The Republicans and Abortion
Lucy just pulled the football away from Charlie Brown again. In the budget compromise that averted a government shutdown, it was the Republicans not the Democrats who blinked on the funding of Planned Parenthood, and it was the pro-lifers who look to the GOP and not the abortion supporters who look to the Democrats who were disappointned. After the compromise, as before, hundreds of millions of tax dollars will continue to flow into the coffers of an organization that kills hundreds of thousands of unborn children each year and whose founder famously said, “The most merciful thing a family does for one of its infant members is to kill it.”
The debate leading up to the compromise provided another reminder of why Roe v. Wade has not been overturned. Richard Scaife, a long-time donor to the GOP and conservative causes, took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal to gush about how his grandmother knew Margaret Sanger and how wonderful Planned Parenthood is. In Scaife's world, government spending is okay when the money is spent on Planned Parenthood. There are lots of old money families with histories similar to Scaife's, as Republican leaders well know, since many of those families are their own. The Bushes, like the Scaifes, were early supporters of Planned Parenthood, and Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, and Laura Bush all remain supporters of abortion.
Republicans such as Scaife and Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, and Laura Bush can tolerate pro-life rhetoric and the occasional law dealing with the margins of the abortion issue, but the overturning of Roe v. Wade would provoke a civil war in the upper reaches of the GOP, which is one reason why that infamous decision has not been overturned, even though Republican presidents have appointed a majority of all Supreme Court justices since it was handed down in 1973. Indeed, thanks to Warren Rudman's memoirs, we now know that George H.W. Bush appointed David Souter to the Supreme Court knowing full well that Souter was a supporter of Roe v. Wade.
Politically, Roe v. Wade has been a tremendous boon to the national GOP. For decades, millions of pro-lifers have reliably voted for Republican presidential candidates on the basis of the pro-life issue, even though many of those voters might favor the Democrats on economic issues. If Roe v. Wade were overturned, the abortion issue would become a state issue, and many pro-life voters would again feel free to consider Democratic candidates for national office. Until Charlie Brown realizes the game Lucy is playing, there is no reason to expect that Roe v. Wade will be overturned or that the GOP as a whole (with many obvious and honorable exceptions) will stand by its stated pro-life beliefs when it matters.
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A very astute observation. The GOP has profited greatly from its lip service to the pro-life cause and given the behavior of voters it seems confident that it will continue to do so. And why shouldn't they be confident that those opposed to federally-funded wanton slaughter of babies will continue to support GOP candidates?
Virtually all of the likely candidates for the GOP nomination in 2012 are piously professing pro-life principles now, but when push comes to shove they will be telling supporters that it will be more important to bomb Iran than to be entangled in the abortion debate.
I always thought Sam Francis apt description of the Republicans as the "Stupid Party" was directed at the leadership, but obviously it applies at least as much, if not more, to the minions who pledge allegiance to the neo-cons who sit atop the pile of the GOP dung heap.
I wish I could say I was disappointed, but at this point the Republicans would have to actually do something sensible to shock me. The funding for PP is one of the least defensible things the government does and should be easy to cut. How are the Republicans going to balance the budget if they can't even cut 1 billion dollar programs that half the country despises? Ugh, I warned people back in November that this is exactly what would happen.
Just to clear the air- the Bush family are an arrogant collection of plutocrats who have successfully used social conservatives. The anti-abortion feints by the two Georges and Jeb are but political tactics by three cynical men who use anti-abortionists as political shields.
The repeal of Roe-v-Wade almost seems as pointless as it is unlikely. Too many Americans have a radical view of liberty and too many have turned away from Christianity for a national ban on the practice. Even given some sort of repeal of Roe-v-Wade and some sort of legislative choice on the matter, at least twenty status would retain the status-quo. States like Massachusetts and Connecticut, heavily Catholic(at least nominally), are no longer a serious part of Christian Western Civilization but are of the post-modern order that dominates most of America's institutions.
Abortion is on the decline for many reasons. One is that doctors, most of whom I would guess are nominally pro-choice, now are forced by ultrasound to acknowledge that what is being killed is human. More and more doctors will not perform abortions although the work of an aborturer is lucrative. The average age of an aborturer is nearing 65 and the number of aborturers has dwindled to less than 2000. Another reason are the protests at aborturary killing grounds. Most landlords don't like the commotion that an abortuary can create. The buying of properties leased by aborturers by anti-abortion crusaders has helped. Possibly the most helpful reason for abortion's decline is that the pro-life crowd is winning the moral argument. It seems to me that most Americans see abortion as a great evil even if a majority still are reticent to encroach on a woman's "choice."
The Republican Party is not going to end abortion and institutionally only really cares about the issue as a source of votes. The good people who are anti-abortion can count only on themselves to defend the unborn. They have fought a gallant and thankless fight with little help from the Republican Party. But I thank them. They are fighting God's fight with the Devil.
Mr. Colin said, "I always thought Sam Francis apt description of the Republicans as the “Stupid Party” was directed at the leadership, but obviously it applies at least as much, if not more, to the minions who pledge allegiance to the neo-cons who sit atop the pile of the GOP dung heap."
Correct, it isn't GOP leadership, but its blind constituency, which is the true target of the descriptor 'Stupid'. Like its corollary in the Evil Party, the GOP leadership is more evil than it is witless.
This is just more support for Dr. Wilson's contention that no real conservative movement can occur until the Republican party is destroyed.
@3, Mr. Leaberry:
"Too many Americans have a radical view of liberty and too many have turned away from Christianity for a national ban on the practice."
That is the problem.
Pointing out the fact that the number - or at least the rate - of surgical abortions peformed in the country has decreased since its peak in the early 90s is extremely naive, not to mention ignorant of traditional Christian doctrine on the subject. Ask any pro-choicer who is on the frontlines of the abortion debate, such as a member of the Guttmacher Institute, and he/she will tell you that the reason for the decline in postconception abortions is because everybody has access to the means for preconception abortion - contraception, that is. Any Christian person who is uncompromising and unyielding on the subject and won't give in to the Satanic forces of mainstream social and political discourse will state the plain fact of the matter: There IS NO DIFFERENCE between contraception and abortion. Both are artificial means of defying, or better yet erasing, God's purpose for sexual relations between a man and a woman, which is reproduction of the species.
In 1964 the Republican candidate for President, Barry Goldwater, came out for leagalized abortion. He and his wife were also big supporters of Planned Parenthood. The first liberalization of the abortion stautes was in the California and signed by Gov. Ronald Reagan 1967. New York followed with a much more liberal law than Caifornia signed by Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Nixon was elected over Hubert Humphrey who had a pro-life record. He apointed 3 of the judges who voted for Roe vs Wade. 5 of the Justices who voted for Roe vs Wade were appointed by Republicans. Gerald Ford and his wife were supporters of abortion. The Bush's have a long history of support for Planned Parenthood and abortion. How the hell did the Republicans become the pro-life party? Well Reagan changed at least in his rhetoric and the platform is without a doubt a fine pro-life document. The Democrats have thrown over the fine pro-life sentiments of many of the constituents. I believe that the Democrats have become the party of death and taxes. By polling most americans want some restrictions on abortion by large majorities. I think that the Republicans as bad as they are are only ones that can do something. 80% of their base is pro-life and is getting fed up.
"that the GOP as a whole (with many obvious and honorable exceptions) will stand by its stated pro-life beliefs when it matters."
Mr. Piatak,
This is an excellent article and rare in its comitment to the "truth of the matters asserted". I have sworn off the issue in terms of wasting my time stating the obvious. Dr. Clyde Wilson has gone so far as to suggest from time to time that conservatives might be better served by the fall of the GOP.First, they take a budget surplus from the Clinton years, then ship millions of good jobs overseas, reducing the tax base from 25.00 dollar an hour jobs to minimum wage, now they want to steal the money that was paid by these workers into the social security scam fund, not by returning it to them, but by diminishing it with inflation to a value of .01 at age 70 -75. Then they opened our Southern border for any abled-body squatter who needed a job, then they started a ten year war in Iraq, Aghanistan, used american tax dollars to pay for the senseless enterprise, then bailed out huge banks who lied cheated and stole, then cut and run leaving behind them a record national debt, only recently to reappear with the same cast of sillies to tell us all that is wrong with America without their leadership. Managing all at the same time to to keep their gleeful audience over one simple issue ---which you have explained here in detail.
Obama? No! GOP? No! Just say no to drugs and politics at the national level and help take our country back--- one home at a time, one neighborhood, one parish and one community. It is really a much more pleasant task than policing the world, one middle eastern democracy at a time!
John Marino @7:
I have heard a story, discussed on this very website, of Senator Goldwater having provided his daughter Joanne with an illegal abortion sometime in the mid-50s. I'd like to have access to the source of that scandalous little tale, after all it's no surprise that it's not on Wikipedia. After hearing that, it was no longer a puzzle to me that the one-time leader of the mainstream conservative movement refused to join their chorus in the late 70s when it started to embrace social issues like abortion and homosexuality. But consider me just a tad shocked - although I shouldn't be - to hear you say that the senator vocally came out in support of legalizing abortion DURING his 1964 presidential campaign . . . yes, the one that leftist critics wailed against as the most extreme, reactionary, right-wing campaign in American history. Being a Californian, I was aware of the skeleton in Reagan's closet, the signing into law of the first abortion legalization legislation in the country. Still, it never ceases to amaze me, how immoral and disgusting politicians can be. GOP politicians, to be specific. At least the unabashedly left-wing Democrats of our political oligarchy are HONEST about what they personally believe, and don't run around trying to establish a voting base by declaring the exact OPPOSITE of it.
Robert @8,
You've provided a most precise and succinct summary of the Republican "accomplishments" under the Bush regime. You are correct, too, in reminding us of Professor Wilson's sober reflection that authentic conservatives and the Republican Party have little to nothing in common!
I'm convinced the GOP braintrust (an oxymoronic term if there ever was one) is terrified of the possibility of abortion becoming rare in the US; it would deprive them of one of the foundation fronts of their Potemkin village, allowing huddled masses to finally see the two-headed oligarchy for what it is.
Brock: Goldwater was quite honest about his support for legalization of abortion in his 1964 campaign. I knew about it and still voted for him. Shame on me. I just hated Johnson so much I couldn't see straight. That is the problem. People just can't stand the Democrat winning. Well what can you do with people like Obama, Kerry Gore, Clinton, Dukakas, Mondale, Carter etc? I almost voted for Carter. I walked in the booth to vote for him but pulled the lever for Ford. Carter was a piece of trash too. He claimed he was pro-life in Iowa to win the primary, but switched after the convention. The leadeship and big contributors to the Republican Party are in the main for abortion and Planned Parenthood. The only thing keeping the party viable is the large pro-life majority in the trenches. They are getting restless about the scum at the top that refuses to do anything about where this country is headed. By the way late in life Goldwater came out firmly for homosexual rights as well. His grandson was homosexuaol. I think it was the grandson who told about Goldwater's daughters abortion.
Did a search on the topic of which you folks speak, and I found this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/what-planned-parenthood-actually-does/2011/04/06/AFhBPa2C_blog.html
Ezra Klein:
"What Planned Parenthood actually does: With Planned Parenthood being either the major obstacle to a budget deal or one of the major obstacles to a budget deal, it’s worth taking a minute explaining what they do — and what they don’t do.
As you can see in the chart atop this post, abortion services account for about 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s activities. That’s less than cancer screening and prevention (16 percent), STD testing for both men and women (35 percent), and contraception (also 35 percent). About 80 percent of Planned Parenthood’s users are over age 20, and 75 percent have incomes below 150 percent of the poverty line. Planned Parenthood itself estimates it prevents more than 620,000 unintended pregnancies each year, and 220,000 abortions. It’s also worth noting that federal law already forbids Planned Parenthood from using the funds it receives from the government for abortions.
So though the fight over Planned Parenthood might be about abortion, Planned Parenthood itself isn’t about abortion. It’s primarily about contraception and reproductive health. And if Planned Parenthood loses funding, what will mainly happen is that cancer screenings and contraception and STD testing will become less available to poorer people. Folks with more money, of course, have many other ways to receive all these services, and tend to get them elsewhere already.
The fight also isn’t about cutting spending. The services Planned Parenthood provides save the federal government a lot of money. It’s somewhat cold to put it in these terms, but taxpayers end up bearing a lot of the expense for unintended pregnancies among people without the means to care for their children. The same goes for preventable cancers and sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS."
John Marino @11:
Wow, Goldwater has a homosexual grandson as well? I did indeed know that the senator came out in favor of homosexual "rights" during the DADT debate back in '93, and assuming 1) his grandson had already come of age and embraced that degenerate sexual practice at the time, and 2) Goldwater knew about it, then perhaps he should be excused from my condemnation of GOP politicians for double-crossing its voters for the past few decades. After all, his political positions on two fundamental and critical issues concerning American families - abortion and homosexuality - reflected the way he raised his OWN family. But of course the one thing that the media will not allow anybody in the mainstream of political discourse to suggest is that such personal views and practices IMMEDIATELY make people like Goldwater, Reagan, the Bushes, etc. unfit and unqualified for elective office in this country.
Don't waste time hating Obama. Save your ire for the GOP. The leadership of both parties are part of the same corrupt elite. The only difference is that the Democrats are more honest in their platform and actually serve their constituents. We must overcome the delusion shared by millions of "conservatives" that the Republicans are the respectable and more reliable party. The Republicans have been successfully serving their plutocracy by fraud since Honest Abe
What the article strongly implies, is that the constituency of antipathy to abortion is a dependent constituency of the Republican party; and that, forasmuch as it is a dependent constituency, the party may traduce this constituency's interests with near-impunity as long as the party puts up appropriate "window-dressing." I have observed the same thing with reference to the firearms-rights constituency.
Actually, though, I have reason for gratitude to G. W. Bush: When he took the U. S. to war in Iraq, specifically that, then and there, was the way in which, though I did not leave the Republican party, the Republican party left me.
Mr. Pinkerton,
I owe my conversion to Dr. Wilson. Let it never be said again here that Roman Catholics are ill equiped to listen to the principles of subsidiarity. Had we had ten Clyde Wilsons (or Tom Flemings) teaching at the college level in the English-speaking world in the past fifty years, that small determinate number might have converted the whole kit-and-caboodle and avoided the mess we find ourselves in today. As it is, good men must simply plod along with their daily christian prayers and duties as best they can and with what glimpses they see through this vale of tears. Admiring "not the less but more, as music heard supercedes the score."
Planned Parenthood is the nation's number one abortion provider and abortion accounts for most of its revenue. Sterilization and contraception are contrary to traditional Christian teaching as well. Rockefeller, Soros, Gates and Buffet money are all being used to promote a population control agenda. A nation-state has a legitimate right to control its borders, not to kill its children.
What should be obvious to all is that two of Mr. Bush's first acts in his "first hundred days" was to issue executive orders for cutting back on federal funds for abortion providers and approving the Food and Drug Administration's recommendation to market "Preven and Plan B." Again, there is no better political opportunists ever to walk the earth who can give to the left and take from the right, than our beloved duopoly.
"The fight also isn’t about cutting spending. The services Planned Parenthood provides save the federal government a lot of money."
I do hate this sort of argument. It is used for practically everything these days. Did you know every dollar spent on welfare multiplies out to 4 dollars put back into the economy? What a miracle worker that government is!
Aside from Brock H, does anyone seriously contend that there is no difference between abortion and contraception? While stating the obvious similarity, "Both are artificial means of defying, or better yet erasing, God’s purpose for sexual relations between a man and a woman, which is reproduction of the species," Brock leaves out the equally obvious difference -- that one method destroys life while the other merely prevents it. This not to say that contraception is morally acceptable. I just don't see how anyone could consider the two equally morally grievous.
For the record, Sam Francis made his stupid party/evil party distinction, initially, as a joke he heard from the man who told it to some visiting foreigners who wanted to understand the American system. Sam, with a PhD in British history, assumed that everyone would recognize it as a borrowing from JS Mill's characterization of the Tories as the Stupid Party. I believe Disraeli ironically borrowed the phrase but I am too lazy to check it out. If only the GOP were the Stupid Party in the sense that Mill intended, that is, a party of stubborn opposition to progress and unreflective commitment to outmoded ideals of patriotism, property, and class.
Actually I agree with Brock H regarding abortion and contraception. And I agree that contraception is a big part of the reason for the drop in abortions. However, until we experience a religious reawakening in this country and the West, the contemplation of banning contraception would be a futile exercise.
On a question brought up by Mr. Marino, count me as skeptical that Barry Goldwater pronounced his views on the subject of abortion in his 1964 presidential campaign. In 1964, abortion was still a subject not brought up in polite society, or even in the impolite society of politics. On occasion perhaps, abortion may have been discussed after a few drinks at the 19th Hole of certain Waspish Country Clubs by men who feared the "great unwashed" demographically overthrowing their order, which indeed is what happened.
Years ago I read Luigi Barzini's THE ITALIANS, written circa 1960. Barzini mentioned in that fine book that Italy would not contemplate divorce laws. And it did not come to his mind to write about the crime of abortion, so assured Barzini was that the laws against that evil would never be overturned in his country. But the usually perceptive Barzini was caught behind the curve. Italy would have both divorce and abortion rights scarcely a decade after his book was hot off the presses. And so went America as well. Although America had divorce rights in 1960, the divorce culture had not snowballed as it has since. Divorce was still considered shameful by a large majority of Americans and even derailed the presidential aspirations of Nelson Rockefeller. And no state had legalized abortion in 1960. When Barry Goldwater drove his pregnant daughter to suburban Maryland in 1958 to butcher his unborn grandchild, he committed a felony and would have surely had his political career ruined if what he did had become public knowledge. But the societies of both Italy and America, and for most of Western Civilization for that matter, revolutionized in the 1960s and not for the better.
"If only the GOP were the Stupid Party in the sense that Mill intended, that is, a party of stubborn opposition to progress and unreflective commitment to outmoded ideals of patriotism, property, and class."
Yes, for that would make them the party of sanity. I find that the people who most closely fit this profile are also the least political, and often the least likely to vote. I never waste my breath criticizing the Democratic party. Reason: because all of my friends and family are Republicans. So I spend all of my time attacking the GOP. They believe that supporting the GOP is the conservative thing to do. And nothing I can say will dissuade them. By the way, the women in my family are much wiser on this front, instinctively recognizing that there is no substantive difference between the parties, and caring not a fig for national politics.
#15 - Dr. Wilson, today happens to be the 146th anniversary of Lincoln's assassination. Speaking of which, while we should hope, for his soul's sake, that he repented of his war crimes before his death, it is unlikely, because he was an unbeliever and didn't know his end was coming so quickly anyway. Those who live by the gun sometimes die by the gun. . .
I remember reading Goldwaters views. He was always pretty honest. I am not misreporting them. At the time they just did not cause much of a stir. People were not into the issue at that time. There was no prolife movement in the 60's. It got started in about 69 or 70. He wanted to bomb Vietnam into the stone age, as well. He had a kind of killer instinct. I think he was deranged. Read Joe Sobran's obituary for him and get the true flavor of what he was. Like I say I was a big supporter of his. But I think now that he would have been even worse than Johnson. I liked Reagan when he ran for governor. Once he got in one of the first things he did was sign a big pro-abortion bill. That was enough for me I could never stand the sight of him even if I liked his other issues. What got me on his side was when he got up and apologized for signing the bill in the 1976 campaign. Goldwater was the first candidate pushng abortion. He got little or no resistence. He only mentioned it periferally. Then Reagan and Rockefeller followed, in his footsteps, again with little resistence or complaint. It was then that the resistence finally got going. The Democrats were actually more prolife. The Kennedy's especially some of the girls were early pro-life suporters as was Mayor Daley of Chicago, and Senator Proxmire of my state. All that turned when McGovern got the nomination. from then The parties moved in opposite directions. I think the Republicans have been somewhat sucessful eletorially in the last 40 years only because of the large pro-life vote, many of them former Democrats.
Thank you for this very fine piece, Tom.
On the question of the relationship between the proliferation of contraception and that of abortion, I am nearly certain that even Guttmacher Institute has admitted a correlation, if not a causal relationship. It has been several years since I picked through these kinds of studies. Nonetheless, it is nearly intuitive: contraception enabled widespread fornication and widespread fornication (and eugenics) is to blame for abortion. One piece of evidence is that abortion percentages tend to hew very close to illegitimacy percentages in the general population and also by race. Insofar as there is a recent decline in the number of abortions, it may very well derive from a slowly growing moral revulsion, but as long as the majority of people who call themselves Christians in what is left of the West sterilize themselves or eat pills to frustrate the Divine plan, abortion rates are not going to diminish significantly. Tell your friends who are opposed to abortion to toss their pills and condoms in the trash and have another baby (provided they are married, of course). It's the most pro-life thing you can do.
We have not been living in nor are we living in a sexual revolution; we have been and are experiencing an anti-sexual revolution which has substituted as a counterfeit the erotic encounter with sex. Sex at its core is the act of a male and female with sperm and egg with the proclivity, intent and follow-through to thereby produce offspring, i.e. to follow our Lord's command to be fruitful and multiply. The act, robbed by the condom, the pill and the "gay life style," is an act without a purpose innate to the created order. The end result is death: death of a familial line; death of a society; the death of a culture; a demographic dead end. Throughout Scripture, the creature man is implored to be fruitful in all aspects of his being; for being fruitful glorifies God.
I have two friends, one from Russia and one from Cuba; both saw through, long before I did, the Republican ruse. At its inception, the Republican Party was an alliance of corporatists and Jacobins and of South-hating abolitionists and African-hating Free Soilers. Faux and disingenuous.
It would seem that the South, particularly those thereof who call themselves Christians, have since 1860 developed the Stockholm syndrome in that we have developed a seemingly fatal attraction to those who initiated our destruction and who continue to aid and abet it, namely the Republicans.
Excellent column Mr. Piatak. My belief is that deep down most WASP Republicans either favor Abortion "rights" or don't really care about the issue.
As for Barry Goldwater, I think someone stated that something to the effect that you rarely found a stupid Jew but when you did he was REALLY stupid. I think it applies to Barry.
I have no doubt he was an honest, straightforward honorable man, blah-de-blah, but he was a dunderhead. After 1968 he overshadowed by Reagan and seemed to have to be jealous of "Ronnie" for the rest of his life. Nor did he ever give Wallace his due. His constant support of Nixon, Bush, and Ford made me realize he was either a phony or a blockhead.
The current sellout on "social issues" is just part of pattern that goes back to Nixon in 1969. Does anyone mention that from 1969 to 2008 the Republicans put 10 judges on the SCOTUS and the Democrats 2, and yet Roe vs Wade is still the law of the land?
When I stated that many WASP Republicans are overtly or covertly pro-choice I'm thinking not just of the "Republican Blue bloods" but of people like Pat Robertson. His choice in 2008 was Rudy. Evidently Rudy's "Pro-Israel" stance trumped his "Pro-choice" position in Pat's eyes. The same seems to be true of Gary Bauer and men like Rev Hagee.
The Lucy pulling the football from under Charlie Brown comparison is hilarious & brilliant Tom.
Let's get a bit of history here. In the 1960s George Wallace showed the vote power of social issues and religious people. The Republican leaders had never cared about or even thought of this before. But they saw the potential for maintaining power. They changed their rhetoric a bit. They kept on doing what they had always been doing and continued to regard their voters with amused contempt as they always had.
So the Republicans during elections were never so strongly about social or religious issues before 1960s?
No, they were not, though they presented themselves as the party of middle and upper class respectability--a posture they had held since the days of "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion." as a cover for their unfailing service to the plutocracy and self-serving political patronage.
Dr. Wilson,
In those days it must have been more difficult to assasinate the character of honest men with human failings than it is today. I say this because isn't it true as a part of the GOP's calumny against Catholics they also would often ask, "Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa?”
Until the democrats won and could answer:
"He’s in the White House, haw, haw, haw."
“Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa?”
Some of Cleveland's allies suggested that he do all he could to suppress the illegitimate child but he refused to do that. It is impossible to imagine any modern candidate possessing even that much moral fiber.
Robert,
"Ma, ma where's my Pa?" referred to Grover Cleveland, who was alleged to have fathered an illegitimate child.
Thank you, Tom.
I was aware of the question referencing his illegitimate child. I thought the response, "In the White House haw, haw, haw, was quite good."
I was in Ames, Iowa once when Pat Buchanan was running against Elizabeth Dole and Steve Forbes. Pat brought the house down with his speech but all the glitze was with Forbes. Candidate Forbes had arranged for thousands of balloons to fall from the ceiling after his speech while John Phillip Sousa music played in the background. But for some reason the balloons came down early and the Brigades starting stomping and popping them. Only half of Forbes speech could be heard. Politics is a cruel and demanding mistress.
The Times during the campaign pointed out that the race was between a man of an impeccable home life but a political crook--"James Blaine, the monumental liar from the state of Maine"--and Cleveland, a publicly upright politician with an immoral private life. As always, the Times lied. That unmarried men enjoy the favors of an unmarried woman who expects a few presents is not exactly the crime of the century, certainly not the 19th century. And, as it turns out, the lady enjoyed the favors of several married men who were Cleveland's friend. As a bachelor, with less to lose, Cleveland took the rap and paid the money, though he was probably not the father. I hold no brief for Cleveland's policies, but he is among the more morally responsible men to have been in the White House.
Robert,
I wish I had been there. Things were always lively with the Brigades.
Dr. Fleming is absolutely correct about Grover Cleveland and the affair surrounding Maria Halpin. The Republicans tried to sink Cleveland with the "Ma, Ma, Where's My Pa" campaign but failed. Preventing James Blaine from inhabiting the White House is one of those little victories in American history.
Cleveland was not perfect. Who is but God? But Cleveland was one of our most honest presidents. I am sure that some modern politician in the mode of Newt Gingrich or Bill Clinton would have put the onus of fathering the Halpin child on someone else as Cleveland could have done. Cleveland's friend Oscar Folsom was also an intimate friend of Mrs. Halpin but very much dead. Cleveland would later marry Folsom's daughter, Frances.
Thanks to Derek Leaberry for supplementing my somewhat faded memory. I got interested in the case because I had originally assumed Cleveland was a Clinton type until I looked at several books. It is always pleasant, at least for me, to be disabused of this sort of propaganda.
While Republicans still claim to carry the banner for family values, I think a count would indicate just as many rakes and homosexuals among the Republican leaders as among the Democrats--perhaps more.
It ought to cause a lot of head scratching that in a country where the pro-life position is majoritarian (if less so than twenty sellouts ago) we have one party that is fiercely pro-abortion and one that weakly goes through the motions of being pro-life. Obviously we have a problem of the elite out-maneuvering the rank and file - often by embarrassingly transparent tactics, such as Bill Kristol's 1990s proposal that we needed a "twenty year debate" before trying to repeal Roe. Kind of like a basketball team behind by 15 points going into a Stall offense. If Mr. Kristol has contribued any pro-life speeches to this debate in the nearly twenty years since he made his proposal they have escaped my attention. It's clear that the pro-lifers and social conservatives generally need to do the common-sensical thing and sell their support to the highest bidder. That disagreement over funding Planned Parenthood nearly shut down the government only proves how genuinely important this issue is to both sides. Let us not listen to those who, like Haley Barbour, glibly dismiss the issue as marginal. That's just wishful thinking on the part of an unwilling soldier.
Hungary passed a new federal constitution today that acknowledges life begins with the fetus at the moment of conception. Compare that to all the Republican talk, but no action of the last 40 years.
No surprise here.
PS.
It reminds me of a hundred and fifty years ago tomorrow when Robert E. Lee said, "I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home…" and then promptly resigned from the Army of invaders.
Goldwater's liberal views on abortion and homosexuals should be no surprise to anyone familiar with the man -- he was not a conservative; he was a libertarian. The political issues of the 50s and 60s were "liberal" tolerance of communism and "liberal" insistence that government should solve all our problems. Goldwater was against both of these. The putative opposite of "liberal" is "conservative" so by default he was a conservative. I remember at the time he explained that today's conservatives are the liberals of the 19th century. It took Chronicles a "few" issues to awaken me to the implicit truth in that statement -- that most conservatives today are not really conservatives.
Barry Goldwater was just a politician, and thus a pragmatist and opportunist perfectly okay with bending positions and not adhering to certain views.
It was after him that the young Lew Rockwell gave up following politics forever.
No man is ever "just" a politician. Barry Goldwater was if anything less opportunistic than most "Washington insiders" and it showed in his uncalculatingly poor political instincts. Whether this would necessarily, given his philosophy, have made him a more or less dangerous figure than Kennedy or Johnson in the White House is open to question. But Goldwater lost, Vietnam was a disaster, the U.S. was subjected to a massive Asiatic-Mestizo tidal wave, Roe v. Wade was decided in favor of the former and the USSR collapsed.
So with a Goldwater presidency, it is conceivable the narrative of history might not have changed all that much. Or the student movements of the late 1960s might not have gained as much ground and internationalization as they ultimately did, and the demographic flood might not have attained such a fatal scale as it did. Certainly a Goldwater presidency could not possibly have made things worse.
(In no way do I wish to justify the hagiography surrounding St. Barry of Goldwater or St. Ronald of Reagan.)
I agree with NGPM . "The Conscience of a A Conservative" was ghost written by Brent Bozell Sr.. Yet, unlike Mr. Goldwater, he kept digging deeper than politics which led him beyond current events to more substantial and fruitful truths. I have nothing against politics, but even in the best of times it is more in the realm of rhetoric and dialectic. In the worst of times it is the exercise of mere power and manipulation of public moods to plutocratric ends. To borrow a phrase from Dickens, The christian, when he is most serious, usually lives "in the best of times and the worst of times." I don't feel sorrow for folks who are obsessed with politcal action. Simply tune off the television and tune in to the reality right around you.