Posted on 01/12/2006 2:59:43 PM PST by neverdem
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January 12, 2006, 11:26 a.m. Lying and Dying Watching a once-great party fall.
Watching the Kate vs. Kate debate on Meet the Press this past Sunday it was our own Kate OBeirne vs. Kate Michelman, formerly of NARAL Pro-Choice America how out-of-date the latter's rhetoric seemed, how diffuse and filibustering her language was, over against the precision, citation of telling facts, and self-confident argument of Kate O' Beirne.
Our Kate, author of Women Who Make the World Worse, talked quietly, as if she owned the future, as when she told the other Kate that, of course, the Left wanted to keep Roe in the courts. Why? Because if Roe were reversed, abortion would not be halted, but the arguments over it would move back into the political sphere of states and localities, where the pro-life forces would win more than half the arguments, for sure. The Left must avoid the democratic branches of government, lest they be badly embarrassed.
Much the same feeling arose from watching with fascination the Alito hearings. How old and out-of-date and empty of real ideas not to say connection to reality Kennedy, Biden, Leahy, Durbin, and, above all, Schumer seemed. They know they have to do what they are doing, but they know their efforts are for nothing, and their words are making hollow echoes. Even their indignation seems forced and falls swiftly flat.
The pompous rhetorical indignation of Kennedy has become merely pathetic. He was once a heroic figure, but he now seems like the lion of Alice in Wonderland threadbare, tame, and roaring every so often only out of nostalgic habit. Chuck Schumer drones on like a little spoiled boy who becomes a schoolyard bully just by his superior tone of voice, boring in upon others, coercing them verbally, trying to make them feel as worthless as in his mind they are.
It is painful to watch the ruin of a great party. A great party has come to this.
And most of it happened because of commitment to a policy that cannot be maintained without lies and malicious euphemisms. That is, the killing of innocents in what is supposed to be the most welcoming, safest place on earth a mother's womb. (Isn't the posture of wishing one were safe the fetal position?)
This radical lie that what is destroyed in abortion is not a human individual, endowed with human rights has poisoned a great party, induced a great rationalization in the place of constitutional reasoning in the Supreme Court, and divided a nation unnecessarily over an issue that ought at the very least to have been left to the consent of the people in diverse jurisdictions.
No lie so basic to one's own identity goes unpunished.
Michael Novak is the winner of the 1994 Templeton Prize for progress in religion and the George Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/novak/novak200601121126.asp
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--SNIP--
Chuck Schumer drones on like a little spoiled boy who becomes a schoolyard bully just by his superior tone of voice, boring in upon others, coercing them verbally, trying to make them feel as worthless as in his mind they are.
That's my putzhead!
When was Ted Kennedy ever a heroic figure? Maybe at the Round Robin Bar at the Willard, but where else?
It means that being pregnant is "unhealthy"?
How does the health of the baby work out?
How much time elapsed between RFK's assasination & Chappaquidick?
Pompous, rhetorical and pathetic are the proper adjectives for someone who got kicked out of Harvard for cheating and graduated last in his class at law school. His lectures to Alito are a joke.
It would be a good debate as to which principle "caused" the Dem Party to fall. Anti-war, anti-Americanism actually preceded the abortion position by several years. I would argue that even before it was "pro-death," the Democrat Party became anti-American.
...How much time elapsed between RFK's assasination & Chappaquidick?...
About 2 years and 2 months.
That is the best writing Novak ever accomplished.
No. RFK was killed in June, 1968 following the Calif primary, Teddy took his dive the weekend we landed on the Moon in July, 1969. That's 13 months.
Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.
Now in this instance, would you call FR the tip of the spear or the cutting edge taking down the old way?
Well, someone had to be last........
He was once considered heroic by the press. I guess because he was the last Kennedy brother. But that was the only reason. When he was young he was relatively handsome and I think this may have had a lot to do with it.
He has become a cartoon figure these days, roaring his indignation at straw men, writing children's books featuring his dog "Splash", drinking to excess as always and looking bad all the time.
"It is painful to watch the ruin of a great party. A great party has come to this.And most of it happened because of commitment to a policy that cannot be maintained without lies and malicious euphemisms. That is, the killing of innocents in what is supposed to be the most welcoming, safest place on earth a mother's womb. (Isn't the posture of wishing one were safe the fetal position?)
This radical lie that what is destroyed in abortion is not a human individual, endowed with human rights has poisoned a great party, induced a great rationalization in the place of constitutional reasoning in the Supreme Court, and divided a nation unnecessarily over an issue that ought at the very least to have been left to the consent of the people in diverse jurisdictions.
No lie so basic to one's own identity goes unpunished."
"I think we made a mistake in 2004. Not deliberate. I really believe our nominees were uncomfortable dealing with the deeply religious in our country...I think there was a sense among many devout people -- in my own church, churchmembers -- that John Kerry didn't quite relate to us. And we're a religious nation. On some social issues like abortion I think we ought to modify our position, moderate. I think that the next successful candidate has to have some means to say that we worship the Prince of Peace...We believe that marriage by definition ought to be between a man and a woman..."
Too little too late! Ye Decrepitcrat Party shall reap what ye hath sown.
The Hero of silver spoon children everywhere.
Superbly written.
Good job, Mike.
Yep. I guess the more interesting question, then, would be WHY do they (did they) hate their own culture? What philosophical/logical progression leads you to think, "I suck."
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