Rick Perry “Gives Some Thought” To Rape And Incest
As noted in my last post, one of the most counter-factual assertions about the Republican presidential nomination contest is that it’s “about” the economy.
Guess that’s why Rick Perry, who began his campaign boasting of his world-beating jobs record (sic!) in Texas, is now ending his go-for-broke comeback effort in Iowa by announcing he is suddenly adopting the most extreme position available on abortion:
Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday that he had undergone a “transformation” on the issue of abortion and now believed that there should be no exceptions made for rape, incest or the life of the mother….“I really started giving some thought about the issue of rape and incest,” Mr. Perry told a local pastor who had questioned whether he had changed his position on the issue.
While it’s good news to hear that Perry is “giving some thought” to any issue, having pretty much campaigned on the basis of what the reptilian segments of his brain dictated, the reality is that his campaign is now focused monomaniacally on outflanking Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Santorum in appealing to Iowa’s divided Christian Right activist base.
This isn’t Perry’s first lurch to the right on abortion; back in August, under interrogation from Christian Right chieftain Tony Perkins, he repudiated his previous “states’ rights” position in favor of the more radical proposition of a federal constitutional amendment to repeal the right to choose.
But the more Perry “thinks” about it, the more determined he becomes to bend the knee to the most hard-core anti-choicers. If the Iowa caucuses were somehow delayed a couple of weeks, he’d probably come out for a national compulsory pregnancy mandate.
By: Ed Kilgore, Published in Washington Monthly Political Animal, December 28, 2011
How Social Conservatives Blew It In Iowa
The 2012 “invisible primary” is looking likely to end just how and where it began: with Republican ideologues anxiously looking to Iowa for signs of an electable “true conservative” alternative to Mitt Romney. Depending on whom you ask, they have found no such candidate, or have found too many of them. In either case, despite their fevered hopes the First-in-the-Nation Caucus is not likely to play its intended role as an all-important arbiter where ideological squishes are disciplined or destroyed and the faithful find their champion. Indeed, from the perspective of a conservative movement hoping to consolidate its control over the GOP once and for all and make 2012 the beginning of the end for the New Deal, Iowa has been a big failure.
The sad spectacle of the FAMiLY Leader organization—whose board, after administering a controversial pledge document and then holding a candidate forum, could not reach agreement on an endorsement—is something of a microcosm of the Right’s failure to separate the sheep from the goats throughout the invisible primary. While FAMiLY Leader chieftains Bob Vander Plaats and Chuck Hurley eventually supplied “personal” endorsements for Rick Santorum, Vander Plaats has been subsequently begging Santorum supporters to contribute money to enable him to actually campaign for his candidate—a sign of the gesture’s probable futility. Given the fact that they are appealing to largely the same constituencies and are hardly flush with cash, neither Santorum nor Michele Bachmann seem very likely to win a big “ticket out of Iowa.” And Rick Perry, once the favorite of the Christian Right, is still holding onto an impressive war chest that will likely sustain him, but he’s got precious little else going for him other than the hope that he, rather than Gingrich, will survive through New Hampshire to make a late appeal to southerners. For his part, Newt has not been haunting the highways and byways of Iowa all that obsessively either; the big news for his campaign this week has been its opening of an all-volunteer headquarters in Sioux City, just his second outpost in the entire state.
Meanwhile, neither Mitt Romney nor Ron Paul seems likely to be influenced by the results in Iowa at all. While it’s true that Romney has moved decisively to the right in order to make himself minimally acceptable to today’s conservatives, he’s done so out of deference to the primary process as a whole—not the glare of publicity and pressure on the Iowa campaign trail, which he has largely ignored until very, very recently. Indeed, the main Romney footprint in the state has been via the nasty attack ads on Newt Gingrich launched by the “Restore the Future” super-PAC backing Romney. And while Ron Paul has done well in the target-rich Iowa environment of a low-turnout caucus (lots of home-schoolers and lots of eager college students), it’s not as though he’s doing much of anything he hasn’t been doing for many years. Moreover, it is certain that Paul’s campaign will continue right up until the convention no matter how he does in Iowa.
So the caucuses themselves will probably only cull one candidate from the field, no more than the Iowa Straw Poll back in August that ended Tim Pawlenty’s campaign. As Jonathan Bernstein has recently explained, barring a real upset Iowa’s influence over the nominating contest may well be reduced to spin: Did this or that candidate beat expectations, or set the table for success down the road? That is not a meaningless role to play, but after absorbing so many months of candidate and media attention, it’s hardly ideal from the point of view of Iowa triumphalists who consider their strange contest the epitome of deliberative democracy.
And for the high-riding right wing of the Republican Party—be they denoted as Tea Partiers, the Christian Right, or “constitutional conservatives”—it’s been a long and arguably pointless trip. Unable to use the unique leverage of Iowa to elevate Tim or Michele or Rick or Herman or Newt or the other Rick, they are now looking at genuinely long odds for denying the nomination to the man they do not want, Mitt Romney, who is more and more looking like the Richard Nixon of the early twenty-first century: the lowest common denominator of a political party in which leadership is in painfully short supply.
By: Ed Kilgore, The New Republic, December 23, 2011
Christian Hypocrisy From The Religious Right
W.W.J.D.? How about what would Jesus say? What would he say about the way we treat the poor, the homeless, the hungry, the sick, the elderly?
I haven’t gone and gotten all religious on you, I promise. I was listening recently to an interview on the radio with a man from the Council of Churches on poverty. He reminded me how those on the religious right use the Bible and specifically the words of Jesus to defend their desire to overturn Roe v. Wade and fight against abortion, or to define marriage between and man and a woman to prevent gay people from marrying.
But what about the issue of those who are suffering? Those who are in need? Where are the religious right on that? Why isn’t it a value or moral to help a sick child, an elderly person or someone who is hungry?
The Bible contains over 300 verses dedicated to the poor and social injustice. In all of those verses it is clear God is concerned for both; so why aren’t those who claim to follow him?
Those on the religious right want to defund programs such as Social Security, Medicare, welfare, food stamps, healthcare, etc. What I want to know is: why aren’t these so called people of God offering their homes to the homeless, food to the hungry, a coat to someone who is poor and cold?
The concept of “it takes a village” was not Secretary Clinton’s idea; it originated with the teachings of Jesus. Don’t take my word for it, read his words. (In some books they’re in red; that should make it easier for you.)
With the current cuts in federal programs, more and more people are being turned away from shelters, yet at a time when the economy is bad, the unemployment rate is high, people keep losing their homes and there are more people living below the poverty line than in 50 years; what do we expect these people, some of whom are children, to do?!
Those in the churches aren’t helping, many church doors are locked to these people. When you phone a religious organization asking for help, they’ll send you to a shelter; which is government funded, which their congregation wants to cut the funding for. See the problem?
And it goes beyond our borders. In the horn of Africa where there is severe famine and where children are dying daily, the United States gives less than we have in the past, thanks to the cuts in funding.
I find it hard not to gag when I read “In God We Trust” on our currency when we don’t follow God’s laws. The religious right will fight hard to give a tax credit to a rich man, but doesn’t want to pay for a blanket for a homeless one. Didn’t the Bible say something about it being easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven? In America, it’s the other way around. If you’re rich, it’s like heaven; if you’re poor, it’s hell.
I was scared and shocked when I agreed with something Pat Robertson said recently. He said the right are being too extreme and to tone it down. He should’ve told the religious right to do something I think they’ve stopped doing long ago; read the book they so readily use to further their agenda.
By: Leslie Marshall, U. S. News and World Report, October 26, 2011
Pat Robertson’s Alzheimer’s Divorce Comments Demean Marriage
Pat Robertson has made some pretty crazy remarks. Remember the “hit” he wanted us to take out on Hugo Chavez?! Yes, the self-proclaimed leader of the moral majority, former presidential candidate, and television talk host on the 700 Club. But Robertson is also a pastor, a man who claims to believe that the Bible is the word of God. So imagine my and so many others’ surprise when he spoke of divorcing a spouse with Alzheimer’s because they’re pretty much dead anyway?! (Remember “’til death do us part?” It certainly gives a new slant to that notion.)
Now of course I’m paraphrasing. And you might find this odd coming from me, a liberal, progressive, Democrat; but I’m as angry at the message as I am the messenger.
Robertson is a leader in the conservative Christian circles. These are the same people that fight for the definition of marriage to only be between a man and a woman; certainly not a man and a man or a woman and a woman. Why? Because marriage is holy, ordained by God. It’s one of the first things God does in book of Genesis.
I am angry at this remark Mr. Robertson made, although not surprised, because it shows the true hypocrisy of not only these leaders, but of so many Christians who use the Bible only when it suits them. Remember what Gandhi said about not being able to find Christ among them?
I have been married for 15 years. Happily? Yes, for the most part. I did take the vows when I married to love and honor in sickness and in health, for better or worse, ’til death do us part. And I meant it when I took those vows.
If we simply divorce, or do away with a “problem,” as a person with Alzheimer’s may often be perceived, then what’s next? Divorce when someone is burned in a fire? Partially dismembered in an auto accident? Loses a breast (or two) to breast cancer? When a man can no longer maintain an erection? How about when one’s beauty fades? Oh right, they already do that. (At least in Los Angeles where I live.)
The point is, Alzheimer’s is an illness; it’s one of those “sicknesses” the Bible and those vows refer to. And, it is certainly one of the worst times for a spouse, for a family.
Marriage is not a walk in the park. But if you’re going to fight to defend it, define it, and protect it based on the Bible, at least read the Bible Mr. Robertson and see what God says about the very institution He designed.
Maybe if more of us took those vows more seriously, we wouldn’t have a divorce rate that hovers above 50 percent in America today.
Shame on Mr. Robertson for twisting the “word of God” as he calls the Bible, when he chooses. I believe it’s men like Robertson who keep many of us more than an arm’s length from our creator.
By: Leslie Marshall, U. S. News and World Report, September 21, 2011
“Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself”: Where Are The Compassionate Conservatives?
We heard plenty of contradictions, distortions and untruths at the Republican candidates’ Tea Party debate, but we heard shockingly little compassion — and almost no acknowledgement that political and economic policy choices have a moral dimension.
The lowest point of the evening — and perhaps of the political season — came when moderator Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul a hypothetical question about a young man who elects not to purchase health insurance. The man has a medical crisis, goes into a coma and needs expensive care. “Who pays?” Blitzer asked.
“That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks,” Paul answered. “This whole idea that you have to prepare and take care of everybody. . . .”
Blitzer interrupted: “But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?”
There were enthusiastic shouts of “Yeah!” from the crowd. You’d think one of the other candidates might jump in with a word about Christian kindness. Not a peep.
Paul, a physician, went on to say that, no, the hypothetical comatose man should not be allowed to die. But in Paul’s vision of America, “our neighbors, our friends, our churches” would choose to assume the man’s care — with government bearing no responsibility and playing no role.
Blitzer turned to Michele Bachmann, whose popularity with evangelical Christian voters stems, at least in part, from her own professed born-again faith. Asked what she would do about the man in the coma, Bachmann ignored the question and launched into a canned explanation of why she wants to repeal President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus told the Pharisees that God commands us to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” There is no asterisk making this obligation null and void if circumstances require its fulfillment via government.
Bachmann knows a lot about compassion. She makes much of the fact that she and her husband took in 23 foster children over the years. But what of the orphaned or troubled children who are not lucky enough to find a wealthy family to take them in? What of the boys and girls who have stable homes but do not regularly see a doctor because their parents lack health insurance?
Government can reach them. But according to today’s Republican dogma, it must not.
Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Bachmann, Paul and the others onstage in Tampa all had the same prescription for the economy: Cut spending, cut taxes and let the wealth that results trickle down to the less fortunate.
They betrayed no empathy for, or even curiosity about, the Americans who depend on the spending that would be cut. They had no kind words — in fact, no words at all — for teachers, firefighters and police officers who will lose their jobs unless cash-strapped state and local government receive federal aid. Public servants, the GOP candidates imply, don’t hold “real” jobs. I wonder: Do Republicans even consider them “real” people?
Government is more than a machine for collecting and spending money, more than an instrument of war, a book of laws or a shield to guarantee and protect individual rights. Government is also an expression of our collective values and aspirations. There’s a reason the Constitution begins “We the people . . .” rather than “We the unconnected individuals who couldn’t care less about one another . . . .”
I believe the Republican candidates’ pinched, crabby view of government’s nature and role is immoral. I believe the fact that poverty has risen sharply over the past decade — as shown by new census data — while the richest Americans have seen their incomes soar is unacceptable. I believe that writing off whole classes of citizens — the long-term unemployed whose skills are becoming out of date, thousands of former offenders who have paid their debt to society, millions of low-income youth ill-served by inadequate schools — is unconscionable.
Perry, who is leading in the polls, wants to make the federal government “inconsequential.” He thinks Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme” and a “monstrous lie.” He doesn’t much like Medicare, either.
But there was a fascinating moment in the debate when Perry defended Texas legislation that allows children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at state universities. “We were clearly sending a message to young people, regardless of what the sound of their last name is, that we believe in you,” Perry said.
The other candidates bashed him with anti-immigrant rhetoric until the evening’s only glimmer of moral responsibility was snuffed out.
By: Eugene Robinson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, September 15, 2011
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