“It absolutely floored me,” said Phil Burress, head of the Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values. “It would doom him in Ohio.”
Burress e-mailed about a dozen “pro-family leaders” he knows outside Ohio and forwarded it to three McCain aides tasked with Christian conservative outreach.
“That choice will end his bid for the presidency and spell defeat for other Republican candidates,” Burress wrote in the message.
He and other Ohio conservatives met privately with McCain in June, and while the nominee didn’t promise them an anti-abortion rights running mate, his staff said they could “almost guarantee” that would be the case, Burress recalled. […]
James Muffett, head of Michigan’s Citizens for Traditional Values, met with McCain along with a handful of other Michigan-based social conservatives Wednesday night.
“A good portion of us were urging him to pick a pro-life running mate,” Muffett said, noting that they were doing so before even getting wind of the Standard story. “That choice would go a long way to solidify his credentials.” […]
McCain’s campaign sought to tamp down the uproar, suggesting the candidate had merely been overly expansive about a sensitive topic and hadn’t intended to float a trial balloon.
August 13th, 2008 by DAVID SCHRAUB, Assistant Editor
So the Supreme Court made a factual error in its ruling holding that the death penalty for child rape is unconstitutional. Since the error was definitely relevant (though not necessarily critical) to its ruling, some folks have been urging that the Court reopen the case (an issue I am pretty much neutral on).
Today, we find out via a recently released study that the Supreme Court also made a factual error in its ruling holding that the federal partial-birth abortion ban is constitutional (that being that abortion puts women at risk for mental health problems). So should the folks urging the former case be reopened be making the same claims for the latter?
With disaffected Clinton supporters still vowing to stay home or vote for him, John McCain must be tempted to give them another reason to come aboard by picking Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate.
From a look at her political history, the 44-year-old “Northern Exposure” chief executive would bring more than token womanhood to the ticket. With approval ratings in the 80-90 percent range, Palin is seen, in the words of NPR, as “a moose-burger-eating, snow-mobile-riding maverick who’s not afraid to take on fellow Republicans she disagrees with,” including distancing herself from the now-indicted Sen. Ted Stevens.
At the same time, she is adored by the Religious Right as the mother of five, the eldest of whom joined the Army at 18 last year and the youngest a Down’s Syndrome baby she refused to abort, and as a hunting, fishing lifetime member of the NRA.
With her beauty pageant looks and background in journalism, Palin would enliven the Republican campaign and bring them an activist on the key issue of energy, providing a tireless young partner for McCain’s claims of change in Washington.
Unrequited Hillary Clinton supporters, still fighting for recognition at the Democratic convention, would face a bitter irony in Sarah Palin as a potential vice-president. In the light of McCain’s age, a Republican victory this year could eventually make the first woman in the White House a president who would appoint Supreme Court Justices to overturn Roe v Wade and restore the era of back-alley abortions.
If McCain decides to play the gender card, he will be forcing Democrats to overcome their differences, to put up or shut up by making party unity a reality rather than a slogan.
If you are pro-choice, and wish to preserve reproductive rights for women, you need to take a closer look at McCain’s record on reproductive rights and other issues affecting women’s health.
Yesterday I touched on the change in direction of Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, in his support for Senator John McCain. For those of you who missed it, here is what Dobson said about supporting McCain only 5 months ago:
“I am convinced Sen. McCain is not a conservative, and in fact, has gone out of his way to stick his thumb in the eyes of those who are. He has at times sounded more like a member of the other party…Given these and many other concerns, a spoonful of sugar does not make the medicine go down. I cannot, and I will not, vote for Sen. John McCain, as a matter of conscience.”
Last Monday, on his radio show, Dobson announced a potential change in support for John McCain by stating “I never thought I would hear myself saying this…While I am not endorsing Senator John McCain, the possibility is there that I might.” What has caused the change of heart for Dobson: quite simply, a lack of a suitable alternative.
Dobson’s switch is a microcosm of a larger problem for evangelicals who believe in the sanctity of life; what is more important, a reduction of the number of abortions in other countries or the promise of an end of the war in Iraq? Will either McCain or Obama appoint justices to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade? No. What is the criterion this year for voting for the pro-life (anti-abortion) candidate?
It may come down to which candidate will allow federal funds to be used for abortions. Every change of party in the White House over the last 30 years has included an Executive Order either allowing or forbidding the use of tax payer funds to pay for abortions (Reagan – 1984, 1988) (Clinton 1993) (Bush 2001). Obama, who is endorsed by NARAL, will probably issue an Executive Order to provide funding for international family planning groups who provide abortions. McCain will probably keep the current funding restrictions in place during his presidency.
If there is no realistic chance of overturning Roe v. Wade, then what constitutes the preservation of life for evangelicals in 2008: perhaps ending the war in Iraq? As far as the war in Iraq is concerned, Obama has gone on record to say he favors an earlier withdrawal of American troops. McCain’s staff and surrogates are not sure which policy is better for their candidate. If you are an evangelical supporter of a pro-life platform the question may come down to the following: Is saving the lives of American soldiers and Iraqi nationals more important than continuing a funding ban on abortions that primarily affects other countries? Pro-life v. Pro-peace…one of the tough decisions of Election 2008!
Annnnd….attempts by state and federal governments to interfere with a woman’s freedom to control what goes on inside her own personal womb continue apace. Joe Windish has an earlier piece about an 8th Circuit decision that unleashes the State of South Dakota on women who seek abortion in that state by letting the state insert a word or two on behalf of its legislature into the discussion. At this rate, I’m afraid, just having the state insist on telling women who are trying to make a decision about its legislators’ personal views is going to be the least of our worries.
Hillary Clinton is (in her words) ’sound[ing] the alarm’ regarding the Department of Health and Human Service’s pending regulations that will redefine common forms of contraception as ‘abortion.’ What’s in a name?:
These proposed regulations set to be released next week will allow healthcare providers to refuse to provide contraception to women who need it. (HuffPost)
That’s bad. That’s very, very bad. The ramifications are serious, both for those who think it’s not the government’s business to impose its current ideology on health care issues such as availability of contraception to the poor or who are already grumbling about all the women on welfare who expect taxpayers to pay for their children’s basic necessities.
If you’re one of those, you should definitely sign this petition. Here’s why:
In this morning’s civil rights roundup David brought us the headline — doctors in South Dakota are now required to tell a woman seeking an abortion that the procedure “will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique living human being.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit last week lifted a preliminary injunction handing a victory to antiabortion forces:
The doctors’ script that officially took effect Friday has been tied up in court since 2005, when Planned Parenthood challenged a law that instructed physicians what to tell abortion patients. Under the law, doctors must say that the woman has “an existing relationship” with the fetus that is protected by the U.S. Constitution and that “her existing constitutional rights with regards to that relationship will be terminated.” Also, the doctor is required to say that “abortion increases the risk of suicide ideation and suicide.”
The message must be delivered no earlier than two hours before the procedure. The woman must say in writing that she understands.
Emily Bazelon, who did a background story on the law a few weeks ago, blames Justice Kennedy’s SCOTUS blathering and won’t be surprised if other states copy follow suit:
The 8th Circuit’s decision to uphold the South Dakota law, even though it compels doctors to say things they don’t believe, is in part the fault of Justice Anthony Kennedy. In his 2007 decision banning a method of late-term abortion, Kennedy worried a lot about women who regret having abortions. With paternalistic abandon, he wrote about their “distress” in terms of their “lack of information” about abortion. Kennedy was talking, in graphic specifics, about lack of information on the way a so-called partial-birth abortion unfolds. Whether or not he’s right, these details have nothing to do with philosophical musings about whether the fetus is a human being. But that didn’t stop the 8th Circuit from quoting him at length in the very different context of the South Dakota law.
The fraught claim that abortion harms women, which I’ve written about before, was languishing in legal Nowheresville until Kennedy unexpectedly raised it up and blessed it. Now that notion, and the small minority of women who attest to it, are a handy new tool for abortion opponents. The 8th Circuit includes six other states—Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and North Dakota. Laws that compel doctors’ speech, as this one does, would now be legal in all those places, should state legislators adopt them. And if states in other regions want to try passing such laws, they’ll have a great precedent to cite to the other circuit courts.
Also from Slate William Saletan weighed in on fetal separation, then wound up talking birth control again. Jessica@Feministing points to the AP story, the Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota statement — “We remain optimistic that, in time, the court will find that the law is unconstitutional,” says PPMNS President and CEO Sarah Stoesz — and Get Involved page, and her co-blogger Ann on the politics of “informed consent.”
Obama has clarified his supposed opposition to allowing a woman to have a late term abortion in circumstances when the pregnancy causes the mother mental distress. (The Swamp) He does not think mere ‘mental distress’ is a reason to permit such an exception.
According to Linda Douglass, the Obama campaign’s senior spokesperson, the senator from Illinois was making a distinction in the magazine interview between medically diagnosed mental illness and the kind of mental distress that an unwanted pregnancy causes many a pregnant mother. (The Swamp)
He does think such an exception should be permitted in circumstances in which there is medically diagnosed mental illness — a position that still doesn’t please either side of the abortion argument. (The Swamp)
Condi Rice is proud —PROUD, I TELL YOU — that the US went to war in Iraq. And she’s sure that the world isn’t more dangerous as a consequence. Meanwhile, some Republicans are apparently in a state of alarm and despondency over the President’s current activities. They’re worried about the President, already sufficiently unpopular, is being shown fiddling about while the economy goes up in flames.
My mind started thinking of the infamous Senator Larry Craig, then of Conservatives, then of hypocrisy, and then of “family values and moral values”–perhaps not in that exact order.
Then, my mind somehow wandered back to the 2,000 and 2004 elections, and how, during those elections, Conservatives blanketed the electronic and printed media with messages of how our country had lost its moral compass; how Americans had lost their family and moral values; how Republicans and Conservatives–if elected–were going to re-instill those values in government, in society and anywhere else they could; how our new president would “restore honor and dignity to the White House.”
As a matter of fact, just prior to the 2004 elections a whole new class of voters was created, the “values voters,” and political analysts claim that moral values and family values trounced every other value or issue in the 2004 elections–even the economy, the Iraq war, and terrorism–and were responsible for the Republican victories that year.
Our great, fair and balanced Fox News proudly proclaimed on November 4, 2004,
“Though the airwaves preceding the election were rife with talk of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the management of the war in Iraq, job creation and even the so-called legions of angry, young voters — it turns out good old ‘family values‘ may have been the key to President Bush’s successful Election Day strategy.”
The Democrats were “doomed” until they can woo the voters who belong to this new political force, the values voters.
But wait, it is now 2008 and the presidential campaign is in full swing. It is awfully quiet out there when it comes to “good old” family values and moral values. Where are the Republicans to once again tout their moral and family values superiority and to claim such values as Conservatives-only territory?
The last time I remember a Republican presidential candidate addressing that issue was Mitt Romney back in December of 2007.
… there are signs that family values have lost their punch as a campaign issue. Most voters say family values in general are important to them, but a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds they don’t care much about candidates’ personal lives. Political analysts say voters and candidates have broader, more immediate concerns: the ongoing U.S. action in Iraq and Afghanistan, nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea, the threat of terrorism and an economy that’s putting stress on low- and middle-income people.
And,
The “traditional” family — a married couple with kids — made up fewer than 22% of U.S. households last year, according to the Census, down from 40% in 1970. Roughly one-fifth of Americans have been divorced. Nearly two in five U.S. births last year were out of wedlock, more than twice as high as in 1980. More than half the country says same-sex partners should be able to marry or form civil unions.
It could also be that when comparing the major Republican presidential candidates against the major Democratic presidential candidates during this year’s elections in terms of “family values,” the Republicans do not fare as well as the Democrats. According to USA Today:
Among the Republicans, Giuliani is in his third marriage while McCain and Thompson are each in his second… Romney and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee are married to their high school sweethearts. On the Democratic side…Dennis Kucinich, 61, is in his third marriage…Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, former North Carolina senator John Edwards and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson are married to their original spouses. So is New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, despite her husband’s affair while he was president…Overall, “the Democratic candidates actually have more stable family lives than the Republicans,” says Tony Fabrizio, a GOP pollster
On Giuliani, in particular, USA Today said:
The most surprising candidate this year has been Giuliani. He remains a top GOP contender despite his longstanding support for abortion rights and his widely publicized extramarital affair with Judith Nathan — to whom he is now married — during his previous marriage. He’s even been endorsed by Pat Robertson, a leading Christian conservative who says the key issue is who can best fight terrorism.
And finally,
Americans also have seen major cultural changes become woven into society. Divorce, blended families and women in the workforce are common, and polls show most people support gay civil rights. “First we had the feminist and the sexual revolutions, and then we went through a long period where so much of politics was a backlash against those movements,” says Frances Fox Piven, a sociologist and political scientist at the City University of New York Graduate Center. “That’s kind of been worked out now. People have adjusted.”
Yes, these are all plausible explanations as to why Democrats are not being lectured as much on “values” by Republicans. But on a lazy, summer Saturday afternoon in Texas, the mind does funny things, like recalling names such as:
David Vitter, Jack Abramoff, Mark Foley, Bob Packwood, Bob Ney, Randy “Duke” Cunningham, Ted Haggard, Rick Renzi, Bob Allen, and, yes, the one that got my mind wandering to begin with, the inimitable Larry Craig.
And the mind comes up with additional and interesting explanations.
A note to my gay friends and readers: This lazy afternoon’s epistle should in no way be viewed as critical of anyone’s sexual orientation. On the contrary, I find it distasteful when people cover-up their God-given sexual orientation for political purposes, and I find it morally unforgivable when people misuse their positions of power to legislate against, prosecute or punish the perfectly legal and human actions and behavior of those of their own sexual orientation.
Our national schizophrenia on firearms defies rational explanation. In the wake of yesterday’s Supreme Court decision, both presidential candidates and, according to public opinion polls, most voters believe in “the right to bear arms.”
Yet only one out of three Americans owns a gun and, after mass murders like Virginia Tech, there is an upsurge of grief and outrage at the easy availability of deadly weapons.
Somehow, there is a disconnection between the idea of guns and the reality of what they do that can’t be explained away by NRA lobbying or the fierce protestations of “gun nuts.”
How do we reconcile the apparent contradiction that many of those who believe in preserving the life of fetuses are just as passionate about the right to own weapons that kill human beings after birth?
As they begin their unity tour this week, Hillary Clinton has a powerful argument to win over diehard supporters who resist backing Barack Obama because he kept her from becoming the first woman in the Oval Office.
If John McCain is elected, they can kiss goodbye to Roe v Wade, which has been teetering in the Supreme Court balance since Bush started naming Justices and would surely be overturned in another Republican Administration.
As late as last year, McCain told Tim Russert on Meet the Press: “I have stated time after time after time that Roe v Wade was a bad decision…To me, it’s an issue of human rights and human dignity.”
So much for pro-choice and the illusions of Independents and disaffected Democrats that, on the overriding issue of women’s rights, McCain is not Bush Redux.
Obama ran into flak at the Black Caucus last week for saying, “If women take a moment to realize that on every issue important to women, John McCain is not in their corner, that would help them get over it.”
Hillary Clinton can help everyone involved “get over it” by reminding ardent supporters, both men and women, of what could be at stake if they fail to do so.
May 24th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
I’ve got a junior reporter down on the Libertarian National Convention floor today. Rachel Hawkridge, is a Libertarian activist and delegate from the state of Washington to the Convention being held in Denver over five days.
She phoned in to me just a few minutes ago to say the front runners in the race for nomination to run for POTUS have now been tallied in the first ‘tokens’ vote. The people with the highest votes will now be placed into major debates tomorrow… to be followed by delegates’ final vote for who will become the Libertarian Candidate for POTUS.
The candidates thought to be in hottest contention for the final nomination are:
Senator Mike Gravel from Alaska, 78 years old, who also ran on the Democratic ticket to be nominated for 2008 President. Senator Gravel, is revered by many for long ago reading into the congressional record, non-stop- the entirety of the Pentagon Papers which Nixon was trying to suppress. He believes in “direct democracy” wherein sovereign authority is kept by the citizens to govern themselves, rather than “representative democracy” with an elected representative who works and lives at arms’ length from the people. He’s a Unitarian Universalist
Representative Bob Barr, age 59, a Republican from Georgia, and a Methodist who entered office when Newt Gingrich’s Republican Majority (first time R majority in forty years) was going sweep clean and bring a new day, but Barr was turned out of office by a huge margin eventually. Since, he now has helped to found an organization called Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances, a bipartisan group wanting to eliminate clauses of the Patriot Act that could wrongfully penalize innocent citizens. He is also recently involved with the ACLU.
Dr. Mary Ruwart, 59, is a Libertarian activist with a Ph.D., in biophysics. With F. Kendall and L. Louw, Dr. Ruwart is the author of Healing Our World in the Time of Aggression and Short Answers to the Tough Questions. She has a large number of supporters from her 30 years of libertarian activism. Amongst other human concerns, she advocates that people ought to be able to choose how they die and when, if confronted with grievous illnesses. Her sister was a person who engaged Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s aid. Ruwart spent 19 years as a pharmaceutical research scientist for Upjohn Pharmaceuticals and has written extensively on the subjects of government regulation of the drug industry. She holds three patents for life-giving procedures.
Mr. Wayne Allen Root, soon to be 48 years old, is Jewish, and a millionaire Las Vegas odds maker. He runs a media corporation, also has penned books, and some say, he seeks to “finish the job that Ron Paul started.” He is a self-described S.O.B. (son of a butcher), who plans, amongst other things, to eliminate the Department of Education, and “end all federal income taxes immediately and move all of them to the state level… The Founding Fathers never envisioned a government that could take away 50 percent of the money we make…” He graduated from Columbia in the same class as Barack Obama, and he and his wife home school their children.
The Denver Post today speculates that Bob Bar can win the Libertarian nomination “ for his fame.” Meaning, his profile in the nation is higher than other candidates here today. But, my girl-reporter on the Convention floor today says some of the reaction to Bob Barr is very much otherwise:
“Many delegates are walking around with big buttons that feature a rainbow, with Bob Barr’s name over it, and over his name a huge red circle and slash…”
“ There is a large GLBT contingent in the Libertarian party,” says Miss Hawkridge, and “Bob Barr was the author of the ‘only man-woman marriage allowed’ bill.” In additional to issues for GLBT regarding marriage, for Libertarians, the intrusion of ‘church’ into state, is anathema.
Also, according to Hawkridge, a significant number of the delegates remember Barr as one of the most conservative and loud members of the Federal Congress.
Barr not only wrote and sponsored the Defense of Marriage act, but also voted for the Patriot Act; proposed the Pentagon ban a religious group from practice in the military: Wicca; and advocated complete federal prohibition of medical marijuana—succeeding in this last with his “Barr Amendment”– which also forbid any future law that would decrease penalties for marijuana use.
Hawkridge says it is clear that Barr has had some kind of change of mind that led him from being a Republican to being a Libertarian.
That changeover occured after he, with high moral indignation, plowed into impeaching then President Clinton, but had secretly enabled his own wife to have an abortion while also supporting anti-abortion measures in Congress (outed by Larry Flynt)…
But Hawkridge says that most poignant, today, when speaking with Barr this morning, he could not look Hawkridge in the eye.
“He spoke to me, but kept looking at the floor… he couldn’t look at me, just kept saying in answer to my deeper questions, that he was misled about the Patriot Act, that he was lied to about the Patriot Act, and that ‘we were not told the truth about the Patriot Act.’”
The Denver Post reports that Dr. Ruwart, who has been a Libertarian since the 1980s, said the strongest candidates are herself, Barr, Gravel and Root. She is the only one of them who isn’t a Johnny-come-lately, she said.
“They [suddenly appearing-out-of-nowhere Libertarian-converts who want to run as candidate for POTUS] are kind of like the newly converted wanting to go preach from the pulpit,” she said.
Bob Barr may be the most recognizable, although I’d say it’s Senator Gravel who has passion to ‘make things better’ –similar to Barr’s– but with genuine charm and casting his nets to help far more broadly… and Gravel has a whole set of street creds ‘for the people,’ not just some for ’some very few of the people.’
And as for Dr. Ruwart, she sounds like one heck of a strong woman who keeps being point woman… and who herself, can’t and won’t, be Barred.
—————
CODA
Disclosure: Rachel Hawkridge is a young ‘daughter of spirit,’ a sharp observer/ straight talker. I’ve known her and her gallant engineer husband Gene for over ten years. They are Libertarian activists and Convention delegates from Kenmore, Washington.
Errata: A sentence, “John McCain won that race.”, was inadvertantly placed in this article. It has been removed. It belongs to another article entirely. Sorry. The error is mine.
In his book, Schecter makes the case for why, although he supported McCain in his run in 2000, McCain no longer deserves support and in fact, his candidacy should be fought actively, without hesitation and on all fronts. Schecter outlines his reasons for these sentiments and fills in those reasons with more details than you may be able to absorb. Schecter draws a portrait of both McCain’s political trajectory and the parallel trajectory of how his political choices since 2001 are a thumbing of his nose at the very people who got him to the presidential precipice in the first place.
A couple of disclosures before I offer you my phone interview with Cliff: I’ve never been a McCain supporter. And I haven’t known of Schecter that long either - here’s the first post I ever wrote about Schecter. However, it was fascinating talking to someone with a seemingly vast knowledge base about someone whom I’ve never really studied.
JMZ: You argue on behalf of former McCain supporters who should be able to realize that McCain isn’t what he once was. Who, then, is the alternative and why?
CS: Well. There’s always, “What we have versus what we’d like to have.” I’m an Obama supporter and he has a lot of appeal to Independents. But he hasn’t done it the way McCain did it – by attacking his own party in big speeches. Obama has done it by standing up, not by splitting. Obama talks about rising above partisanship and reaching out to all people on all sides and getting past the muck where politics has gotten so nasty. Obama says, I’m going to talk to you like an adult. And that’s what McCain had called “straight talk” – but he hasn’t given us much of that [this election cycle.] Read the rest of this entry »
This post does not reflect the opinions of TMV authors or editorial staff. It is strictly my own.
The ArchCrone and the ShortWoman are proud to announce a Mothers Day blogging event called the Mothers Day Blogswarm for Maternal Death.
The purpose of this event is twofold: first, it is a counter-protest to a staged "funeral" for embryos and fetuses that hae been aborted; second, we plan to bring attention to the lives of actual women whose lives have been wrecked if not outright ended by the lack of timely, affordable, safe abortion services. We need co-bloggers to write about this issue or sub-topics such as: state by state maternal mortality stats; Crisis Pregnancy Center misinformation; legislative misinformation/delays; Darfur; health care for women; adequate prenatal care; misinformation about birth control; parental consent laws; physician shortage/intimidation; "gag rules"; South Dakota; "trash can babies"; or anything else you can think of.
You can learn more about the event here or here. Please contact us if you want more detailed information or would like to participate.
“Bush sees the world in terms of good and evil, and he considers that only a united front encompassing all 2.2 billion Judeo-Christians will be able to resist Islam. Recent decades have seen increasing religious tension and the spread of theocracies, which now encompass almost all Arab countries.” Read the rest of this entry »
Did the Pope visit the United States in part to influence the U.S. Presidential race in favor of John McCain?
That seems to be the conclusion of a large number of mainland Europeans.
This article from France’s Journal du Dimanche au Quotidien, quoting French journalist V. Jauvert, points out, “Since April 16 - his birthday - Pope Benedict XVI has been in the United States for a rather long trip (for an old person): a week. And he didn’t go there just to blow out the candles on the cake offered by Dubya … The Pope is (subliminally) campaigning for J. McCain … the official visit of a Pope during a very tight election campaign is contrary to tradition. … this trip, beyond the spiritual and political, is a pretext to support the pro life candidate.’
Jauvert goes on to say that in 2004 before his elevation to the papacy, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote to American Bishops saying, “it’s not possible to defend the right to abortion and receive communion, and that therefore, those who vote for Kerry, who take communion each Sunday, “would be guilty of formal cooperation with the devil!”
Why is it that Popes don’t usually visit the United States during presidential election years? Lucas Mendez writes for the BBC Brazil, “As neutral as the papal robe is, his messages can and will be used by the candidates … every time Benedict XVI opens his mouth, Democrats and Republicans will interpret and “spin it,” according to their own political ‘gospels’” Read the rest of this entry »
On Meet the Press Sunday, Mike Huckabee answered a question about punishing doctors for performing abortions: “I think if a doctor knowingly took the life of an unborn child for money, and that’s why he was doing it, yeah, I think you would, you would find some way to sanction that doctor. I don’t know that you’d put him in prison, but…”
After protestations that he would never “use the government institutions to impose mine or anybody else’s faith or to restrict” others, Huckabee undermines that reassurance by saying he would ban all abortions “not just because I’m a Christian, that’s because I’m an American,” thereby consigning all those who don’t agree that life begins at conception to the same status he gives illegal immigrants.
Therein lies the danger of Huckabee to the separation of church and state–that as a man whose faith “really defines me,” his definition of issues would erase that traditional line without acknowledging it as all previous presidents have scrupulously done.
Even George Bush’s fake piety, used by Karl Rove to swindle the Religious Right, never extended that far. Banning gay marriage disappeared as an issue right after the elections.
Commendably, Huckabee reassured Tim Russert he would include atheists in his White House, but the Constitution requires the President to be more than smoothly-tolerant of others’ beliefs or lack of them. If he is nominated by Republicans, whether or not Mike Huckabee understands that will be one of the main issues in 2008.
![[NZZ am Sonntag, Switzerland]](http://worldmeets.us/images/bushpope_nzzamsonntag.gif)
![[La Tribune, Honduras]](http://worldmeets.us/images/popepedofile_latribunahn.gif)
