, let’s look to the people whose job it is to run political campaigns. Let’s hold people responsible for their actions–the candidates who are de jure responsible for their campaigns, of course, but also the pros who are de facto responsoible, giving them morally questionable expert advice and guidance that they feel they must follow if they want to play the game successfully. Many of Karl Rove’s machinations have been brought to light, and yet this is only the small tip of a giant glacier.
Elaine said: “He just has trouble using his fingers and hands.”
Actually I believe Senator McCain’s handicap which is being ridiculed in the advertisement you are referring to is with his arms.
Mr. Garnett,
I don’t much care what the wing-nuts and whack-jobs of left and right or “otherwise respectable quarters” have to say about the election. (Respectable is as respectable does.) I do care very much what the candidates themselves have to say about each other and for themselves. On this score, I think the Obama campaign comes out ahead, far ahead. There have been some nasty, demonstrably untrue things said or written about Obama in the last several months, and I don’t remember McCain explicitly distancing himself from any of them; Obama and Biden, by contrast, have distanced themselves over and over again from the calumnies and hysterical speculations of the liberal blogosphere.
I agree with you that Obama’s defense of his voting record on partial-birth abortion is not very convincing; and, like you, I don’t accept his basic commitment to protecting and strengthening the abortion license. But this presidential election is not a referendum on abortion, and wishing that it were is no substitute for asking if it’s probable — rather than just remotely possible — that the next president, faced with the next Senate, will be in a position to put another Justice reliably committed to overturning Roe v. Wade on the bench. Yes, Roe is more likely to be reversed if McCain is elected than if Obama is. But how likely is that, exactly? This is what “Unagidon” calls lottery politics. You have a better chance of winning the lottery if you play than if you don’t. True enough, and so what?
Mr. Peñalver,
As you concede, not every opponent of legal abortion is a single-issue voter, and not many are opponents of democracy. Most important, not many prolifers believe that the U.S. Constitution must be understood to protect the “right to choose.” Hence our opposition to Roe v. Wade. But the problem is a good deal more complicated than your post suggests. “Basic democratic values” are not coextensive with the U.S. Constitution. While it may not be possible to imagine the Constitution without democratic values, it is possible to imagine democratic values without the Constitution. Many democratic states have had several constitutions and several constitutional crises. Our own Constitution has weathered more than one storm, but it isn’t hard to imagine how things could have turned out very differently. If there had been no Civil War and no Fourteenth Amendment, and the choice were between freeing slaves and protecting a Constitution that, by consensus and precedent, was understood to protect slavery, would you not be in favor of replacing the Constitution? And would this be antidemocratic? Ah, but that is a false dilemma, someone will say; ours is a good and durable constitution precisely because it can accomodate a new social consensus. Just so. But that kind of argument is no less available to opponents of Roe.
As my reply to Mr. Garnett is meant to show, the problem with prolife politics in this country is more often imprudence than ruthlessness. The party strategists who corral the prolife vote are another matter.
Dr. Kaveny & Mr. Boudway – agree with your logical analyses and it is one of the reasons for why I have repeatedly objected to the reactions/statements of some of our bishops. Even though the USCCB supported Faithful Citizenship, some bishops re-interpret this document so that abortion is the single most important issue – but there is no comment or explanation in terms of the reality of current parties, candidates, etc. It does appear that the end justfies the means. Like you, Dr. Kaveny, I would like to hear Chaput respond to your carefully crafted questions? Mr. Boudway does not like me to reference this but until the NYC vacany is filled, I do not trust the machinations of Chaput.
For the past two weeks, I have attended two different parishes in Dallas – in both bulletins each week, you have pastors that quote: not from Faithful Citizenship but from 1998 documents and statements by JPII basically cutting and pasting so that their parishes know that any vote against abortion is not a “good conscience vote.” Have yet to see or hear about
Faithful Citizenship.
Finally, as you quote from history, please keep in mind that Lincoln’s goal was unity and preservation of the nation – that was his overriding goal. His emancipation proclamation came only after he could assure himself that the nation would survive. Parallel to your argument – his moral sense abhorred slavery but he was unwilling to sacrifice the nation for that principle – only once he was able to lay the groundwork and guarantee the nation’s survival did he then achieve the freedom of all peoples.
Actually I believe Senator McCain’s handicap which is being ridiculed in the advertisement you are referring to is with his arms.
McCain has said time and again that he is not computer literate. Here is a story from July that I found on the site of that terrible enemy of Republicans, Fox News:
McCain was not and is not being ridiculed for his war injuries. It’s clear even from what the spokeswoman said that he’s a beginner when it comes to the Internet.
A Human Life Amendment to the Constitution of The United States would protect the Right to Life for all persons, without which, there would be no other Rights.
Cathleen Kaveny, there is already a war going on. God is on the side of protecting Life.
I believe that Palin’s pick was part of a cultural war. But it is a different type of cultural war and Palin’s political/personal and indeed her whole personna signify something a bit different.
Camille Paglia had some interesting thoughts in this regard:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/09/10/palin/index.html
“Conservative though she may be, I felt that Palin represented an explosion of a brand new style of muscular American feminism. At her startling debut on that day, she was combining male and female qualities in ways that I have never seen before. And she was somehow able to seem simultaneously reassuringly traditional and gung-ho futurist. In terms of redefining the persona for female authority and leadership, Palin has made the biggest step forward in feminism since Madonna channeled the dominatrix persona of high-glam Marlene Dietrich and rammed pro-sex, pro-beauty feminism down the throats of the prissy, victim-mongering, philistine feminist establishment.”
I think this kind of sexual energy (constrained as it is by her Christianity) has been off putting for poltical operatives but clearly the satirists have picked up on that undercurrent. (note the latest SNL sketch)
Then you move to concrete issues, and the water gets murkier. There is simply not enough time to accurately unpack the ethical charges (if there is anything there) before November. At best, suspicions and innuendo can be thrown out. The right wing tried that with Clinton and the whole Whitewater episode but it fell apart. Who knows what will surface? Something might but it can likely be spun until after January.
I don’t think any of us should be surprised that people running for political office are not saints.
As to the whole religious right issue. Paglia writes:
“But what of Palin’s pro-life stand? Creationism taught in schools? Book banning? Gay conversions? The Iraq war as God’s plan? Zionism as a prelude to the apocalypse? We’ll see how these big issues shake out. Right now, I don’t believe much of what I read or hear about Palin in the media. To automatically assume that she is a religious fanatic who has embraced the most extreme ideas of her local church is exactly the kind of careless reasoning that has been unjustly applied to Barack Obama, whom the right wing is still trying to tar with the fulminating anti-American sermons of his longtime preacher, Jeremiah Wright.
The witch-trial hysteria of the past two incendiary weeks unfortunately reveals a disturbing trend in the Democratic Party, which has worsened over the past decade. Democrats are quick to attack the religiosity of Republicans, but Democratic ideology itself seems to have become a secular substitute religion. Since when did Democrats become so judgmental and intolerant? Conservatives are demonized, with the universe polarized into a Manichaean battle of us versus them, good versus evil. Democrats are clinging to pat group opinions as if they were inflexible moral absolutes. The party is in peril if it cannot observe and listen and adapt to changing social circumstances.”
Finally Paglia spends some time discussing abortion and concludes that:
“If Sarah Palin tries to intrude her conservative Christian values into secular government, then she must be opposed and stopped. But she has every right to express her views and to argue for society’s acceptance of the high principle of the sanctity of human life. If McCain wins the White House and then drops dead, a President Palin would have the power to appoint conservative judges to the Supreme Court, but she could not control their rulings.
It is nonsensical and counterproductive for Democrats to imagine that pro-life values can be defeated by maliciously destroying their proponents. And it is equally foolish to expect that feminism must for all time be inextricably wed to the pro-choice agenda. There is plenty of room in modern thought for a pro-life feminism — one in fact that would have far more appeal to third-world cultures where motherhood is still honored and where the Western model of the hard-driving, self-absorbed career woman is less admired.
But the one fundamental precept that Democrats must stand for is independent thought and speech. When they become baying bloodhounds of rigid dogma, Democrats have committed political suicide.”
Nancy, if the only way to prevent abortion was to fight an actual war–just like the civil war–do you think God would want us to do it?
If Catholics like those at dotCommonweal also made abortion a priority, and worked with, rather than against, their brothers and sisters in Christ who champion for the unborn, then the mechanisms of democracy would be sufficient. If every Catholics in Congress and on the Supreme Court voted in a pro-life manner, we would have restrictions on abortion. We don’t need to dismantle the whole thing; we need faithful citizenship.
But instead, we get tauntiing posts like these from Profs Penalver and Kaveny. Let me turn this around – -what are you willing to do to end abortion? Withstand some dirty looks at cocktail parties?
John, my question first. Would you go to war? A full scale war? To end abortion? I want to know how far you’d go. You’re the one saying abortion is like slavery and the Holocaust. We went to war to end them, right? Why not here?
The silence speaks volumes.
I think that David Raber is on to something. While a candidate is ultimately responsible for the content and public face of his or her campaign, professional politicos have in many cases become public figures, too. Karl Rove is the most glaring example, but news organizations like Time and Newsweek also do stories about the strategists and hired guns behind the candidates.
There have always been professional politicos, of course, but the dawn of daily polling, rapid response media ads, and news cycles that are sometimes measured in minutes have created a highly valued class of astute and technology-savvy high priests that candidates can’t do without. Perhaps Marshall McLuhan was right that the medium has become the message. At a minimum, the professionals are having a significant impact on this year’s hotly contested presidential election.
If I lived in a country that has banned abortion, and was threatened with takeover by another country that would institute abortion on demand, I would think armed resistance would be called for.
In the current circumstance, I don’t think armed conflict would be either necessary or productive. Slavery could be forcilbly ended; I am not convinced abortion could be forcibly ended, so, as far as Just War Theory goes, I don’t think the good to be gained would outweigh the harm done, nor do I think there would be a reasonable chance of success.
FWIW, There is probably as great a chance that I will vote for the Obama/Biden ticket right now as McCain/Palin.
Looking at our society today, do we really think the problem is that the evil of abortion is overstated? I understand some people let their rhetoric get away from them, and that has consequences, but, in the face of the silence, indeed active celebration of the Democrats’ manifestly awful platform plank on abortion, calling on conservatives to condemn nasty campaign ads is a bit rich.
I am 63 years old and for as long as I can remember, Americans have wanted cheap labor in the United States and in other countries. I went to grade school in Texas in the 50′s. There were cotton fields all around my school. I can remember the braceros being brought in on buses from Mexico to do hard work for probably very little money. The same things still go on. I guess we all get fussy and pretend there is no slavery in the United States. I have a nice, small apartment in the basement of my house. Two young undocumented immigrants live there rent free and they have dinner with me. This situation almost happened accidentally. Both of these young men are from Sinaloa, Mexico. Both of them send money to their wives and children back home. I am one of those Latino Catholics who would never vote for McCain and Palin. I am voting for Obama and Biden because there is a better chance for a just immigration policy in this country plus other things. I think abortion is wrong. In the United States, however, the discussion about abortion is about one side accusing the other side of not respecting life and the other side accusing the other side of not respecting women. Both sides are lying.
Actually, Cathleen, the question should be: Why was a Civil War and several Amendments to the Constitution necessary if we “hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”?
Nancy, please answer the question I asked–and then I’ll answer yours–If you really think abortion is like the Holocaust, and like slavery, do you think a civil war would be justified?
Cut through the verbiage. The vast majority in the Republican party do not care a hoot about banning abortion. They want the issue for gaining power. See that great architect of getting rich off government, Jack Abramoff, for further reference.
What? No search for common ground? Yes or No it has to be. You’re with us or you’re against us.
Soiunds familiar.
On whether you’re willing to wage war–yes. In my view, if you’re willing to wage war, you’re not in the business of searching for common ground. You’re in the business of winning a war. The dominant rhetoric of the pro-life movement for at least ten years now has been thoroughly bellicose–culture wars, culture of death, Holocaust, World War II, slavery. I think it’s fair to ask where it leads. We did, actually, have wars over the Holocaust and slavery. If someone’s not willing to tell me why they won’t take it all the way, what should I conclude? That they’re “bluffing”–and don’t mean the analogy? Or that they really do, tacitly, think violence –or dictatorship– is acceptable if it’s the only way to end abortion.
I think that language only convinces those already convinced –and only some of them. The rest, it scares off. Waging the war seems to be an end, not a means. The statistics on Americans attitudes toward abortion haven’t changed in thirty years. I’d like to see a poll about people’s attitudes toward the activists on both sides. Maybe that’s why we remain deadlocked.
Again, I’ll repeat –all of this talk about war and dictatorship is absurd. Neither is a necessary condition for a society to protect the unborn.
All that is necessary would be for Catholics in public life to use their positions defend the unborn. Imagine if John Kerry had brought his party in a pro-life direction four years ago! Do you think we’d have a Sarah Palin phenomenon if Joe Biden were pro-life?
But instead of calling the Democrats to respect the unborn, the dotCommonweal bloggers decide that the thing to do is corner their pro-life brothers and sisters in Christ to commit to their willingness to get in a shooting war to end abortion.
I’ll also add my ususal query when Prof. Kaveny expresses a desire for something from Abp. Chaput — have you asked him?
No, John, it’s not absurd. It’s where the logic of the rhetoric and reasoning leads. You can’t proclaim that abortion is just like the Holocaust or slavery in one breath, and get huffy when people ask you why, then, don’t you think the just response to the Holocaust and slavery is justified in this case. You can’t say “just kidding” when people ask you to take responsibility for the apparent consequences of your rhetoric.
And if all the Catholics and Christians in Germany resisted Hitler, there would have been no need for World War II. And if wishes were horses. . . And if there were no original sin there would be no war. . . John Lennon said it best. But for our purposes, I think this is a cop-out. If all good Catholics just listened to their bishops and voted the way they were told to. . . come on.
You cornered yourselves–with your own rhetoric.
I’m not concerned with what Archbishop Chaput says to me, privately–I’m concerned with what he says, in public, to the entire country. I have no intention of starting a private email correspondence with him.
David Nickol: The Senator relies on his wife (and his staff as well, I believe) to perform non-mouse computer tasks for him, including email, since he is unable to use a computer keyboard as a result of his physical handicap. From the arch-conservative Jacob Weisberg at his uber-conservative Slate.com (http://www.slate.com/id/74812/) on February 11, 2000:
“Six months ago, no one would have pegged McCain as the most cybersavvy of this year’s crop of candidates. At 63, he is the oldest of the bunch and because of his war injuries, he is limited in his ability to wield a keyboard. But McCain’s job as chairman of the Senate commerce committee forced him to learn about the Internet early on, and young Web entrepreneurs such as Jerry Yang and Jeff Bezos fascinate him. ”
Or from the March 4, 2000 issue of that neo-con newspaper, the Boston Globe (http://graphics.boston.com/news/politics/campaign2000/news/McCain_character_loyal_to_a_fault+.shtml):
“…McCain’s severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. “
I think a peaceful solution is preferable to war.
I don’t see how calling on people to commit to a shooting war is part of any path to a peaceful solution.
I think dialogue between differing sides can be part of the path to a peaceful solution.
To continue in the Holocaust theme, would it really be helpfult to confront people opposed to it with, “So — are you willing to go to war over this? Yes or no, please.”
I agree that the pro-life movement often does things that turn people off to the pro-life cause — most people don’t like abortion, but they like pro-lifers even less, and it’s not all the media’s fault.
I am not convinced that this current line of commentary is the most prudent means of changing that.
I’m always amazed at the rhetoric on both sides of the abortion debate, particularly, in this case, with Ms. Kaveny’s immediate escalation to “war.” Any believing Catholic knows that one does not engage in evil so that a good will result. Abortion will end only when people are persuaded that it is evil and not before. Violence and violent rhetoric, on both sides, only delays that.
And any woman with a brain knows that there are ways other than abortion if she cannot “deal” with an infant. If she is not a Catholic, there is contraception. If she is a Catholic, there is adoption. Or, try abstinence.
John, I agree with you about dialogue. But it’s not the more moderate Catholics who’ve been accusing the pro-lifers of not being Catholic, of betraying their faith, of cooperating with the culture of death. Within the Church, the rhetoric comes from one direction–the more focused pro-life groups.
Remember (thanks in part to your friend the Archbishop of Denver), it looked awfully like anyone who voted for Kerry was going to be said to commit a mortal sin. I don’t recall any hold-your-nose and vote for Kerry type saying the same thing about a vote for Bush.
For a long time, I ignored this rhetoric. I think a lot of people did, saying, “Well, the pro-lifers are a bit over the top, but they have a good cause.” After the 2004 election, I no longer think that the rhetoric can be ignored –no matter what the cause. I think the rhetoric itself needs to be challenged–if you say something is the Holocaust, then you have to take responsibility for the consequences of that.
And so I wrote a column explaining why abortion isn’t the same as the Holocaust. Because I do think, if you think it’s the same thing, you’re bound not to rule out violent means of resistance. I adhere to the just war theory. So it’s important to say WHY it’s not the same thing.
And at some point, I’ll write another one saying why abortion isn’t the same thing as slavery (the fetus may not be a person under American law, but it’s not chattel property either).
Eduardo,
How exactly is anyone “throwing away the basic rules of democratic political deliberation”? Just because they disagree with you? I don’t get it.
On the abortion question, for example, I am all for political deliberation. So are McCain and Palin. Obama’s the one who doesn’t want that deliberated in the public square.
Ms. Kaveny,
Instead of looking at a “fetus” as a lawyer, why don’t you try looking at it as a Catholic. While a “fetus” may not be a person under American law, it certainly is in Catholic theology. If you are Catholic, why is American law always determinative for you?
I resent the implication of my GOP-leaning friends here that Catholic Democrats have meekly accepted the party’s abortion plank language.
The language of the abortion plank was badly bungled this year, and many Democrats who have posted to this blog have said that.
Many of us have registered our protest with the party. Strenuously.
A blanket Constitutional Right-to-Life amendment would be political suicide for any national politician. Palin is the only on on either ticket who says she would support such an amendment, but she stopped short of saying that she would agitate for one, and in fact said quite mildly that she felt that the best starting point was to reach across to pro-choicers and try to agree on ways to make abortion more rare.
So I’m stymied about why those who favor criminalizing abortion at the federal level focus exclusively on the Democratic Party, when the GOP has a fairly consistent record of making the right noises but doing very little.
The state legislatures have been much more successful in imposing legal restrictions on abortion, and that’s where I tend to pay more attention to where a candidate stands on abortion. It’s also where you’ll find more pro-life Democrats, especially in blue-collar Catholic districts.
Ms. Kaveny,
I fear you may be pushing these analogies too far. Of course, any analogy will break if you push it to equivalence with its referent. But, that seems to me to be perhaps a little unfair. The rhetoric of holocaust and slavery is inflammatory to be sure. In the case of the former, your critique stands that it was a state sponsored, systematic, technological extermination of a group based on ethnicity. Thus, other than the result of millions dying, there is little it shares in common with abortion. On the side of slavery, though, the analogy may be more apt to the extent that the current debate is about the nature of personhood and that the language of ownership is employed in the arguments in favor of choice (i.e. “My body, my choice.”). Is a fetus included in “my body”, and thus, my property to do with what I want? Of course, we aren’t buying, selling, and trading fetuses, but some in the choice movement do speak of them as property.
The problem with the slavery analogy, as it strikes me, is not its dissimilarity with the situation of abortion, but its implication that all of us would have been on the side of the abolitionists as a matter of principle from day one. Certainly, the abolitionist movement evolved through a series of incremental changes until it reached a certain public critical mass. It is being too generous to our past to think that we would have been on the right side of that groundswell at all points along the way. I imagine that many of us would have been potentially ambivalent about the lengths to which we would have gone to abolish slavery had we lived in 1780, 1820, 1840, or 1860. This is just being honest about the limitations of our own human moral knowledge and judgment. My sense is that those who force the slavery analogy upon the discussion are working under the assumption that they and we would all have been clear-headed militant abolitionists, which I think, if we’re being honest, is just not the case. Many would have thought slavery was wrong and wanted to see it abolished legally, to be sure, but many would also have been unclear how to go about achieving its abolition – vote? fight? advocate? protest? All, it seems to me, viable responses, many of which, except all out war, still respect the democratic process.
So this brings us back to your forcing the analogy into a corner. The equivalence of abolitionist with civil warrior seems inaccurate. Was the Civil War primarily a war over slavery? This is a genuine historical question on my part. I think it was more about state’s rights and the economic and political interests of maintaining the union of the nation than slavery. It is generously revisionary, I think, to read the conflict as an abolitionist Union willing to go to war with the Confederate South over the freedom of slaves. Granted, by deploying the analogy, the pro-life movement is trying to paint the choice-side as the demonic slave owner while asserting their moral superiority as abolitionist, and that’s just pridefully reading themselves backward into history. But the suggestion that the pro-lifer who is playing the part of the abolitionist must be ready to go to war is, I think, similarly bad history. Anyway you slice it, it’s a conversation stopper.
Jean,
You are absolutely right about the cynicism of those on the Republican side. It’s been pure noise without any movement toward actually doing anything because that would take some moral backbone and would probably result in the same kind of bad law as Roe vs. Wade. It’s easy to offer abortion as an issue to keep the evangelicals in line without doing anything substantive about it. And one wonders why, if evangelicals really constitute 25% of the electorate, they are so submissive about the situation.
Cathleen, actually it was not John Lennon who said it best. Life is Sacred,(a Gift from God) and thus has Dignity. There is a war going on, Cathleen. Look at all the casualties on both sides. An Amendment to the Constitution of The United States would make it clear that every person’s Life will be protected from the beginning of their Life, at Conception.
“Love one another as I have Loved you.”-Christ
Jean Raber said: “So I’m stymied about why those who favor criminalizing abortion at the federal level focus exclusively on the Democratic Party, when the GOP has a fairly consistent record of making the right noises but doing very little.”
I don’t want to debate the merits of criminalizing abortion, but I think the Democratic Party, including that party’s current candidates for the Presidency and Vice Presidency, would vigorously disagree with you that the GOP has done “very little” to criminalize abortion. It is their opinion, expressed vigorously and publicly on multiple occasions, that the Federalist views held by Justices Alito, Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas would favor overturning Roe v Wade. If memory serves me right, Senator Biden was Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee when the Democratic Party’s response on July 1, 1987 to President Regan’s unsuccessful nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court included a reference to criminalizing abortion (“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government…”).
Eric, the State’s right’s issue was in regards to Slavery. A person is a person regardless of what State he may be in.
and a person, is a person, before they are brought forth from the womb.
Nancy, please look at this site:
http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm
And then answer, what is the significance of the fact that (1) no more than 1/6 people agrees that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances or (2) a consistent plurality believe it should be legal in all or most circumstances?
One reason (out of several) that makes the abortion debate so hopeless is the failure to grapple with how other people simply don’t see your view of absolute truth as being absolute.
It’s all well and good to talk in war metaphors, but these are the people who, collectively, you are relying on to push a constitutional amendment, which is a civil and not a martian exercise. You have to persuade them first.
How do you persuade people that children are not property but persons?
Jean,
I apologize if I painted with too broad a brush, and I commend your efforts to bring the Democratic Party in line with Catholic thinking.
Nevertheless, I think that a reader of dotCommonweal would be led to believe that the GOP’s nasty campaign ads represent a greater moral evil than the Democrats’ stated unequivocal and strong support of Roe v. Wade. Or the notion that the Party supports motherhood is a noteworthy and commendable position. And there was more than one post here that regarded the platform language as a positive development.
Even here, on a Catholic website, there are some who do not believe that Life is a Gift from God.
There’s abortion, and there’s abortion.
If this country were ever to pass a Human Life Amendment, it would necessarily include exceptions in cases of documented (DNA) rape and incest and for protection of the physical life of the mother.
I have been strongly pro-life ever since I first got involved with the issue more than thirty years ago. Even I, however, would not be prepared to deny abortion to a woman who has been raped by a stranger or a relative, nor would I be prepared to deny abortion to a woman who would most likely die as a result of carrying her pregnancy to term. As a pro-lifer, I would hope that in cases of rape and incest, a woman might receive loving help to carry a pregnancy to term so that, at the very least, the baby could be given up for adoption. I would likewise hope that a physician would remember that s/he has two patients, not one. In the end, I must leave the painful decisions in these three cases to God alone.
A HLA prohibiting abortion in all cases would be unenforceable. It pains me to hear certain Catholic hierarchs making abortion the virtual litmus test for election to public office in a pluralistic society where many people of good will — for reasons understandable and otherwise — regard abortion as justifiable in all/some circumstances. It is simply too complex an issue that, to date, has eluded any resolution by consensus, that is, a less than perfect solution acceptable to everyone.
You might start by persuading them that fetus = child. Birth is a not inconsequential event, legally and otherwise.
I am guessing, however, that you don’t want to do that, though, because you don’t think you should have to and to engage in an argument over the matter undercuts your primary moral tour de force, which is, you think it’s so self-evident that there should be no argument. To argue is to lose. This has been the rhetorical position of the Church for some time now, it seems to me, at least. Another reason for why the debate is so hopeless.
Eric,
Over on Vox Nova there is a priest who sometimes comments, and it is his position that abortion in the United States is the worst crime against humanity in the history of the world — worse than the Holocaust, worse than slavery, worse the Stalin’s Great Purge. One of his favorite phrases is “the blood of 40 million babies murdered by their mothers.” So these people are not saying abortion is an issue equivalent to slavery or the Holocaust. They are saying it’s worse.
The question that is put to these people, which they never seem to answer, is what is reasonable to expect of those who see abortion in these extreme terms. Is it permissible to continue to pay taxes? Is it permissible to even remain a citizen? Shouldn’t you move to another country? What would be wrong with resorting to violence in order to stop 1.3 million murders a year?
If you see things in these dire terms, is it really an appropriate strategy to vote for John McCain in the belief that he will appoint judges who might overturn Roe v Wade so that then a battle can be fought in each individual state to outlaw abortion? Isn’t that a rather liesurely strategy to put an end to 1.3 million murders a year and the greatest crime against humanity in history? It basically all boils down to “vote Republican.” If Archbishop Chaput is correct, will people who come face to face with the victims of abortion in the next life be able to say, “Don’t blame me! I voted for McCain!”
As I’ve said here before, my advocacy for the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death is one of the primary reasons I will probably vote for McCain this election.
Nevertheless, I’m dismayed at the distortions in the ads his campaign is pumping out. It’s right, I think, for people like me who naturally would support his candidacy to register our protest.
We all got what I believe to be an unvarnished look at Barack Obama’s character in his response to a reporter’s question about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy. His no-nonsense defense of single mothers and statement that families should be off-limits was a great moment – a light in the murk of the campaign.
As for the question of moral equivalency between the campaigns: let’s wait until the election ends to judge. It’s a rare campaign that, with the election in the balance, can resist taking the low road. There is still time for both sides to disappoint us.
Eric – thank you for the excellent historical analogy on slavery and the Civil War. Any reputable historican will tell you that Lincoln was elected to preserve the union (yes, you can find indications that he believed slavery was evil); the southern states left the union for many reasons (slavery only one). Lincoln went to war for the goal of complete US unity. One of the best histories on this if recent – Doris Goodwin Kearns, “Team of Rivals”. It documents exactly how and when Lincoln gradually moved with his people towards the Emancipation Proclamation.
Earlier, I remarked that folks such as Kmiec and Dr. Kaveny seem to be using a parallel analogy supported by the above public opinion polls. Lincoln was an astute politician and he led by setting out goals, using persuasion, but not pushing laws, etc. beyond what the majority could support.
The difference in approach is significant – see today’s op-ed piece in First Things supporing Cardinal George’s letter last week-end. Again, Chaput, George, Egan are laying out Catholic principles but are not helping the common good nor explaining to Catholics how to vote or how public figures operate in a pluralistic society. They almost never comment on the fact that overturning Roe v Wade turns it back to 50 states or they romantically believe that a federal human life from conception bill will be passed if only every Catholic would get on board.
John McG said: “Nevertheless, I think that a reader of dotCommonweal would be led to believe that the GOP’s nasty campaign ads represent a greater moral evil than the Democrats’ stated unequivocal and strong support of Roe v. Wade. Or the notion that the Party supports motherhood is a noteworthy and commendable position. And there was more than one post here that regarded the platform language as a positive development.”
Although it seems as though the problem with the abortion issue is that it has been too politicized in the US, I think the real problem is that it has not, in fact, been politicized. If this were some other issue that was devisive between parties, we would have acted in a spirit of compromise. In the case of abortion, this could have been a gradual increase of restrictions coupled with a development of the social safety net. Politics in a democracy is about compromise.
Now it is the case that for many people (such as myself) abortion is wrong as such. But in a country where the majority doesn’t think that this is categorically the case, we are in fact going to have to compromise in order to get anything done at all. Politics is also about the possible. And I fear that this hard line approach which links principle to a particular method (vote Republican in order to change the Supreme Court) has led to 30 years of nothing and we really need to face this fact.
Regarding Cathleen Kaveny’s question about abortion and war: it’s all too hypothetical for me to give a definitive answer. Still, it is an interesting thought experiment to compare it to slavery or the Holocaust. To extend the analogy to things that have happened in the world within living memory, it might be helpful to ask:
* Would the UN, the US or neighboring African countries have been justified in intervening in the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda? Why or why not?
* Should NATO or European neighbors have intervened in the ethnic cleansing of Bosnians by Serbs? Why or why not?
* Should the UN, the US or neighboring African countries intervene in the continuing ethnic cleansing in Darfur? Why or why not?
If it’s thought to be jusifiable to intervene in any of these situations, what are the principles for doing so? Do any of these situations justify war according to just-war principle?
Do any of these principles extend in some way to the protection of the unborn?
I’m interested in underlying principles, when they’re applicable and when they’re not.
Bill DeHaas,
Exactly how do you believe that setting forth Catholic principles does not help the common good? It seems to me that settling for the “common good” has only enabled some Catholics to justify the attenuation of Catholic principles. I’m not on board with living like the Amish, but when do Catholic principles ever trump the common good (as currently defined)?
I don’t care for the hyperfocus on the Supreme Court, either. But Roe v. Wade has blown up the common ground where compromise is possible. Sen. Obama believes it precludes laws mandating the infants surviving abortion receive care. Advocates for the unborn can’t even ask for better than that?
What are you offering as an alternative? Really, the Democrats could break this logjam by expressing even a sliver of openness to some protections of the unborn. Instead, they have laid out the most pro-abortion-rights policies in their history.
Again, I wish Catholic Democrats worked as hard at moving their party to a place where compomising is possible as they do at criticizing their pro-life brothers and sisters for not accepting it.
Eric, I don’t accept the analogies between the holocaust and abortion, on the one hand, and abortion and slavery, on the other. Slaves were chattel property–with very few limitations, they were under the complete control, for their lifetime, of their owner. The only control that a woman has over a fetus under American law is the power to terminate the pregnancy. She can’t mutilate it, she can’t maim it, and she can’t use it for other purposes. She can’t sell it, or even alienate the right to terminate the pregnancy herself to someone else (Baby M–surrogate mother cases).
She has the right to kill the baby in the course of terminating the pregnancy–she has the right to decide she’s not going to provide it with bodily life support. If it survives, she doesn’t have a right to kill it. (There are occasions of terrible abuse here, though).
Slavery involved not merely the denial of personhood to the slave, but the additional step of making them property. The ending of slavery said that the owner could not make the slave work for him, support him, even wear himself out to death for the owner’s profit.
But the freeing of the slaves did not impose upon the owner a duty to provide any kind of support to the slave.
The issue in abortion is that prohibiting it means that the woman will end up not only not using the baby for her ends (slavery), not only refraining from killing the baby, but also providing it with bodily nurturing.
So I agree about the history of the Civil War. I agree that in principle, opposition to slavery doesn’t need a war. But the rhetoric of those who make the comparison comes very close to embracing the war. The infamous First Things symposium, Hadley ARkes’ article. It flirts with violence. Take a look at some of the pro-life sites.
John, you might find more Catholic democrats willing to work with “Their pro-life brothers and sisters” if they stopped calling us names.
Poke around this website: http://www.hli.org/
Human Life International
“The Real War on Terror.” (the war against abortion)
Sen. Obama believes it precludes laws mandating the infants surviving abortion receive care.
John McG,
That is simply not true. What Obama opposed was the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, which did not set any standard of care for infants born alive due to early labor or abortion. It merely redefined them as persons under the law. In extensive discussions over on Vox Nova, in which the Legislative Director of the National Right to Life Committee has become a major participant, nobody has been willing to address the issue of what laws now protect born-alive infants since the passage of BAIPA (in Illinois, 2005) that did not protect them before.
I was interested to read in a transcript of a discussion in the Illinois Legislature prior to the earlier defeat of of BAIPA a statement by Obama saying that they could have compromised on a narrower bill that would have directly addressed the care of the infants in question, but instead they opted to go for a much broader bill, which was clearly an attempt to chip away at abortion rights.
One thing that has become clear in the Vox Nova discussion is that the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975 fully protected infants aborted alive after viability. The only infants not covered by the 1975 law were previable ones, with not chance of survival no matter what medical treatment they were given. And Obama’s objection to the law was not that it set a standard of care for such infants. He objected to them being legally defined as persons. He was in no way arguing for their mistreatment or standing in the way of any legislation that would have mandated appropriate care.
Cathleen (and others),
I agree that the extreme rhetoric of some in the pro-life movement requires one to ask, “So what are you going to do about it?” It is true, if one thinks abortion is the worst moral tragedy ever, then I suppose she would have to act accordingly and it would be right of us to call her out if she seemed to be all talk. So, pro-lifer’s will need to seriously weigh their commitment to and certainty on the issue against their commitment to democratic process and procedural justice. So, honesty on the real history of the abolition movement should chasten the pro-life movement to be patient with the process. On the other hand, the slavery analogy, I think, forces those on the pro-choice side to admit they may be on the worng side of history and morality on this one, which is a tough pill to swallow.
Cathleen, I also take your point about property rights. Here, the analogy does certainly break down. But it breaks down because the fetus is in a different relation to the mother than the slave to the owner. A different relation would define a different expectation. It could be that the fetus as “person” requires of the mother continued life-support whereas the fetus as “property” would not. A one year old child as “person” requires continued support from the parents otherwise they are charged with criminal negligence. A one year old child as “property” (on the “my flesh, my choice”) argument would make it possible for a parent to neglect the child with impunity. Thus, we do say that the protection of the child as person requires continued support. Of course the parent can opt out and the state can step in, but in the case of abortion, it seems there is little recourse once the fetus is defined as “person” other than to expect the mother to carry it to term.
Again, we can say the fetus is not a person, but then we have to be honest about the fact that we may have the wrong end of the stick. But, it wouldn’t be the first time, and it certainly won’t be the last.
“Nevertheless, I think that a reader of dotCommonweal would be led to believe that the GOP’s nasty campaign ads represent a greater moral evil than the Democrats’ stated unequivocal and strong support of Roe v. Wade.”
Pardon my bluntness in advance, but I think getting into pissing contests about which political parties–and by association, which dotCommers–are guilty of the bigger moral evils is fruitless. It’s essentially like saying, “Well, I tell baldfaced lies about my political opponents, but at least I say that abortion is wrong.”
David,
I have seen your discussion of the of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act here and elsewhere, and it begs the question – If the act was a way to “chip away” at abortion rights, and the federal law was passed six years ago, what’s been chipped away? What dire consequences have resulted from the dangerous law?
The argument Obama uses was the same one congressional opponents used in 2002, and proponents said it was a red herring – as it now appears trat it was. Wasn’t Obama just pandering to his pro-abortion base? Isn’t he just wrong about the law’s reach?
Eric, that’s extremely helpful. Extremely clear and extremely insightful. Thank you.
I don’t think abortion is best analyzed through any single analogy. I think they all break down. And I think it’s because they all break down that we are all in such knots. I don’t think it’s entirely clear that American law would necessarily need to prohibit abortion if the unborn were recognized as a person (the main authority for that is Roe itself–why keep this piece and throw out the rest?
The difference is indeed the bodily life support. Parents simply don’t have a legal obligation to save their children’s life if it involves a threat to bodily integrity. They may have a moral obligation but not a legal obligation. You can’t make them give blood. You can’t make them give an organ. Suppose you had a baby who could only survive if its mother breast fed it. You would not, I think, be able to force the mother to breast feed. You are not able, as far as I’m aware, to force a woman to have a C-section to deliver her baby, even if the baby would die otherwise.
So you have, two persons, two equally valuable persons, one entirely dependent upon the other for bodily life support. Now I think if you get pregnant as a result of voluntary sexual intercourse, you have a moral duty to carry the baby to term under most instances–absent a threat to life or serious health risk. But translating this into American law is a hard thing, given the pervasive weight given to bodily integrity. And lets not forget that in most instances, mothers are going to want to keep their babies, not give them up for adoption. So we need to find a way, not only to stop the abortion, but to enable a positive relationship between a mother and a child in a crisis pregnancy.
David,
I don’t think the question was whether the law was broad or narrow in general, it was whether the law contined special language saying that it would not undermine Roe v. Wade.
Which sets the grounds for what compromise would be possible with a President Obama — namely that it must assume Roe v. Wade. I don’t think it’s a mark against pro-lifers that they are not willing to accept those terms.
The argument Obama uses was the same one congressional opponents used in 2002, and proponents said it was a red herring – as it now appears trat it was. Wasn’t Obama just pandering to his pro-abortion base? Isn’t he just wrong about the law’s reach?
Sean,
Yes, I believe he was wrong about the law’s reach. I said somewhere on Vox Nova that Obama made a political error in opposing BAIPA, since even my most liberal of representatives, Jerry Nadler, who voted for it, nevertheless objected to it on the grounds that it was redundant and changed nothing.
And no, I wouldn’t call it pandering. I think even you would admit that Obama is very strongly pro-choice. One might argue that he is so strongly pro-choice that he sees pro-life proposals as threats even when they aren’t. But to accuse him of pandering would imply that he is insincere when he expresses strong pro-choice views. I don’t think anyone from the pro-life movement would accuse Obama of merely pandering to pro-life voters. I think they believe his is strongly and authentically pro-choice. That is why they oppose him so intensely.
However, one might ask if the pro-life side was pandering in promoting a law that basically did nothing.
I don’t think it’s a mark against pro-lifers that they are not willing to accept those terms.
John McG,
Obviously I can’t criticize pro-lifers for disagreeing with, and campaigning against, Barack Obama. The only thing I object to is the attempts to “prove” he is indifferent to the mistreatment of infants born alive or that he is in favor of infanticide. It is no secret that Obama is one of the strongest supporters of abortion rights ever to run for president. As I have said elsewhere, it seems to me the pro-life movement is tacitly acknowledging that the American people are not as opposed to abortion as the pro-lifers want them to be. The pro-life movement isn’t merely saying Obama is extreme in his pro-choice views. That apparently isn’t enough to turn the electorate against Obama. They’re accusing him (falsely) of being in favor if infanticide.
From an article in Parade Magazine, September 14, 2008, “The Secrets of America’s Great Presidents”: “In mid-1894, top Republicans warned Lincoln that unless he renounced emancipation as a condition, the Confederates never would agree to peace talks, without which he had no chance of re-election. Yet Lincoln turned his party’s leader away without a second thought. ‘I should be damned in time and in eternity’, he wrote, if he chose to conciliate the South over the slaves to whom he had pledged freedom.
Nancy – it was mid-1864; Lincoln’s election campaign for his second term. He had already proclaimed the Emancipation Proclamation which took effect in the Northern states immediately and then gradually took effect in liberated Southern states.
Republican leaders warned and threatened him to repeal or limit the Emancipation Proclamation to ensure his election re-bid. There were threats about a guerilla war, etc.
He refused to back down or limit what he had done. But, remember, he carefully prepared the groundwork for the Emancipation Proclamation and it took him almost 4 years to arrive at that fateful day.
Eduardo: You say:
I’m not sure, since you don’t elaborate, what it was that you find troubling about that piece. Tom Smith at San Diego had a typically funny response:
You then say:
Let’s stipulate that some of McCain’s claims have not been perfectly truthful. What makes you think this is new, let alone that Obama is not guilty of the same things? Obama put out a radio ad claiming that by overturning Roe v. Wade, “John McCain will make abortion illegal.” Well, that’s no more truthful than anything McCain or Palin have said. Overturning Roe doesn’t make abortion illegal, and McCain couldn’t singlehandedly make abortion illegal in any event.
It’s typical of diehard partisans to try to portray the other side as somehow uniquely evil or depraved, but as Ross Douthat correctly says, “anyone who believes that McCain is running a uniquely dishonorable campaign for the presidency just doesn’t have enough historical perspective – or enough distance from their own passions – to comment sensibly on contemporary politics.”
Nancy and Bill,
I know Wikipedia isn’t the most reliable source, but its first few paragraphs (below) on the Emancipatioin Proclamation lead me to believe that the 1864 discussion was about something different (a proposed constitutional amendment, I believe) and that the proclamation freed the slaves in the Confederate States, not in the states that had remained in the Union.
“The Emancipation Proclamation consists of two executive orders issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War. The first one, issued September 22, 1862, declared the freedom of all slaves in any state of the Confederate States of America that did not return to Union control by January 1, 1863. The second order, issued January 1, 1863, named the specific states where it applied.
The Emancipation Proclamation was widely attacked at the time as freeing only the slaves over which the Union had no power. In practice, it committed the Union to ending slavery, which was a controversial decision in the North. Lincoln issued the Executive Order by his authority as “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy” under Article II, section 2 of the United States Constitution.
The proclamation did not free any slaves of the border states (Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia), or any southern state (or part of a state) already under Union control. It first directly affected only those slaves who had already escaped to the Union side.”
Right. The Emancipation Proclamation had at least two goals: to make it clear that the war should be viewed as being fought for the greater good of eliminating slavery (a view that came on only gradually to Lincoln as the conflict lingered), and to energize slaves to in the confederate states to abandon the fight on behalf of the confederacy.
There is no doubt that Lincoln’s primary goal at the outset of the war was to maintain a united country. He would have given up freeing slaves if that was the price for it. His quotes from that period are unmistakable.
Slaves in union states were not freed at least in part to keep those states from agitating for secession or refusing to send manpower.
The 13th Amendment ended slavery for the United States as a whole.
I thought this was well-known.
The point is, the fact that a person is a person does not depend on location. A Mother’s responsibility to Nurture her Child, does not depend on whether that Child is inside or outside of the Womb.
Stuart, I can’t speak for Eduardo, but I bet it had something to do with this bit:
Or this:
Or this:
Or this:
Or this:
It’s typical of diehard partisans to try to portray the other side as somehow uniquely evil or depraved, but as Ross Douthat correctly says, “anyone who believes that McCain is running a uniquely dishonorable campaign for the presidency just doesn’t have enough historical perspective – or enough distance from their own passions – to comment sensibly on contemporary politics.”
Stuart,
Ross Douthat says, “I should note that Alex Massie was considerably more eloquent – and less overtly cynical – over the weekend on some of the same points I just made below.” I have never read Alex Massie, but I followed the link, and found his comments to be extremely interesting. I highly recommend it.
http://www.debatableland.com/the_debatable_land/2008/09/mccains-second-life.html
It is lamentable that it’s a defense of McCain that he is not running a “uniquely dishonorable campaign,” particularly because to a large degree he is running on honor itself. I am pretty much a diehard partisan, but I can see places where the Obama campaign is bending the truth. But from my point of view, McCain (and especially Palin) are the bigger offenders. Factcheck.org has had to criticize the McCain campaign for a second time now for twisting information from Factcheck.org itself! There’s a special irony there.
“[A]s Ross Douthat correctly says, ‘anyone who believes that McCain is running a uniquely dishonorable campaign for the presidency just doesn’t have enough historical perspective – or enough distance from their own passions – to comment sensibly on contemporary politics.’”
OK, strike “uniquely” and add “reckless.” Even Douthat now seems to see the problem with putting Gov. Palin on the ticket. Wasn’t it just yesterday that Republican diehards were warning us of the perils of moral equivalency? It has now become their m.o.: McCain’s people may issue ten falsehoods to every one that comes from the Obama camp, but that doesn’t matter — the point is: they both do it. Uniquely silly.
Grant,
I happened upon this article in the Wall Street Journal (that terrible scourge of Republicans), and I have not seen it mentioned anywhere. Here are the first few paragraphs and a link to the complete story:
Palin’s Hockey Rink Leads
To Legal Trouble in Town She Led
By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS
September 6, 2008; Page A5
WASILLA, Alaska — The biggest project that Sarah Palin undertook as mayor of this small town was an indoor sports complex, where locals played hockey, soccer, and basketball, especially during the long, dark Alaskan winters.
The only catch was that the city began building roads and installing utilities for the project before it had unchallenged title to the land. The misstep led to years of litigation and at least $1.3 million in extra costs for a small municipality with a small budget. What was to be Ms. Palin’s legacy has turned into a financial mess that continues to plague Wasilla.
“It’s too bad that the city of Wasilla didn’t do their homework and secure the land before they began construction,” said Kathy Wells, a longtime activist here. “She was not your ceremonial mayor; she was in charge of running the city. So it was her job to make sure things were done correctly.”
Ms. Palin, now Alaska’s governor and Republican Sen. John McCain’s running mate, has pointed to her two terms as Wasilla’s mayor, from 1996 to 2002, as evidence that she has enough executive experience to take on the presidency, should the need arise — more than Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, who touts his own background as a community organizer in Chicago.
“I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities,” Ms. Palin said Wednesday in her acceptance speech at the Republican convention.
Litigation resulting from the dispute over Ms. Palin’s sports-complex project is still in the courts, with the land’s former owner seeking hundreds of thousands of additional dollars from the city. . . .
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122065537792905483.html
This is exactly what I’m talking about.
Apparently, according to David Nickol, anyone who supports the McCain/Palin ticket on pro-life grounds should abandon that position because she didn’t dot all the i’s on the hockey rink deal.
If not, then it begs the question of just how far they are willing to go. If we’ll tolerate a VP candidate who started building roads to a hockey rink site before getting a clear title, what next? It seems like the next logical step would be shooting war.
It should be noted, in regards to the 13th Amendment, that President Lincoln took an “active role to ensure passage through the House by ensuring the Amendment was added to the Republican Party Platform for the upcoming Presidential election.
Grant — I already read the entire article, which suggests that merely blockquoting it isn’t going to change my impression that it’s a big yawn.
David Nickol: State development projects get hit with eminent domain lawsuits all the time. What of it?
Thanks, Barbara for more clearly stating the history of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment. I should have done that.
Picking up on some of the earlier posts about abortion, single issue, etc. – here is an interview with Chaput on his new book:
Q: Some Catholics accused you (Archbishop Chaput) of partisanship in 2004, when you publicly and frequently criticized Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry. Do you ever worry about crossing the line?
“Partisanship is foolish for the church. If you are too much in line with any party, the party takes you for granted. But I wrote my book (Render Unto Caesar) to tell Catholics not to be frightened of that possibility. Wanting to protect human life is not a partisan issue.”
Q: People say the Catholics bishops’ 2007 guide to “faithful citizenship” was aimed, in part, to quell the partisanship that erupted in 2004. Do you think that’s true?
“It’s a much clearer presentation of abortion being the foundational issue of our time. Catholics are not single issue voters. But it’s important to remember that the Civil War was fought over one issue.”
Q: You write in your new book that it would be “cowardly” not to criticize politicians who support embryonic stem cell research. Why have you not said anything about Sen. John McCain?
“It’s important that Sen. McCain makes his position very clear. If he publicly embraces embryonic stem cell research …
Q: But he has, many times. His position is well-known. In an article criticizing “Catholics for Obama” you took the trouble to find Obama’s positive rating from Planned Parenthood of Illinois. Why don’t you know this about McCain?
“If a group came out “Catholics for McCain,” I would criticize anyone who takes such a position (for embryonic stem cell research). You write an article and send it to me and I’ll comment on it.”
Again, his approach reeks of partisanship but he is unwilling to acknowledge that. His statement about the civil war is simplistic at best. He attacks Obama but gives an excuse when asked about McCain.
Scandalous, simply scandalous. A regular “Rink-Gate.”
It may have as much impact on the race as a candidate running as a clean elections reformer and then opting out of the system he promised to use and citing nonsensical reasons for doing so.
Yeah, just about that much impact.
Apparently, according to David Nickol, anyone who supports the McCain/Palin ticket on pro-life grounds should abandon that position because she didn’t dot all the i’s on the hockey rink deal.
John McG,
Did I say anything remotely like what you are claiming? I can’t really argue with anyone who supports McCain-Palin on pro-life grounds, except perhaps to offer the opinion that there will be little change in abortion whether McCain-Palin or Obama-Biden get elected.
It’s interesting that the least implied criticism of Palin (I posted the article without commenting or drawing any conclusions) is met with sarcasm, as in your response and Sean Hannaway’s response.
Scandalous, simply scandalous. A regular “Rink-Gate.”
There is a time for sarcasm, I suppose, but we seem to be getting it from McCain-Palin partisans almost all the time. Is there no other way to respond?
This comment thread is pretty outrageously long. But, to respond to Stuart — If you’re not troubled by the Bush record of governance, then I agree that you probably would not find much of interest in the NY Times story. But if you think hiring unqualified cronies for top-level government jobs is something to be concerned about, then the story is disturbing. I’ll let the reliance on Ross Douthat in calling me a partisan speak for itself. The list of people who do see something new in the McCain campaign’s increasing shamelessness is a growing one.
David Nickol: State development projects get hit with eminent domain lawsuits all the time. What of it?
Stuart,
Is it irrelevant information? Would you criticize the Wall Street Journal for publishing it? If her experience as a mayor and a governor are supposed to count in her favor, is it merely the fact that she was a mayor and a governor? Doesn’t it matter what kind of a mayor and governor she was?
Are there any criticism of Sarah Palin that you don’t dismiss out of hand? Does she really meet the standard John McCain claimed (still claims) is the qualification for vice-president? Is she really qualified to step in at a moment’s notice as president? (The standard response, which I beg you not to give, is that she is more qualified than Obama. I am not asking who she is more qualified than. I am asking if she is qualified.)
I haven’t yet seen the evidence for the term “unqualified cronies.” Long-time friends of Palin’s, yes, but I don’t see any discussion of their job performance (which I would consider relevant, wouldn’t you?), and as Tom Smith points out, it’s not surprising that a politician bent on reforming a corrupt party would rely on people she knew she could trust.
The list of people who do see something new in the McCain campaign’s increasing shamelessness is a growing one.
That does nothing to establish the accuracy of such a histrionic and naive claim. All politicians exaggerate and spin, all the time. It’s the one universal fact about American politics, since the beginning. (Thomas Jefferson campaigned against John Adams by accusing him of having a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman,” while Adams’ friends called Jefferson “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.”)
David, I think the word you need is “palindrone.”
Stuart, if you think liking cows as a little girl is suitable experience for running a state Department of Agriculture, well, whatever. It’s your argument to make.
In the context of this thread, which starter with Prof. Panalver saying that if Catholics will put up with McCain and Palin’s lies, where will they stop, and Prof. Kaveny’s challenge that we must answer yes or no over where we should go to war, the presentation of that article by an Obama supporter would be along those lines.
If I had my druthers, the VP candidate would be more experienced. I think the right delployment for Palin would have been as a prime time keynote speaker at the convention, and then back to Alaska.
But as opposed to the other GOP candidates, I can’t make a great case for any of them over her, which speaks to the bad shape the GOP is in generally.
So, to answer my question from the original post, Stuart — you think there are no moral constraints on the arguments a politician ought to make? I think that’s a remarkable position to take, irrespective of the historical precedents or the Ross Douthat’s belief in the naivete of asking for more. It’s something I expect from some amoral postmodernist, not from a person of any moral conviction.
Well, did you see the HBO special, Stuart?
David Frum has posted some interesting thoughts on reformer-politicians over at Daily Kos–I mean NRO:
http://frum.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTcxOGRiMWY0MmQzMWRhMzg2NzQ1MjE2NTNiYmM2NzY=
So, to answer my question from the original post, Stuart — you think there are no moral constraints on the arguments a politician ought to make?
No, not at all. I think, for example, that telling the truth is something that both sides should do, and that it’s silly to pretend that McCain is the only guy who falls afoul of that principle.
Given that I don’t subscribe to basic cable (which is a waste of time and money), I have no idea what the “HBO special” even is.
By the way, Grant, David Frum makes a decent argument there, and one that I find more convincing than a breathless “OMG Palin hired someone that she actually knew!!!”
Ha! Well, I was referring to the miniseries John Adams. It is now available on something called DVD.
Regarding Chaput’s statement: I doubt seriously that most of the American voting public thinks abortion is “the foundational issue of our time.” I’m one that does not. How the issue is addressed is highly important, but in the total complexity of issues facing this country today and for the foreseeable future it is but one of many important issues, not THE foundational issue. I put the economy, the war, the sick state of education and healthcare in the US and same-sex marriage on a par with abortion.
Jimmy Mac – here is another statement that elaborates on your comments:
Shortcut to: http://www.religiousconsultation.org/NEWS/bishops_vs_theologians.htm
My point was to parallel this thread and original question about the negativity of each party and the fact that the church has leaders who declare that they are not partisan but their comments, etc. lead one to a different conclusion. Given the emphasis on the Catholic vote in certain key states, this is interesting.
Given that I don’t subscribe to basic cable (which is a waste of time and money), I have no idea what the “HBO special” even is.
Stuart,
You are out of touch with the American people. :-)
Data by SNL Kagan shows that as of 2006 about 58.4% of all American homes subscribe to basic cable television services. — Wikipedia
Cathleen,
Thank you for your insight into these issues. We do get to a point in the debate where the ground must be cleared of unhelpful and distracting analogies. They are vehicles that can only get us so far. What you describe in situations where we have a “life of the parent” versus “life of the child” scenerio, we find ourselves in a true moral tragedy. Certainly, we would not want to legislate which way to go on this. Theologically, the moment might call for some sort of heroic sacrificial love on the part of the parent, but this certainly cannot be legislated. On the other hand, parents are asked to make “reasonable” (whatever that means) sacrifices of their freedoms for the well being of their children, and when these parents fail to do so the state deems the parent negligent and takes control of the child. So, I guess the question is, what is “reasonable” to expect of a woman who is pregnant if we say the fetus she is carrying is a person? One way to go is to say that being pregnant qua being pregnant always involves a “threat to bodily integrity,” and thus, the parent never has any obligation to carry the child because the very act of carrying a child is supererogatory. Hence, there is sacrificial love built into being pregnant, which is something that cannot be required legally. That strikes me as a simultaneously beautiful theological vision of pregnancy, but a problematic legal understanding. If all pregnancy is a sacrificial act, no one can be legally required to go through with it on behalf of the unborn fetus, even if that fetus is judged to be a person. It strikes me, though, that there must be some middle ground… A minimum level of sacrifice that can be expected? At this point though, perhaps our moral and theological sensibilities cannot be codified in law. There is something oddly comforting about that…
OK. I haven’t seen that show. Note that given my lamentable inability to read minds, I thought you might have been referring to something on HBO about Sarah Palin.
You are out of touch with the American people. :-)
Oh, absolutely. And proud of it. :)
(I do have to admit that I cancelled cable only a couple of years ago, when it became possible to watch Lost online.)
“Even here, on a Catholic website, there are some who do not believe that Life is a Gift from God.”
Nancy, what about the gift from God, those children whose abuse the bishops have cover up and still cover up? Your silence is telling.
Stuart,
You watch Lost? You can’t be all bad.
If you also watch Heroes and Prison Break and were sorry to see Jericho end, I’ll take back everything bad I ever said about you. (Not, of course, that I ever did say anything bad about you.)
Yes, yes, and yes! (They have all been online as well.) And now I’m watching Fringe online. (That about exhausts my TV watching, except for occasional DVDs like BBC’s Planet Earth, old Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin live TV shows, or Mr. Bean).
What you describe in situations where we have a “life of the parent” versus “life of the child” scenerio, we find ourselves in a true moral tragedy. Certainly, we would not want to legislate which way to go on this. Theologically, the moment might call for some sort of heroic sacrificial love on the part of the parent, but this certainly cannot be legislated.
Eric,
This would be my view as well, but I wonder what there is in “orthodox” Catholic thought that would allow this exception. The Church is adamant that innocent life must be protected by law, and a life that threatens the mother (or a baby conceived as the result of incest or rape) is no less innocent than any other. It seems to me any argument that it is less protected than other lives (for example, “self-defense” on the part of the mother to save her own life) would be an argument not merely for legal permissibility but for moral permissibility as well.
Perhaps a law that allowed abortion only to save the life of the mother would be acceptable as the best possible compromise that could be reached, but it still seems to me it would not be fully consistent with Catholic teaching on either abortion itself or what the law regarding abortion ought to be.
Stuart,
I missed the beginning of Fringe. Thanks for letting me know it is available online.
To everyone else:
Stop your incessant arguing with Stuart.
“For a long time, I ignored this rhetoric. I think a lot of people did, saying, “Well, the pro-lifers are a bit over the top, but they have a good cause.” After the 2004 election, I no longer think that the rhetoric can be ignored –no matter what the cause. I think the rhetoric itself needs to be challenged–if you say something is the Holocaust, then you have to take responsibility for the consequences of that.”
Cathy, you are now seeing the situation for what it is. Abortion is the issue like other issues that certain people warped for their own profit. People are making too much money,profit and power on this to give it up. From those in the employ of the Catholic church whether it be architects, builders, writers, counselors or journalists, to those in the White House, the issue keeps them wealthy and employed. Check out the book “The Wrecking Crew” which I have referenced on this site. It is about greed and money.
Obviously, they have duped a lot of good people along the way. This is Joe McCarthy in a different form. Hopefully more people will see the light. If such prodigious scandals as Abramoff. Liddy, Enron and others have not helped, one wonders what it will take to expose these abortion profiteers. They are the last ones who want Roe vs. Wade overturned. They are making too much hay with the law.
Excuse me, I’m just entering this thread now, and Stuart Buck, I could expect as much from you…But David Nickol, you also actually watch “Prison Break”? C’mon, they started out great but jumped a flock of sharks a year ago. (For your benefit, Stuart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark)
Stick with “24,” and if you want the best TV ever, check out “The Wire.”
What is with you people…
David N: See http://www.fox.com/fod/play.php?sh=fringe You might have to install the “Fox” player. Sometimes my connection is a bit spotty, so I download a show like this from ITunes. I still figure that paying $1.99 for a show leaves me way ahead compared to my previous pattern of paying $50 every month even though the few shows I like are only on the air a few months a year.
David G: Yeah, I always knew Prison Break would lose its raison d’etre once they broke out of the prison after the first season. It’s still addictive, what can I say.
I go off for one day to run a senior board meting and direct the charity bridge game, and this thread, to which I made the first post, has degenerated into over 100 with the usual try to get back to one issue (abortion politics), ad hominem ( feminem?) by Laura – look at the two Fr. Kavanagh letters to the candidates for president- and lots more tangentials, but, it is apparent that the issue of the Palin nomination(and acceptance) has been fraught with secrecy, deception and spin and what that means, especially to theose wonderful “value” voters (cf. Obama Waffles above) was, I thought what folks were going to talk about instead of SOS.
David N,
Reaching back to you 3:40 post – yes, I was being sarcastic. It seemed an appropriate reaction to the hyperventilating.
We keep being told by the press and by Obama and his supporters that it is time to get on to issues. OK. So what do we get – hockey rink roads, disgruntled librarians, and departmental division heads who like cows.
The hysteria about Palin is almost funny. This post is a case in point. The republic’s very future and democratic principles are gravely threatened by her nomination. Come on, let’s get some perspective here. You can disagree with her and even think she is inexperienced with saying things like, we are “throwing away the basic rules of democratic political deliberation,” or we are “dismantling our constitutional system of government.”
For every lie or distortion one side can come up with, the other can come up with its own. The idea that McCain is running a “dirty” campaign while Obama is as pure as the driven snow is ridiculous. They both use negative campaigning – get used to it.
Sean,
So on the one hand, people are arguing that she really does have experience. She was a major and a governor. That’s experience.
But on the other hand, anything she did as mayor and governor are too trivial to be bothered with. The hockey rink was her biggest project as mayor, and there were significant problems, so the argument is, “How trivial! A hockey rink!” She’s under investigation for abuse of power as governor, and the response is, “How trivial! She was just looking out for her family. Her ex-brother-in-law was obviously a jerk. Why shouldn’t she try to get him fired?”
People were outraged (or pretended to be) when they felt Palin was being looked down on for being a small-town mayor. But if everything she did as a small-town mayor is too trivial to bother bringing up, exactly how is that not denigrating her role as a small-town mayor?
She’s given at least five of her schoolmates government jobs, some at very hefty salaries even though they had dubious qualifications. Now, if the governor of New York or California took office and replaced people with his or her old high school friends, it wouldn’t be an irrelevant criticism to bring it up. But it seems to be an irrelevant criticism of Sarah Palin, and the only reason I can think of is that what she did as governor is too trivial to be concerned with.
So if everything she did was trivial, how much credit should we give her for her experience? None of the “scandals” are to be taken seriously, because she was a small-town mayor and then the governor of a state that has the population about the same as Charlotte, North Carolina, or Memphis, Tennesee. So who can get worked up about anything on that scale? But if that’s the case, isn’t the reasonable conclusion that her experience as mayor and governor ought not to count for much?
David N: An analogy might help. If we’re being asked to decide whether somebody is a good basketball player, and his enemies start screaming, “Wait, he missed a foul shot in one game, and then he actually committed two fouls in another game,” and I say, “Those are trivial faults,” what I have said does NOT imply that everything else about the player is trivial.
Brooks on the question of experience, worth reading: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/opinion/16brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
Grant, very good article by Brooks.
It occurs to me that there is one, and only one, plausible scenario in which we are spared four years of inexperience at the helm: McCain wins, and survives.
FWIW – this article by Byron York suggests that, “On Sex-Ed Ad, McCain is Right”.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzI3ZDUzOTE0ZThlMTU3MTY0MDI4ZTY0MTZhY2I2MGY=
Ah yes, Jim, that’s a reliable source.
David,
First, I didn’t say the hockey rink was a trivial problem in and of itself, but lets put it in context. Having worked in the public sector for many years on large programs, there are very few in which issues like this don’t crop up. It didn’t involve corruption. At worst, someone made a mistake, and at this point all we know is probably what the Obama opresearch people are feeding the press, so we don’t even know if that’s a fact or the position of one side in a lawsuit. Second, I find it more informative that she was wildly popular, both as a mayor and a governor. Like I said, nothing to hyperventilate about.
On the cronyism front – I am a lot less offended by this – if it even is a problem – than a President who put his wife in charge of reforming the entire national health care system, and I don’t recall the NYT or Wash Post complaining about cronyism then. People in positions of authority often hire people they know and respect – there is nothing wrong with that.
The bottom line is that these “scandals” aren’t even “scandals” – An elected executive is allowed to appoint whoever the heck she wants within the bounds of the law and constitution, and no one is saying she violated them. She is accountable to the voters, who by and large love her.
Eduardo,
The National Review is at least as credible as Salon or Slate or, frankly, the NYT – and any number of sources that Commonweal contributers cite as authority – we are all capable of considering the sources and their biases.
“Ah yes, Jim, that’s a reliable source.”
Then refute it.
“The National Review is at least as credible as Salon or Slate or, frankly, the NYT – and any number of sources that Commonweal contributers cite as authority – we are all capable of considering the sources and their biases.”
Yes, the piece stands or falls on its own merits. In this case, I believe it’s worth checking out, which is why I linked it.
Jim,
It seems to me that even if York is right about everything he says, and I think he is distorting things, the ad is still scurrilous and intentionally misleading. The McCain ad is clearly not an in-depth analysis of how the proposed bill might have affected the sex-education curriculum in kindergarten classes. It’s an attempt to associate Obama with the sexualization of young children. Do you honestly think the ad was attempting to prompt people to go back and read the legislation and compare the Republican and Democratic approaches? The purpose was to get “Obama,” “sex,” and “kindergarten” all in one sentence.
One-minute television ads aren’t meant to explain complex policy positions. They’re meant to convey an emotional message, and the message of this one was, “Obama wants to put sex in kindergarten.”
David,
Read the law. One of the major aspects of the bill was to change a mandate for sex ed from grades 6-12 to grades K-12. It’s there in black and white – and as I have read, that was why some of his state legislative colleagues opposed it. He himself doesn’t deny he voted for expanding sex ed, he just says he supports “age appropriate” sex ed. It may surprise you, but there are a lot of us neanderthals out here who don’t want the government even deciding what constitutes “age appropriate”sex ed for five-year olds.
Granted the ad oversimplifies, but is it any more misleading than “McCain doesn’t use e-mail” – meaning he’s too old and backward
The correct McCain ad
Barrak Obama supported expanding age appropriate sex education for children in kindergarten through fifth grade.
The correct Obama ad
John McCain doesn’t use e-mail because the discomfort he suffers from having his elbows and shoulders repeatedy torn from their sockets by the communists.
Which was more deceptive?
“It seems to me that even if York is right about everything he says, and I think he is distorting things, the ad is still scurrilous and intentionally misleading. The McCain ad is clearly not an in-depth analysis of how the proposed bill might have affected the sex-education curriculum in kindergarten classes. It’s an attempt to associate Obama with the sexualization of young children. Do you honestly think the ad was attempting to prompt people to go back and read the legislation and compare the Republican and Democratic approaches? The purpose was to get “Obama,” “sex,” and “kindergarten” all in one sentence.”
I haven’t seen the ad, but I’m sure it does cast Obama in the worst possible light, particularly in the eyes of rust-belt social conservatives who apparently will decide the election.
Before reading the York piece, and based on the huffing and puffing in the media (including here), I had assumed the ad was so off-base that there was virtually no basis in fact for the charge.
Having read the York piece, it seems that there is some sort of basis in fact. I’m presuming the ad’s intent is to position Obama as one who would use the public schools to hijack the morality of our children. This is a potent issue with social conservatives. It wouldn’t surprise me if the ad accomplishes its objective of sowing fear, uncertainty and doubt.
A lot of misinformation here, unsurprisingly. No, Sean, the bill does not extend any mandate to engage in sex education. The law merely mandates that, where comprehensive sex-education is already being done, it include certain topics, provided that it is done in an age-appropriate way. It is the content that is mandated, not the sex ed.
BTW, Sarah Palin is on the record for “explicit” sex ed and is “pro-contraception.”
That is, when she’s not for abstinence only. I suspect we won’t see a lot of Obama ads about her position, whatever they are, given her daughter’s circumstances.
Byron York may be writing for the National Review, but he at least took the effort to look up the actual text of the Illinois legislation, which is more than the New York Times found time to do. Generally, as a lawyer myself, I never trust journalists to get the details right when discussing legal issues. (I recall reading in the Washington Post several years ago about an opinion that I had drafted for Judge Williams; the Post claimed that Harry Edwards wrote the opinion. If journalists can’t get basic details like that right, I don’t trust them to be accurate about the meaning of state legislation.)
The Illinois legislation is here: http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=&SessionId=3&GA=93&DocTypeId=SB&DocNum=99&GAID=3&LegID=734&SpecSess=&Session
The bill dealt with “comprehensive sex education” courses, “family life” courses, and “comprehensive health education” courses (which DO seem to be mandatory under another law, contrary to Eduardo’s suggestion, given that the health education law expressly requires such courses “in all elementary and secondary schools in this State”).
For EACH of those three types of courses, the existing law had referred to grades 6 through 12, while the legislation for which Obama voted required that all three types of courses should, as to grades Kindergarten through 12, offer instruction on “the prevention of sexually transmitted infections.” And if I’m right that “health education” courses were already mandatory, then the law would have required that kindergarteners be taught about STDs (it doesn’t make any sense to say, “but it was only age appropriate discussion of STDs”; I think that STDs are an entirely inappropriate topic for a 5-year-old).
The correct Obama ad
John McCain doesn’t use e-mail because the discomfort he suffers from having his elbows and shoulders repeatedy torn from their sockets by the communists.
Which was more deceptive?
Sean,
The McCain ad was more deceptive. This is the kind of distortion that makes me angry. If you do a Google search, you can find for yourself videos of McCain describing himself as “illiterate” when it comes to the Internet.
This is from an article I found on Fox News from July of this year:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,387801,00.html
His own spokeswoman says, “He’s working on becoming more familiar with the Internet.” In July of this year! He told the Times, “I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself.” This year!
Which is the real McCain? The one who can’t use a computer because of his war injuries, or the one who uses a computer and is becoming more familiar with the Internet?
This is another game of “redefine the meaning.” In the morning, McCain says the fundamentals of the economy are sound, when things are coming apart. So in the afternoon, he says the American workers are the fundamentals of the economy, and how dare Obama criticize them! I am surprised he didn’t say our troops in Iraq are the fundamentals of the economy and attack Obama for criticizing the troops. And people fall for this stuff!
Now, is it possible that McCain has been less than gung-ho about using a personal computer because of his war injuries? I suppose it’s possible. But it was perfectly open to him to answer questions about computer use by saying he has problems typing or whatever. Or he could say, “My staff handles that for me.” Or any number of things. But instead he describes himself as “illiterate” and you expect the Obama campaign to look deeper and say, “You know, maybe he’s not illiterate. Maybe he’s hiding the fact that he has limited use of his arm.” Let’s be realistic.
Cathleen, regarding your post on Sept.15 at 7:33 A.M., Will you ever write a column explaining why the Catholic Church teaches that Human Life, from Conception, is to be treated with Love and Respect because Human Life is Sacred and thus has Dignity?
David Nickol said: “The McCain ad was more deceptive. This is the kind of distortion that makes me angry. If you do a Google search, you can find for yourself videos of McCain describing himself as “illiterate” when it comes to the Internet.”
Then how do you explain the February 2000 article from Jacob Weisberg on Slate.com I quoted from above (http://www.slate.com/id/74812/)? That was eight years ago. The title is “McCain’s Web Explosion” for goodness sake and notes, inter alia, and again this was eight years ago, that Senator McCain participated in “the first-ever “cyberfundraiser.”" and that he was ” the most cybersavvy of this year’s crop of candidates”. Clearly Senator McCain refers to his inability to physically use computers himself due to his handicap when he says he is “illiterate”.
Nancy, columns are occasional pieces, dealing with what I think is an interesting topic at a particular moment in time. My next column won’t be on abortion at all–probably on the Cohen brothers’ latest movie, Burn after Reading.
A couple of years ago, I had an article published in Origins (the NCCB documentary service) on abortion and the law. You might like it.
Here’s the link to the blog entry on it, with a full cite.
http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=356
Clearly Senator McCain refers to his inability to physically use computers himself due to his handicap when he says he is “illiterate”.
MAT,
Since when did illiterate or Neanderthal mean physically disabled?
From Fortune Magazine, March 2006
Also then this . . .
Note that he uses a Blackberry, by the way. I have to say that I am not physically disabled, and I find handling a cell phone is not the easiest thing I do.
And I have already quoted this:
How anyone can read the above as descriptions of someone who can’t use a computer because of a physical disability is beyond me. I am sure all of the disabled would be happy to hear that you believe “illiterate” and “Neanderthal” are code words for “physically disabled.”
David Nickol said: “I am sure all of the disabled would be happy to hear that you believe “illiterate” and “Neanderthal” are code words for “physically disabled.”
Come on, was it really necessary to insult me? Anyway, if you want to play the gotcha game, pick out 2 words, which most non-partisan observers would agree were examples of hyperbole, take them out of context, and impute inordinate significance to them, that is your right. Clearly it is a waste your and my time discussing this topic. I won’t even ask why you have still not addressed the 2000 article form Mr. Weisberg. Well, at least you are on the record that if someone was to run an ad that Governor Paterson of NY was out of touch with transportation issues and gas prices since he is unable to drive an automobile, that is totally appropriate.
Also, Eduardo, your “mandatory” point cuts both ways. On one hand, if we’re talking about a school in which there was no pre-6th grade sex ed, then that bill (in and of itself) wouldn’t have required a new sex ed program. And neither would it have required kids to be taught about how to avoid unwanted “touching,” which is what Obama now claims was all that the bill did.
On the other hand, if we’re talking about a school that DID already have sex ed for kindergarteners, then and only then would the legislation have required teaching about unwanted touching (as Obama claims) — and it would also have required teaching those kindergarteners about STDs. For that matter, to the same extent that the bill required teaching kindergarteners about unwanted touching, it would have required teaching them about all the other items in the list in section (c)(1) through (15) (e.g., contraception, sexual violence, etc.).
Bottom line: The McCain ad, while not perfectly accurate, is more accurate than the NY Times story to which you linked.
Well, at least you are on the record that if someone was to run an ad that Governor Paterson of NY was out of touch with transportation issues and gas prices since he is unable to drive an automobile, that is totally appropriate.
MAT,
I said no such thing. I apologize for insulting you, but now it looks like we are even.
. . . . pick out 2 words, which most non-partisan observers would agree were examples of hyperbole . . .
Of course they were hyperbole. I am not maintaining that McCain is truly illiterate, or that somehow he is actually a Neanderthal man. But clearly he was indicating that he was old fashioned or behind the times.
I won’t even ask why you have still not addressed the 2000 article form Mr. Weisberg.
How do you reconcile your quotes with my quotes? McCain clearly has started using a computer, and by his own account and the account of his spokesperson, he is a beginner. Why you give more weight to a statement in an article from 2000 than to McCain’s own recent statements this year is baffling.
I’ll be honest here and say that I am biased in favor of Obama and against McCain, and consciously or unconsciously, I will try to justify Obama’s positions and criticize McCain’s. But there comes a point at which facts stare you in the face and you can’t escape them. If McCain was telling a white lie, pretending not to be “with it” when it came to personal computers and the Internet, I think it was unnecessary, but I would accuse him of being untrustworthy. But now he is saying he does use the computer. So if he couldn’t use it before, how come he can use it now?
By the way, do you believe if Obama made comparable self-deprecating remarks about anything, no matter what the reason, the McCain campaign wouldn’t use them?
Regarding the “sex education” commercial, I don’t pretend to be an expert on these things, but it seems to me had the bill passed, a group of educators would have had to interpret the bill’s requirements and develop a curriculum. It would not have been a matter of the text of the bill being passed out to every teacher, with the kindergarten teacher saying, “Okay, class, today’s topic is sexually transmitted diseases. Who can tell us what sexual intercourse is? Susie?” One can only hope that Illinois’s educators could be trusted to develop a curriculum that was age appropriate for each grade level.
What the original vote boiled down to, I would suppose, is a philosophical difference between conservatives, who tend to want less sex education in schools, and liberals, who tend to want more. That’s certainly an issue worth discussing.
But the purpose of the commercial was to imply that Barack Obama was in favor of presenting sexually graphic material to kindergarten students. It had nothing to do with the merits of the bill that wasn’t even passed or the curriculum that would have been developed that we can’t even begin to imagine the actual content of. Exactly how unfair it was in a campaign where both sides stretch and distort the truth is difficult to say. I think it was considerably worse than average. But it’s defensible only by arguments like “everybody does it,” or “anything goes in a campaign this important.” I don’t think it’s possible to defend it as being accurate.
David N — I already anticipated your defense . . . regardless of how “age appropriate” the curriculum would supposedly have been, the fact remains that the main effect of the Illinois bill was to extend discussion of STDs and other sexual issues down to the kindergarten level (whether this took place in all schools (via mandatory health education classes) or just some schools (via preexisting sex ed classes) is immaterial).
Thus, I think that the McCain sex education ad is much closer to the truth than Obama’s flat-out lie that McCain wants “another 100 years of war in Iraq.” Yet I’m not hyperventilating about Obama destroying the “basic underpinnings of our democratic culture.” The republic will survive the fact that candidates on both sides misrepresent what the other guy said and did.
Eduardo,
On reading the statute again, you are correct it was a mandate for content – the less misleading ad would have said:
Obama supported a mandate that sex education down to the kindergarten level include training on STDs.
I can see why that would be far less objectionable to Mr and Mrs America.
If we want to point to issues and deception, why don’t we hit the big ones. My favorite of late is Obama’s insitence that we are in the worst economy since the Great Depression. That is clearly and demonstrably false. Unemployment was higher during the first three years of the Clinton Administration, and far higher in the late 70′s and early 80′s, and inflation was dramatically higher during that time. The GDP increased during the last quarter, and has yet to decrease despite the dramatic hits on oil and finance.
Are there economic problems – obviously – but the worst economic situation since the Depression? Talk about deceiving to get yourself elected.
No, Sean, and No, Stuart. The ad says that Obama supported legislation “to teach “comprehensive sex education” to kindergartners.” It’s a flat-out, 100% falsehood. No possible difference of opinion on it by any honest reader of the legislation. The legislation would only require teaching STDs as part of an existing “comprehensive sex education” course (not as part of any sex education that happened to be going on in kindergarten classes). My guess, Sean and Stuart, is that the number of such courses in kindergarten in Illinois at the time was zero, meaning that the anticipated consequence of extending the mandate from 6-12 to K-12 was to reach, say, 5th graders who were possibly receiving comprehensive sex education and might actually be experimenting with the sort of sexual activity that could lead to STDs. The ad, and even your attempt to reconstruct its claims, are both incorrect.
Cathleen, good article. I think it would be important to note, that as Catholics, we believe that God and not Caesar, created Life. Regarding the Law, our Founding Fathers agreed that we are endowed by our Creator, (God) with certain unalienable Rights, the first of which is the Right to Life, without which there are no other Rights.
The republic will survive the fact that candidates on both sides misrepresent what the other guy said and did.
Stuart,
I agree the republic will survive, and while it is very lamentable, it’s how critical campaigns are fought. That doesn’t excuse either side, and I think it’s good for people who attempt to be unbiased (like Factcheck.org) to try and get to the truth.
Monday on the Today Show, both McCain and Biden both said A.I.G. should not be bailed out. This morning Pawlenty and Richardson were on speaking for the Republicans and the Democrats. When asked if McCain and Biden had been wrong, Pawlenty’s answer was that McCain was against a bailout in principle, but he did realize that something had to be done. Richardson basically dodged the question and hit on all the Democratic talking points he could fit into his answer.
If I had been asked, I would have denied that an $85 billion dollar loan was a bailout. It would be so simple to redefine bailout, I am stunned that neither one of them thought of it.
Eduardo — I’m not saying the ad was accurate. Nonetheless, it was closer to the truth than the Obama spin (echoed by the NY Times) that the bill was only about teaching kids to avoid inappropriate touching. As I’ve already shown (and as you don’t dispute), every single kindergarten class that would have been affected by the “inappropriate touching” language would ALSO have been affected by the requirements to teach about STDs, contraception, etc.
Thus, if there are classes out there that kindergarteners were taking (including mandatory health education), and Democrats said, “Hey, let’s mandate that these classes discuss STDs and contraception,” then it’s reasonably close to the truth for a Republican to point out that the bill contemplated sex ed in kindergarten. Tough luck, but when your guy supports something like that, you can expect to get called on it.
Moreover, you’re surely familiar with the canon that statutes should not be interpreted in a way that makes them superfluous. This makes implausible your heretofore-unheard-of spin that the bill would have affected only 5th graders. If that were the case, then given an original statutory reference to grade 6, why change that to kindergarten rather than to 5th grade? What was the point of including — as to three separate types of courses — the requirement that kindergarteners learn about STDs?
Imagine that Alaska law said, “Each class or course in health offered in any of grades 6 through 12 shall include instruction on gun safety.” Then imagine that Sarah Palin had supported a bill amending the law to read, “Each class or course in health offered in any of grades kindergarten through 12 shall include age-appropriate training in firing AK-47s as well as gun safety.” I bet not just Democrats but the NY Times, ABC News, etc., would all be running ads and articles and news broadcasts claiming that Sarah Palin wanted kindergarteners to fire AK-47s.
Regarding the Law, our Founding Fathers agreed that we are endowed by our Creator, (God) with certain unalienable Rights, the first of which is the Right to Life, without which there are no other Rights.
Nancy,
Why does the Constitution say that people born in the United States (not conceived) are citizens? If they had intended to guarantee a right to life from the moment of conception, why didn’t that make the unborn citizens?
It seems obvious enough, but I might as well make it clear, Stuart, that my failure to respond to every argument you raise (and you raise a large number of them), does not constitute agreement. There are only so many hours in the day, after all. To be clear, I don’t see any plausible claim that such a class for kindergartners would constitute “comprehensive sex education.” And, again, that’s not the claim the ad is making. And I’m not talking about statutory construction, but statutory effect. If there were (which I doubt and which you have not demonstrated) any comprehensive sex education courses being taught to kindergartners, they would have been encompassed by the statutory text.
And of course the republic will survive. I never said otherwise. But do you reject the idea that repeatedly making claims you know to be false “undermines” (the word I used) our democratic culture? Even if both sides were doing it, which they are not (or at least not to nearly the same degree), would that somehow make it right? If Obama’s campaign comes to resemble McCain’s, I’ll be the first to criticize it, the way I criticized Edwards for hiring Marcotte. Why can’t you bring yourself to do the same?
Eduardo, I already said that from what I can tell, the legislation applied not just to pre-existing “comprehensive sex education” courses, but also to health education courses that were mandatory in every school in Illinois. So I’m not sure why I bear the burden here, rather than you bearing the burden to prove that, despite the mandatory language, no kindergarteners (or 1st or 2nd graders, for that matter) in Illinois ever had a health course that would have been affected by this legislation.
I hereby criticize McCain harshly for putting out an ad suggesting that Obama wanted to mandate “comprehensive sex education” for all kindergarteners, when the truth is that Obama supported a bill mandating that at least some kindergarteners (including in mandatory health courses) be taught about STDs and contraception.
Just want to express my appreciation to Eduardo, Sean, Stuart, David N. and others who have delved into the Illinois statute discussion. It’s advanced my understanding on this issue.
Lawyers always argue burdens when they have no evidence. You have no evidence that any kindergartner, or first grader, or second grader would have been impacted by this legislation. And neither does the McCain campaign. In addition, you conveniently read “age appropriate” out of the statute. At least you concede that the ad is 100% inaccurate. The fact is, they did not make the ad you are wishing they did, because it would have gotten far too complicated for their 30-second, gotcha format. (Of course, even the ad you wish they had made would have been 100% inaccurate, given the facts you have presented, or failed to present.) And at least you’ve made clear that your partisan bias prevents you from engaging in even the mildest, non-sarcastic criticism of your preferred candidate.
David, a person conceived within the Womb of a Mother, is the same person who is brought forth alive from that Womb. It should be noted that abortion was not protected under the Constitution at that time.
“Born” in this regard, refers to location, since any person born to a Mother who is a U.S. citizen, is in fact, a U.S.citizen, regardless of the location of their birth.
Eduardo,
I think the problem is that this is being portrayed as the worst falsehood in a political campaign ever. Stuart and I are simply saying that’s an overstatement.
The original law said:
Each class or course in comprehensive sex education offered in any of grades 6 through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention, transmission and spread of AIDS.
The changed law that Obama supported says:
Each class or course in comprehensive sex education offered in any of grades K through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV.
Granted – it didn’t mandate the course, but it did mandate its content. In fact, there is an extensive list of issues that must be covered any time there is formal instruction on sexual activity. Other than one mention of “age appropriate” there is no exemption of any subject based on age or grade. It was an across the board change.
This legislation, that was pushed by Planned Parenthood as a response to the abstinence education movement, was intended to expand the scope of “scientifically based” sex ed, and it clearly applies to kindergartners. If it doesn’t affect them, or first graders, or second graders, why were they included in the bill in the first place? Someone must think it would affect them. Another point is that Obama has said in interviews that he thinks age appropriate sex ed for early primary school students is a good idea. If that’s true, then under the terms of the law he supported that education, age appropriate or not, must address STDs and contraception.
Simply stated, a claim that Obama supported legislation “to teach “comprehensive sex education” to kindergartners in a 30 second commercial, while a gross oversimplification, and even somewhat misleading is hardly the lie of the century. The reaction is way out of proportion, and I think belies gross bias on the part of supposedly objective journalists. Obama’s “100 year war” comment, which he repeated in his stump speech many times was at least as deceptive as this commercial, and evoked only the mildest response.
It is much ado about very very little.
David Nickol said: “I said no such thing. I apologize for insulting you, but now it looks like we are even.”
I think we’ve beat this horse to death so I won’t belabor it, but you are right, it was inappropriate on my part to put words in your mouth.
Lawyers always argue burdens when they have no evidence.
Exactly . . . but you’re the one who first did so.
I think it is reasonable to point to the plain text of the legislation, which on its face expanded coverage of STDs and contraceptives down to kindergarten (whether in pre-existing sex ed classes or in all of the mandatory health education classes). I also think it’s reasonable to assume that this legislation wasn’t intended to be completely meaningless, and that the legislators presumably thought something would happen when the starting age for discussing STDs and contraceptives moved from 6th grade to kindergarten.
In response, all you can do is assert that the legislation wouldn’t have affected anyone. You’re free to make that claim, if you like, but you’re the one who needs to prove your case. You can’t just invent your own facts and then demand that I disprove them.
If the intent of the McCain commercial was to prompt people to read for themselves the text of Illinois Senate Bill 99 and judge its merits, I am guessing that it succeeded with only a small handful of voters, three or four of which are writing on dotCommonweal. If it was to give people the impression that Obama wanted sexually graphic material presented to kindergarten children, then it was probably a lot more successful.
Eduardo, congrats on a new all-time high for comments. I think. Grant is the Elias Sports Bureau of the blog.
Sorry, guys–this one had 186: http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=2000
Eduardo — here’s another democracy-undermining lie that you might want to post about: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/from-the-fact-1.html (Just kidding; it’s below-the-belt politics, as practiced by all sides.)