Posted on 02/14/2005 12:32:01 PM PST by johnny7
It may not be Dr. Joycelyn Elders Democratic Party anymore.
Shes the doctor from Arkansas who went to Washington as surgeon general for her friend, Bill Clinton. She got asked to resign after she proposed teaching youngsters about the pregnancy-preventing sexual alternative of self-gratification. Before that, shed said, Americans need to get over their love affair with the fetus.
Modern-day Democrats are getting more sensitive to the fetus, or the unborn child, or the baby. Science still seems uncertain about delineating those terms. But politics seems to be making synonyms of them all. It appears these days to be Jim Wallis Democratic Party. Hes the liberal Christian minister in Washington who espouses prophetic religion, meaning the kind reflected by Dr. Martin Luther King. Prophetic religion means using a religious underpinning in advocating not for enforcement of sectarian dogma, but for a vision of social reform. King didnt implore people to come to his church. He implored them to follow him into the streets.
When I asked Wallis about abortion last year, he evaded to this extent: He said Democrats need to recalibrate their discussion of the issue to spend more time decrying abortions tragic frequency and less time on a womans right to choose it. He said Democrats had it backward, mentioning almost in perfunctory fashion that they personally found abortion abhorrent, then spending much more energy and passion extolling the right to the thing they just said they found morally abhorrent.
That brings us to Hillary Clinton, about whom there is this debate: Those comments she made last month to an abortion rights group about respecting those who oppose abortion on moral grounds, and about looking for common ground with them on preventing unwanted pregnancy, and about how preventing unwanted pregnancy could best be achieved by abstinence teachings based on religious and moral values were they a reflection of long-held attitudes that belied her stereotype of aloof liberalism? Or were they rightward positioning for red-state ingratiating by a likely Democratic presidential candidate?
Yes.
So many of our either-or questions arent. For example: Was Bill Clinton a character-flawed hollow man or was Ken Starr an abusive prosecutor? Yes, Clinton was. Yes, Starr was. Since her days as first lady of Arkansas, Hillary Clinton has been so strict about her Methodist-ingrained values as to be strident and off-putting. She could be so transparently disapproving of dropping into a bar for a quick drink, or lighting up a smoke, or telling a racy joke. She could be so superior. Her only tolerance was of her husbands infidelity, and that was because of two things: She was crazy about the guy and couldnt help herself, and there were political and policy considerations.
She had said most of that about abortion before. And, truth be told, she didnt make any concessions. She still supports a legal right to choose abortion. She says religion-based values can be the answer for some, but will never work for all. She advocates morning-after contraception, which some states have allowed morally opposed pharmacists not to dispense. But, yes, its also true that she and other Democrats, among them John Kerry and Howard Dean, appear to have come to the political conclusion that they need to moderate their rhetoric and refocus their emphasis. It was Hillarys husband who smartly declared that abortion should be legal, safe and rare. She seems to want to add a couple of words and phrases: tragic and a sin, some would say, and I respect that.
I remember the day in December 1992 when Bill Clinton named Elders surgeon general. Hillary sat in the audience and nodded vigorously as Elders spoke. I dont think shed shake her head now. But I suspect shed try to keep it still.
John Brummett is a columnist and reporter for Stephens media groups Arkansas news bureau in little rock. E-mail: jbrummett@Arkansasnews.com
They'd love to bury this gem!
He(Wallis) said Democrats need to recalibrate their discussion of the issue to spend more time decrying abortions tragic frequency and less time on a womans right to choose it.
Or... just put a cross on top of the abortion clinic. How about dressing the doctors up in priest garb?
Yep, ole Hitlery chose Webb Hubbell to father her daughter since Bubba couldn't. Ole Hitlery had to have that ideal family look. That woman doesn't do or say anything out of character.
Was this why she was calling someone a 'F$%#ING JEW BA$T@RD'
Wasn't Bill Clinton quoted as saying hilLIARy "gets more pu$$y than I do"
The re-writing of her image is starting already- I guess they are going for Sister Mary HilLIARy
After being raised in this church, I can truly say, they have no values.
That's funny because I remember her telling a Gandhi/gas station joke in St. Louis last year in front of an audience.
Well I saw her nodding at the SOTU speech so obviously her nodding has nothing to do with anything.
hillereeee the bobblehead.
She is certainly off-putting, but I don't think it's Methodism that's responsible.
In 1987, Governor Bill Clinton appointed her Director of the Arkansas Department of Health. On September 8, 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed her Surgeon General of the Public Health Service.
Congenital head-bobbing.
Also known on the Indian sub-continent as a "jingly"
The Hillary bobblehead!
For REAL!
Hillary has been very well known for many years as being an especially foul-mouthed, spoiled and arrogant, know-it-all. To those who pay attention, her Marxist background is fairly well established. Those are not the qualities of a committed Christian. The press is aleady giving the big build-up to her phony transformation. I pray it does not work with the voting public.
They're hoping mightily that this is going to work. It might have, 10 years ago, but there are too many out here who know the truth about the woman, and can refute any statements she might make now with her own statements on record. We can show that she hasn't changed her positions, only the way she TALKS about her positions.
She such a lier and totally morally bankrupt.
"Her only tolerance was of her husbands infidelity... She was crazy about the guy and couldnt help herself..."
Ulp...unnnhg...nausea...rising gorge...explosive emesis alert!
Phew. Couldn't help myself.
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