National politics

Hillary or Barack: For Catholics?

Leon Suprenant looks at an article that claims that Catholics prefer Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama. The author of the piece he’s dissecting is Melidna Henneberger, and she says that while it would seem that Catholic should prefer Obama—a dubious claim in itself— Hillary is getting the majority of the “white Catholic” vote. As Leon points out, since Clinton is winning the white vote by a landslide anyway, this is hardly revelatory.

Looking even deeper, Leon discovers that the definition of “Catholic” is pretty muddy, especially since Henneberger calls out “devout Catholics” in her figures, naming them as those who attend Mass weekly. That’s not a “devout” Catholic; that’s simply being Catholic.

What we have in this campaign season is an attempt to “win back” the Catholic vote from the Republicans. After all, the GOP has done little lately to endear itself to pro-life, morally conservative Catholics, i.e. those who believe, accept, and put into practice the Church’s teachings in their lives. But is the Democrat Party a serious alternative? Not so long as it tries to advance every moral evil to come along as being the God-given right of those who crave it.

I really do wish the Democrats offered a real alternative, if only to keep the Republicans honest, but as Mark Shea says, our choice is between the “Evil Party” and the “Stupid Party.” Whee!

I wish I could vote “none of the above” and we could all start with a clean slate next November.

Anti-immigrant, anti-Pope

When Pope Benedict visited the US, he called on Americans to continue our great tradition of welcoming immigrants to our shores: “to share their joys and hopes, to support them in their sorrows and trials and to help them flourish in their new home.”

Unfortunately, some Republicans have let their zeal for enforcement of the rule of law, including in the area of immigration with which I agree, become an unjust, un-Christian, and downright un-American animus against immigrants. Period. To wit, one Rep, Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado, who took the occasion of the Pope’s remarks on hospitality to attack the Church.

The Wall Street Journal, in an editorial, quotes Tancredo’s foolish remark:

Mr. Tancredo’s response was to accuse the pontiff of “faith-based marketing” and claim that “the pope’s immigration comments may have less to do with spreading the gospel than they do about recruiting new members of the church.”

Tancredo is no doubt referring to the Pew Forum study that found that the Catholic Church in the US is growing only because Catholic immigrants are flooding our shores. CNN anchor Lou Dobb’s shares Tancredo’s impulses and also attacked the Pope for “insulting” Americans: “I really don’t appreciate the bad manners of a guest telling me in this country and my fellow citizens what to do.”

The Pope simply lives up to the Gospel message that we are to be welcoming to the stranger in our midst and extols our American credo and history of welcoming the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” and that’s bad manners and an insult? No, the bad manners comes from those who let themselves be blinded by ideology, insult a welcomed and honored guest, and twist an American value into something it is not.

To repeat: I agree we need to enforce the immigrations laws to secure our borders, to elevate the rule of law, and to end the exploitation of illegal aliens by criminals and unscrupulous employers that results. But a blanket anti-immigrant ideology harboring a deep well of anti-Catholicism is just unacceptable.

Marriage was the motivator in 2004

In 2004, a number of states had referenda on their ballots for Defense of Marriage resolutions, laws, or amendments. I’ve seen data that suggests that many conservative voters in swing states like Ohio were motivated to go to the polls to vote to protect marriage and, by the way, cast a vote for President Bush. In other words, without those referenda, it’s likely Bush would have lost and Kerry would have been elected.

To my knowledge, there’s no similar broad-based motivator this time around. Will an anti-Hillary or anti-Obama sentiment be enough to motivate conservative voters who are lukewarm about McCain to get them to the polls?

One might take the view that while McCain is not 100 percent reliably pro-life or conservative, no matter what, he’s more pro-life and more conservative than his two possible opponents. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement. Hmm.

Anti-War nuts can’t afford dictionaries

Yes, we’ve all been there: embarrassing spelling errors in our work for all the world to see. Heck, I should be the last person to criticize.

Yet, if you’re Cindy Sheehan, the face of the anti-war movement in the US, in San Francisco, anti-war moonbat central, you’d think you would take extra care before standing in front of this sign:

A five-minute argument against single-payer health care

While you’re considering who to vote for this November for president and Congress, keep in mind the current liberal movement toward “single-payer” healthcare, where “single payer” means the government, which is what Canada has. Want to understand why you probably don’t want a Canadian “free” health-care system? Apart from the confiscatory taxes, there’s the specter that when you’re diagnosed with a potential tumor in your brain, you may be told you have to wait four months for an MRI and another four months for a neurosurgeon’s consult.

That’s what happened to this Ontario man who decided instead to cross the border into the US and pay for his lifesaving treatment out of his own pocket and get it done in four weeks.

Also, keep in mind that the original “Hilarycare” proposal back in the Clinton administration would have made even going to another country and buying medical care with your own money illegal.

So while proponents of socialized health care tout it as a great social justice tool that brings medical care to those without, it’s really just a power grab by liberals and bureaucrats to make everyone suffer from the same terrible health care.

Or as I like to say, “Health care, from the same people who brought you the DMV.”

A little detour through the police state

It’s getting to the point that traveling by air between two cities in this great, democratic republic of ours requires a brief detour through a police state called “TSA”.

I don’t mind security rules that prevent terrorists from hijacking planes. In fact, I wish they’d use security measures that actually worked instead of the pseudo-security that gives the appearance of deterrence without providing it.

Today’s example: A Boston family flying from Chicago to Manchester, NH, decides to stock up on baby food for the flight, keeping mind lurid tales of hours trapped in airliners on runways as well as the unpredictability of winter air travel. TSA guidelines allow an exception to the “no liquids” rule and let you to carry on a “reasonable quantity” of baby food, but do not provide any specific limit.

The family has about one-third of their child’s food confiscated by a TSA screener because the screener and his supervisor thought it was “unreasonable.” Unbelievable.

According to Dr. Soni, the T.S.A. officers said they would need a “doctor’s note” to bring on all of the food. He said he pointed out that he and his wife were doctors, and then offered to get a pediatrician colleague on the phone. [This was not acceptable, evidently.]

The sensible thing to do in this kind of situation is to file your complaint and move on to make your flight, which is what Dr. Soni said he and his wife did.

The T.S.A. officers confiscated some of the food. “They divided it up. They took a jar of prunes and one of bananas, and I think a bottle of formula,” he said.

This is what really bugs me. The only security-related reason to set a limit on how much food one can bring on the plane is because the TSA thinks a terrorist might be trying to smuggle a weapon disguised as food. So at the point they’re confiscating the food, they must suspect this is not food but a weapon. So why would you allow any of the food on board?

On the other hand, if you’re merely a bureaucrat arbitrarily enforcing a rule, then you are satisfied by the act of bringing them into compliance with the rule, regardless of the ongoing threat. That’s someone else’s problem.

If this little family had in fact been a terror cell in disguise, it looks like the screeners left them with enough “materials” to cause a lot of damage to plane, if not take it down entirely. Happily this family was exactly what it seems and the true victims here are the child whose food was taken, the parents who were embarrassed, and the rest of the flying public who must walk through TSA checkpoints with carefully neutral expressions, carefully watching our step and our words, lest we be singled out for search and/or seizure, maybe making us miss our flights, at best, or in jail on trumped-up charges, at worst.

Ironically, I think this is one area where conservatives, liberals, and libertarians can all agree: Airport security is a danger to our civil liberties, to the airline industry, and to our homeland security. Probably more of a danger than to terrorists themselves.

And now if I end up on a no-fly watch list, it will just be an object lesson in what I’ve just written.

Oh, Yes, we can!

With everything that I’ve been writing about him lately, this seemed to come naturally.

Forget qualifications; I just want to believe

Kelly Clark links to this apologia for why this voter is supporting Obama in the election, and it’s scary.

Normally i’m all over experience, policy opinions, legislation, tax policy, etc. etc. But I’ll be damned if leadership, respectability, intelligence, and good old fashioned charisma….aren’t driving my decisions this time around.

I think Obama might just be the right person at the right time. If this were 2000, or even 2004, I don’t think he has a chance. In 2012, he probably wouldn’t have a chance…..but in 2008, I think a weary public just wants….just wants to BELIEVE in America again.

He’s got the right message and the right deliver. I mean, everytime I hear him speak, i have this guilty suspicion that i’m getting suckered…but I just don’t care. [emphasis added]

Imagine you’re the owner of a company with many employees. The company’s performance and profitability and reputation have suffered in recent years and you’ve decided to replace the chief executive. You bring in a potential president and he has no experience in your industry and offers no concrete ideas for how to turn around your company, but he’s charming, witty, and makes you feel good when you talk to him. Are you going to entrust your company to him? Will you stake your family’s financial security on him? Will you stake all your employee’s jobs and their families’ well-being on him?

So why would you give the biggest job in the entire United States of America and the world to him?

It just doesn’t make sense.

And the irony is that this guy’s instincts are telling him that he’s making a bad decision, but he just doesn’t care. What a country.

Empty rhetoric defended with yet more

One of the knocks against Barack Obama is that his famously stemwinding speeches are all emotion and no substance, that it’s merely empty rhetoric. Now, he’s responding to those claims with … more empty rhetoric. Obama is lifting the phrasing of Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick, who had himself responded to the accusations of his Republican opponent that he was offering empty rhetoric.

Here is what Patrick said in his speech:

“But her dismissive point, and I hear it a lot from her staff, is that all I have to offer is words — just words. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, [applause and cheers] that all men are created equal.’ [Sustained applause and cheers.] Just words – just words! ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’ Just words! ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’ Just words! ‘I have a dream.’ Just words!”

Note the construction of a famous quote followed by “just words.” Now here is Obama’s speech:

“Don’t tell me words don’t matter! ‘I have a dream.’ Just words. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ Just words! [Applause.] ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’ Just words — just speeches!”

Now, as James Taranto notes, we should not be surprised that politicians would lift or “share” such lines. Politicians, after all, employ speechwriters whose job it is to put words in their mouths. But what strikes us here is that both Obama and Patrick totally miss the point.

Although the other two examples are arguable either way, “We hold these truths …” and “I have a dream” were anything but “just words.” They were words that held enormous meaning because of the historical context in which they were, respectively, written and uttered. Can the same be said of Obamanalities like “Yes, we can,” or “Change we can believe in”?

Obama and Patrick routinely traffic in empty, feel-good phrases that give the illusion of substance and, more importantly, hope and good will, but which in fact mask a lack of substance that hopes to hide the real reason they hope we’ll vote for him: that he plays the part well; that it is a role that fits him.

Clinton confronted by Steubenvile students at rally

At some Catholic colleges, the problem is that they specifically invite pro-abortion politicians to come speak on campus, thus providing them a platform for their evil agenda and violating the US bishops’ guidelines on this.

But at my alma mater, Franciscan University of Steubenville, if the pro-abortion candidate—or her surrogate—shows up in town—off-campus, mind you—they make it a point to go and let them know that their pro-abortion ways are not universally loved by the Roe generation.

John Kerry learned that difficult lesson in 2004 when he held at a rally in Steubenville, and now Bill Clinton has learned it too. When will the DNC learn to avoid Steubenville. As Darwin Catholic says, it’s not a particularly political campus, but the students are passionate for the cause of life.

Darwin also reproduces a press release from Students for Life of America that gives the transcript of the confrontation.

Note how Clinton claims to have reduced abortions during his presidency. For one thing, it’s all in how you define abortion. Most pro-aborts don’t include so-called “emergency contraception” and other non-surgical abortions. Even more, if the abortion rate went down during his eight years in office, it had nothing to do with him. I’ll bet he couldn’t name a single policy that made a concrete reduction in abortions. But leave it to a liberal: they’d take credit for the sun rising.

Fainting spells for Obama

A Seattle talk radio host thinks he may have found a pattern of women fainting and a canned-sounding response at Barack Obama’s rallies.

A Wall Street Journal writer, James Taranto , has uncovered a hilarious and puzzling coincidence at 5 different Sen. Obama campaign speeches over the last few months, including the recent speech in Seattle.

Dori and listeners have found one other Sen. Obama incident posted on YouTube where a person near the stage faints. Sen. Obama responds to each incident with the same routine and phrases.

Is it phoney, orchestrated, manufactured campaign theatrics or is it merely physiological coincidence? You be the judge.

He then links to the videos and audio of the incidents. I have to say that it’s a startling coincidence. Is it merely more evidence of women “falling” for Obama? Or might his campaign be manufacturing situations that make him look caring and in control?

If it is contrived, you can be sure that the Clinton campaign will root it out and make as big of a splash about it as possible.

Update: Someone has put them all together in one video.

Falling for Obama

Here’s another dispatch from the Vote-from-your-emotions political desk. The headline says it: “Women ‘falling for Obama’”. While some of the “falling” is normal political support, there’s also the dewy-eyed, weak-in-the-knees celebrity gushing too.

You can see it in their flushed-face smiles and hear it in their screams. They say the phenomenon is difficult to describe, but once they experience it they tell their friends, sisters, mothers and daughters, and they come back for more if they can.

“He’s very charismatic. It was a ‘you-had-to-be-there’ kind of experience,” said Lolita Breckenridge, 37, after hearing Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama address a packed rally at the University of Maryland on Monday.

A dedicated supporter, she brought two of her friends to hear the Illinois senator deliver one of his much-talked-about speeches.

“Not too much of the speech was new to me,” she admitted. “But hearing him live…” she trailed off, shaking her head and grinning.

And from his reaction, he’s just eating it up: “He did not flinch when women screamed as he was in mid-sentence, and even broke off once to answer a female’s cry of ‘I love you Obama!’ with a reassuring: ‘I love you back.’”

I wonder, though, how long this sort of thing will carry him through. Will Obama the Rock Star and Obama the Messiah have the staying power to make it all the way through November? I’d like to think the American electorate is smarter than that.

Emoting our way to an identity-politics president

Speaking of presidential politics, syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg writes on a major difference between Democrats and Republicans that I touched on recently, namely that Democrats are obsessed with identity politics.

One thing we’re learning from this election: These really are different parties.

First, look at the Democrats. Listen to the discussion about their strategies. Hillary needs to win more blacks and men. Obama must capture more Hispanics and peel away more white women. Both need to fight for “the youth.”

Now look at the Republicans and how we talk about them. Can John McCain win over conservatives? Should he apologize for his support of amnesty or his opposition to tax cuts? Will Mike Huckabee ever make inroads with economic conservatives? Could Mitt Romney have convinced pro-lifers? Were Rudy Giuliani’s positions on gays, guns and abortion too liberal?

See what I’m getting at? If substance were water, the Democratic campaign would be a desert. Oh, I know, Hillary’s a wonk, and Obama’s got enough policy papers to fill the library at Alexandria. So what? Both Obama and Hillary insist there are no major policy differences between them, except for the war and health care.

[…]

But that’s it. The rest of their disagreement boils down to who is a more authentic agent of “change.” […] But that debate is almost entirely theoretical, drowned out by the mad scramble to assemble an identity-politics coalition of generic “Hispanics,” “blacks,” “white women,” etc. It’s amazing how complacent the media is in carrying on with this kind of nakedly reductionist analysis. The notion that Hispanics may be voting one way or another for reasons other than their ethnicity seems never to come up.

[…]

What Democratic voters actually believe doesn’t seem to be that relevant, in large part because Democrats aren’t voting their beliefs, they’re voting affections.

Obama is “the one” - in Oprah’s words - not because of his policies but because his is a transcendent, unifying, super-nifty-cool personality. Hillary, meanwhile, is staying aloft largely through her ability to guilt-trip female liberals into sticking with her.

There’s no denying the Republican Party has problems—enough to ensure that a Democrat president in 2009 is a real possibility—but what we see is the real emotional immaturity of the Democrats and of a vast swath of the American electorate. Too often the choices in any public policy debate come down to what makes us feel good. Gays want to legally marriage their “partners” so they can receive an emotional stamp of approval from the government, i.e. to “validate their love.” Feminists want to have their anger justified and see misogynistic men grovel. Various groups that harp on racial issues want to make their fellow travelers feel better about themselves in the face of white oppression. Pro-aborts want to feel good about their choice to end babies’ lives. Emote, emote, emote.

Read what supporters say about both Clinton and Obama and you’ll hear about emotion after emotion and not a lot of logic or thought behind it. Neither are Republicans immune to the politics of identity and emotion, but not nearly to the same degree. It’s in not in the DNA of conservatives as much as it is for liberals. But it is the natural progression of a nation that seems most concerned with the foibles of celebrities and an intense kind of navel-gazing that looks at its own bellies and sees the center of the universe.

Obama’s cold-eyed pro-abortionism

Karen Hall relates an Illinois nurse’s encounter with Barack Obama over born-alive infants who had been targeted for abortion. She quotes at length from Stanek.

In February 2004, U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle, sent a fund-raising letter with the "alarming news" that "right-wing politicians" had passed a law stopping doctors from stabbing half-born babies in the neck with scissors, suctioning out their brains and crushing their skulls.

Michelle called partial-birth abortion "a legitimate medical procedure," and wouldn’t supporters please pay $150 to attend a luncheon for her husband, who would fight against "cynical ploy[s]" to
stop it?

But that’s not why Obama’s opponent Alan Keyes said Jesus Christ wouldn’t vote for him.

Obama recalled Keyes’ statement in a recent USA Today opinion piece but omitted his reasoning.

I know his reasoning, because I was there.

As a nurse at an Illinois hospital in 1999, I discovered babies were being aborted alive and shelved to die in soiled utility rooms. I discovered infanticide.

Legislation was presented on the federal level and in various states called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. It stated all live-born babies were guaranteed the same constitutional right to equal protection, whether or not they were wanted.

BAIPA sailed through the U.S. Senate by unanimous vote.  Even Sens. Clinton, Kennedy and Kerry agreed a mother’s right to "choose" stopped at her baby’s delivery.

The bill also passed overwhelmingly in the House. NARAL went neutral on it. Abortion enthusiasts publicly agreed that fighting BAIPA would appear extreme. President Bush signed BAIPA into law in 2002.

But in Illinois, the state version of BAIPA repeatedly failed, thanks in large part to then-state Sen. Barack Obama. It only passed in 2005, after Obama left.

I testified in 2001 and 2002 before a committee of which Obama was a member.

Obama articulately worried that legislation protecting live aborted babies might infringe on women’s rights or abortionists’ rights. Obama’s clinical discourse, his lack of mercy, shocked me. I was naive back then. Obama voted against the measure, twice. It ultimately failed.

In 2003, as chairman of the next Senate committee to which BAIPA was sent, Obama stopped it from even getting a hearing, shelving it to die much like babies were still being shelved to die in Illinois hospitals and abortion clinics.

(As chair of that same committee, Obama once abruptly ended a hearing early, right before Scott and Janet Willis, the parents of six children killed as a result of Illinois’ drivers licenses for bribes scandal, were to testify in favor of Choose Life license plate legislation. I was there for that one, too. The Willises had traveled
three hours. Reporters filled the room. Obama stalled. He later killed the bill when no one was around.)

So, the reason Keyes said Jesus Christ wouldn’t vote for Barack Obama was because of Obama’s fanatical support of abortion to the point of condoning infanticide.

What we have in the two Democrat candidates for the nomination is a very rabid pro-abort who’s mostly interested in the rapid acquisition of power and … Hillary Clinton. Who’d have ever thought that Hillary would scare me less than the alternative, but I think that’s coming true. Sheesh, what a world.

Coming to Obama

Melanie recounted to me the gist of a blog post or article she read to me lately that talked about how a hypothetical future American dictator would come in a uniquely American guise. It would not be a Hitler or a Castro or a Stalin, but wrapped in the American flag and convincing the electorate to put him (or her!) in power to solve all our ills, using vague, but reassuring language.

This blog post at the Wall Street Journal’s Best of the Web Today put me in mind of that conversation. It starts talking about a new YouTube video made in homage of Barack Obama.

The video, which you can watch here, depicts people who appear to be in some sort of trance as they mouth along with Obama’s various rhetorical flourishes from his speeches, then repeat the mantra “Yes, we can.” The whole thing has the feel of a cult of personality.

We aren’t the first to make that observation. The other day one Kathleen Geier, who says she voted for Obama and considers him “a good progressive,” took to the liberal TPMCafe site to declare that she is “increasingly weirded out by some of Obama’s supporters”

Then they offer some quotes from the Sacramento Bee:

“He looked at me, and the look in his eyes was worth 1,000 words,” said [Kim] Mack, now a regional field organizer. Obama hugged her and whispered something in her ear—she was so thrilled she doesn’t remember what it was… .

She urged volunteers to hone their own stories of how they came to Obama—something they could compress into 30 seconds on the phone.

That’s religious language, like someone would talk about how they “came to Jesus.” Other liberals are also becoming increasingly wary of the language of their fellow-travelers on the left about the senator from Illinois.

Does this mean that I think Obama is a potential dictator? Not necessarily. I do think that if such a person were to come to power one day, he would be put there by those who are blinded by his rhetoric and whipped into an emotional fervor and blinded by vague calls for “change” and he will have instilled in them the hope that he will fix all their problems with grand promises wrapped in patriotic images of the US Constitution and heroic Americans.