“Warning, Warning”: Mitt Romney Is Out of Flops on Abortion
Lots of politicians, and quite a few presidential candidates, have changed their minds on abortion. This is partly because, in its broadest terms, it is a weighty, complex issue with a legitimate case to be made on both sides, even if one side has a stronger case (I’m not talking here about subsidiary issues like parental consent or the despicable laws requiring women to get ultrasounds or anything like that, just the basic question of whether abortion is right or wrong). It’s also because in recent years, both parties have tolerated less and less deviation on the issue, particularly in anyone who wants to be their presidential nominee. There are still a few pro-life Democrats (like Harry Reid) and pro-choice Republicans (like Olympia Snowe), but the days when someone could hope to get on a national ticket without toeing the line on abortion are gone.
So if you’ve been around a while, there’s a chance you held one belief in your early years, but then moved to align with your party later on. This is what happened, for instance, to George H.W. Bush (a great advocate of reproductive rights in his early years as a member of Congress) and Al Gore (who started off his career pro-life). Chances are most people don’t even know that about Bush or Gore, but people sure do know that Mitt Romney changed his views on abortion. Why? A few reasons.
First, it happened very recently—over a period between 2004 and 2005, when he was moving toward his first run for president. Second, there’s lots of video of Romney loudly declaring his pro-choice position and promising to be a vigilant guardian of a woman’s right to choose. Third, he has flipped on a lot of things, so the abortion change fits in with a broader impression of Romney as opportunistic and unprincipled. And finally, Romney has never offered an explanation of why he changed that Republican voters find persuasive.
So today, Will Saletan offers a long, exhaustive story about Romney’s history with abortion, documenting every movement on the issue over Romney’s career, and all the ways (many of them shamelessly dishonest) that he has tried to justify those movements:
When you see the story in its full context, three things become clear. First, this was no flip-flop. Romney is a man with many facets, groping his way through a series of fluid positions on an array of difficult issues. His journey isn’t complete. It never will be. Second, for Romney, abortion was never really a policy question. He didn’t want to change the law. What he wanted to change was his identity. And third, the malleability at Romney’s core is as much about his past as about his future. Again and again, he has struggled to make sense not just of what he should do, but of who he has been. The problem with Romney isn’t that he keeps changing his mind. The problem is that he keeps changing his story.
Saletan paints Romney’s history of changes on abortion like everything else about Romney: careful, methodical, planned, full of rewritings of the past, and utterly devoid of any discernible principle or genuine sentiment.
If he gets elected, though, will Romney be different in any meaningful way from a candidate who had been anti-abortion all his or her life? Let’s look at what he’ll actually do. He’ll instantly reinstate the Mexico City Policy that bans U.S. support for any group that even suggests abortion overseas, pushing that pendulum back to the Republican side. He’ll sign any legislation Congress might come up with restricting reproductive rights. And perhaps most importantly, he’ll appoint to federal courts, and to the Supreme Court, judges who want to overturn Roe v. Wade. If Romney were elected and one of the five justices who currently support Roe (Kennedy, Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan, and Sotomayor) retires or dies, he will absolutely, positively appoint a successor who is ready to overturn Roe.
Because he doesn’t have much choice, whatever he believes deep down. He has to dance with the one who brung him, and the Republican party will simply not tolerate anything less. Republicans may fear that he’ll get to the White House and suddenly shift back to being pro-choice, but that simply isn’t going to happen. Try to imagine the category-5 shitstorm that would result if a President Romney nominated someone to the Supreme Court that Republicans felt was a less-than-reliable vote to overturn Roe. If he was in his first term, he’d immediately get primary challengers. If he was in his second term, they’d try to impeach him. Even if most Americans don’t want to overturn Roe, the political cost of another shift for Romney would just be too high. And it’s hard to argue that for him, there’s any other calculation to be made.
By: Paul Waldman, The American Prospect, February 22, 2012
“Momentary” Lapse Of Judgment: Mitt Romney Does It Again
Mitt Romney can’t help but reveal that he’s a boring technocrat.
Mitt Romney’s main problem with conservative voters is that they don’t trust him or his commitment to conservative values. And for good reason; it’s only been six years since he left office as the moderate, pro-choice governor of a liberal state who pioneered health care reform for the country. Romney has tried to overcome this with constant pandering, open contempt for President Obama, and casual dishonesty, but it hasn’t done the trick. What’s more, there are times when the mask slips, and Romney reveals how much he actually is a boring technocrat. Yesterday was one of those times:
Speaking in Shelby Township, MI, the former Massachusetts governor took a question about the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission empaneled by President Obama to address the nation’s deficit and debt issues. In his response, he said that addressing taxes and spending issues are essential.
“If you just cut, if all you’re thinking about doing is cutting spending, as you cut spending you’ll slow down the economy,” he said in part of his response. “So you have to, at the same time, create pro-growth tax policies.”
In other words, Romney just admitted—in a momentary lapse of judgment—that some form of government spending can grow the economy during a recession. Nevermind that this is the accepted position of most economists, conservative and otherwise. It runs counter to the core dogma of the conservative movement, that spending cuts (and tax cuts) always grow the economy. It’s a relatively small slip—like his “severely conservative” comment at CPAC—but it’s emblematic of Romney’s distance from the party he wants to lead.
By: Jamelle Bouie, The American Prospect, February 22, 2012
Girl Scouts: “A Radicalized Organization Promoting Homosexual Lifestyles And Funding Planned Parenthood”
Next time you buy a box of Tagalongs, you might be helping to fund an abortion.
Or, at least, that’s what one Republican lawmaker in Indiana might have you believe. State Rep. Bob Morris (R) wants to kill a resolution honoring the Girl Scouts because they are a “radicalized organization” that promotes “homosexual lifestyles” and funds Planned Parenthood.
In a letter to his fellow Republicans on Saturday, Morris said he would refuse to support a resolution celebrating 100 years of the organization because “after talking to some well-informed constituents, I did a small amount of web-based research, and what I found is disturbing.”
The letter, obtained by the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, says that the Girl Scouts of America and the World Association of Girl Guides “have entered into a close strategic affiliation with Planned Parenthood,” though “you will not find evidence of this on the GSA/WAGGGS website—in fact, the websites of these two organizations explicitly deny funding Planned Parenthood.”
“Nonetheless, abundant evidence proves that the agenda of Planned Parenthood includes sexualizing young girls through the Girl Scouts, which is quickly becoming a tactical arm of Planned Parenthood,” Morris wrote. “Planned Parenthood instructional series and pamphlets are part of the core curriculum at GSA training seminars.”
He continues that the Girl Scouts also let in boys “who decide to claim a ‘transgender’ or cross-dressing life-style” and, in general, promote being gay. “Many parents are abandoning the Girl Scouts because they promote homosexual lifestyles,” Morris said. “In fact, the Girl Scouts education seminar girls are directed to study the example of role models. Of the fifty role models listed, only three have a briefly-mentioned religious background – all the rest are feminists, lesbians, or Communists.”
“As members of the Indiana House of Representatives, we must be wise before we use the credibility and respect of the ‘Peoples’ House’ to extend legitimacy to a radicalized organization,” he continued. “The Girl Scouts of America stand in a strong tradition that reflects with fidelity the traditional values of our homes and our families.”
Cathy Ritchie, of the Girl Scouts of Central Indiana, laughed off Morris when she heard about his letter. “I think perhaps he hasn’t done all of his research,” Ritchie told Eagle Country Online. “There is no relationship between Girls Scouts of the U.S.A. or Girl Scouts of Central Indiana to Planned Parenthood.”
Morris was the only one to refuse to sign the resolution, the Associated Press reports.
This is not the first time the Girl Scouts have been accused of a nefarious liberal agenda. In December, Fox News and some right-wing bloggers charged them with being part of a lefty conspiracy because of a section in the Girl Scouts’ media guide that advises readers to use sites like MediaMatters (“clearly a lefty blog,” as Steve Doocy of Fox & Friends put it) to fact-check what they read on the Internet.
By: Jillian Rayfield, Talking Points Memo, February 21, 2012
Righteous Rick Santorum Is His Own Worst Enemy
The current frontrunner’s backers complain that he’s being unfairly targeted with distracting gotcha questions, but he’s the one who put the spotlight on secondary issues like Obama’s theology, homeschooling, and prenatal testing.
Why is everybody suddenly picking on poor, misunderstood Rick Santorum?
Die-hard supporters of the former Pennsylvania senator insist that he’s received unjust, unmerited criticism from establishment insiders desperately determined to protect their favored candidates (presumably Barack Obama and Mitt Romney) from the sudden Santorum surge.
According to this line of reasoning, raging controversies over recent comments by Righteous Rick reflect persistent media bias, an outrageous effort to distract attention from the president’s economic failures, and a ruthless determination to destroy the one candidate best equipped to shake up the Washington status quo.
The most conspicuous example of such allegedly unfair treatment involved this Sunday’s Face the Nation, when CBS veteran Bob Schieffer concentrated solely on an oddly assorted array of Santorum remarks on seemingly irrelevant topics, allowing the sweater-vested conservative champion no chance for important or positive policy proposals.
For instance, the broadcast began with damning tape of the candidate telling a cheering weekend rally that for Obama, “It’s not about you. It’s not about your quality of life. It’s not about your jobs. It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology.”
Any conservatives who believe that Schieffer and CBS had no right to confront Santorum with these comments should try an uncomfortable thought experiment: Imagine that President Obama (or, far more conceivably, Vice President Biden) had assaulted Santorum himself, or one of the other GOP candidates, for basing his policies on “some phony theology.”
Would Republicans rightly react with profound indignation and demand an apology?
For Obama, of course, the issue of “phony theology” is particularly explosive due to previous criticism regarding his long association with the faith-based crackpot Jeremiah Wright, and frequent charges from the right-wing fringe that the Leader of the Free World is actually a secret Muslim. (In defending Santorum’s remarks on MSNBC, the former senator’s press spokeswoman even cited the president’s “radical Islamist policies” before she apologized.)
On Face the Nation Santorum reassured the public that “I accept the fact that the president is a Christian,” and he adamantly maintained that the “phony theology” crack only pertained to a “radical environmentalist … worldview” that he imputed to Obama. But if he accepted Obama’s Christian self-identification, then why would he use the term “theology,” while specifically insisting that the “phony” faith in question was non-Biblical and therefore non-Christian?
Of course, Santorum would prefer to spend his precious moments on network TV talking about something else, but why then did he make the decision to use a raucous and very public campaign rally to raise the issue of “phony theology”?
The same question applies to the next subject raised on Face the Nation: Santorum’s claim at another Ohio campaign stop that an Obamacare mandate for free prenatal testing “ends up in more abortions and therefore less care that has to be done because we cull the ranks of the disabled in our society.”
His tortured response when asked to defend this idea in no way resulted from the sort of nasty “gotcha” question that Newt Gingrich passionately denounced earlier in the campaign. When Gingrich famously denounced CNN’s John King for beginning a televised debate with scurrilous charges from an angry ex-wife, most Republicans instinctively sympathized with the former speaker. Newt had never raised the issue of his second divorce (no candidate could be that stupid) and clearly preferred not to talk about it.
But if Santorum wanted to avoid the subject of prenatal testing, then why in the world did he bring it up on the stump just hours before his scheduled showdown on Face the Nation?
Instead of discussing aggrieved Catholic charities in the context of religious liberty and freedom of conscience (where many people of faith agree with the conservative critique of Obama policy), the candidate found himself struggling to make distinctions on details of prenatal testing—which nearly all prospective parents embrace in one form or another.
When questioned about his prior stumble into this medical and ethical thicket, Santorum could have easily affirmed that “I believe in complete freedom of choice when it comes to prenatal testing—no federal interference with doctors or parents who want to test unborn babies, and no federal policy to compel them to do so.” This declaration could have enabled the beleaguered candidate to turn to the far more legitimate issue of requiring religious charities to insure medical services (like sterilization) of which they disapproved and to again defend the principle of freedom of conscience.
Finally, Santorum’s gaggle of gaffes led him to an even more disastrous exchange on an even more unnecessary controversy: state (not federal!) support for public education. In speaking to a warmly supportive crowd at the Ohio Christian Alliance on Saturday, the candidate had explained that in the past “most presidents homeschooled their children in the White House … Parents educated their children because it was their responsibility. Yes, the government can help but the idea that the federal government should be running schools, frankly, much less that the state government should be running schools, is anachronistic.”
This statement enabled hostile blogger Stephen D. Foster to run the misleading (and widely circulated) headline “Rick Santorum Calls for End of Public Education, Says Parents Should Home School Their Kids,” but on CBS the former senator did little to eliminate the confusion.
As I said before, first I’d get the federal government out,” he told Bob Schieffer and the nation, echoing a viewpoint that most conservatives share. But then Santorum launched an indefensible explanation of his previous dismissal of state government “running” public education. “I would, to the extent possible, with respect to mandates and designing curriculum and the like, I would get the state government out. I think that the parents should be in charge working with the local school district to try to design an educational environment for each child that optimizes their potential.”
No governor or legislature in the country would accept the principle of “getting the state government out”—not when state governments (not localities) pay the biggest share of the bills for public schools (which educate nearly 90 percent of all school-age children in America, according to the most recent figures).
Moreover, Santorum happens to be a candidate for president, not governor of Pennsylvania (a race he declined to make two years ago), so under the system of federalism that Republicans enthusiastically endorse, he should have nothing to say about “getting state government out” of educational issues. As Ron Paul (among many others) might helpfully instruct him, the president of the United States gets to make innumerable important decisions but under the 10th Amendment he can’t dictate state policies on education.
Santorum and his madly scrambling staff might claim that such criticism, and the tough questioning on Face the Nation, amount to nitpicking—mean-spirited efforts to distract and derail a nice-guy candidate who brings fresh perspectives to vexing public issues.
But on the verge of next week’s crucial primaries in Michigan and Arizona, Santorum isn’t just running a provocative “ideas campaign” like the indefatigable gadfly Ron Paul: present polling makes him the apparent frontrunner for the Republican nomination and an increasingly conceivable choice as president of the United States.
His off-the-reservation approaches to self-defeating diversions like Obama’s theology, prenatal testing, and state-level involvement in public education become legitimate, and wholly necessary, subjects for journalistic scrutiny.
For nearly six months, Santorum complained loudly in televised debates and elsewhere that his campaign received less media attention than it deserved. He can hardly object now when his own successes have made even his random campaign comments far more significant—and potentially devastating—than ever before.
By: Michael Medved, The Daily Beast, February 21, 2012
“What Are Women For?”: The Conservative War On Women’s Sexuality
If you have been surprised to see an uptight prig such as Rick Santorum leading the Republican primary field in national polls, you shouldn’t be. Recent events have demonstrated that conservative positions on social issues are as much about repressing women and reversing the gains of the women’s movement as they are about saving the lives of the unborn.
The young people I saw at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington the week before last looked to me exactly like what you would expect from a bunch of college Republicans. They were dorks. They wore suits. Maybe some of the women’s suit skirts were short, but I was hardly scandalized.
But we learned last week that much of the conservative movement is still living in a different century—and I don’t mean the twentieth—with regard to women’s sexuality. Conservative bloggers were horrified that some young women at CPAC were dressed provocatively and engaged in loose sexual behavior with the young men in attendance.
CPAC has a well deserved reputation for being the time of year when earnest young conservatives unbutton their Oxford shirts, crack open a few Busch Lights and let loose. I see nothing wrong with that. But Erick Erickson, who runs the popular blog Red State, does. He wrote a lament that CPAC has gotten too debauched: “Young men, regardless of political persuasion or ideology, are intent on having sex, being boys, getting drunk—doing what young men in college often do. All to [sic] often there are also a few young ladies willing to shame their parents if their parents only knew.”
Erickson’s commentary is such a caricature of an avuncular misogynist that it’s amazing his post isn’t actually a parody. He almost literally says, “Boys will be boys.” But girls, on the other hand, are responsible for warding off boys’ advances. They, and they alone, are charged with protecting the conservative movement’s morality. If they don’t, they are “shaming their parents.” The notion that there is nothing immoral with enjoying oneself, as long as you aren’t spreading disease, doesn’t even cross Erickson’s mind. Nor does he consider the possibility that women and men are equally responsible for restraining their sexual urges.
Erickson also linked approvingly to Melissa Clouthier, a conservative blogger who plaintively demanded, “Have women so internalized feminist dogma that they see themselves in only two ways? Butch, men-lite wannabes or 3rd wave sluts who empower themselves by screwing every available horndog man?”
These posts, and criticisms of them, inspired James Poulos of the Daily Caller to write a meditation on Thursday about “What are women for?” He fails to answer his own question. Here’s the closest he comes: “Much good would come from a broader recognition that women have a privileged relationship with the natural world. That’s a relationship which must receive its social due—if masculinity in its inherent and imitative varieties (including imitation by quasi-feminized males of quasi-masculinized females!) is not to conquer the world.”
The item is so garbled I can’t really critique it, except to note that posing the question itself is absurdly sexist. (Rich Yeselson valiantly attempts to wade through Poulos’s inscrutable prose and explains what’s wrong with Poulos’ “hoisting [women] onto a grand pedestal far above the barbarism of men.”)
Meanwhile, the far more legible Ross Douthat demonstrated in Sunday’s New York Times how even the most seemingly reasonable conservatives oppose gender equality. Douthat’s column argues that conservatives must recognize abstinence teaching alone often doesn’t prevent unwanted pregnancies, and liberals must admit that access to contraception doesn’t either. That’s true, but for those of us who think that women should be able to avail themselves of a certain safe and relatively affordable medical procedure when confronted with an unwanted pregnancy, it’s not clear what the problem is. The problem, to Douthat, is that abortions are an inherent social ill.
(Unfortunately, far too many liberals, by saying that every abortion is a “tragedy” best avoided, have reinforced this widespread superstition. Hence, Douthat can pose as a moderate consensus-seeker by accurately noting, “Even the most pro-choice politicians, for instance, usually emphasize that they want to reduce the need for abortion, and make the practice rare as well as safe and legal.”)
Douthat claims that lack of access to contraception is not a significant problem and so liberals should stop pretending it’s an answer to our abortion scourge. He writes:
A lack of contraceptive access simply doesn’t seem to be a significant factor in unplanned pregnancy in the United States. When the Alan Guttmacher Institute surveyed more than 10,000 women who had procured abortions in 2000 and 2001, it found that only 12 percent cited problems obtaining birth control as a reason for their pregnancies. A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study of teenage mothers found similar results: Only 13 percent of the teens reported having had trouble getting contraception.
I disagree with Douthat. I think lack of access to contraception is a major problem. My evidence? The Guttmacher Institute found that fully 12 percent of women who had abortions cited problems obtaining birth control and the CDC found 13 percent of teenagers had problems getting contraception. Twelve or 13 percent! In a country as wealthy and socially advanced as the United States, it is remarkable that so many women would be unable to access one of the many contraceptive options that should be available to them. In the Guttmacher study alone there were 1,200 women who had to have an abortion because they could not get contraception. One would be too many.
How can Douthat see these statistics and reach such a different conclusion than I do? Because he doesn’t believe access to contraception is a good unto itself. If you believe, as liberals do, that women should control their reproductive organs and that all aspects of healthcare, including preventive measures such as contraception, should be available to all citizens of a civilized country, then lack of access to contraception is bad. Conservatives such as Douthat don’t share either of those premises. They believe healthcare is a privilege that should only be bestowed upon the wealthy, and sexual freedom is a social ill. If you think that, then access to contraception is a neutral or a negative. It is only valuable to Douthat as a means for reducing the number of abortions, which he considers an even greater social ill. Since he approaches the data on contraception from that perspective, then he finds that only a 12 percent reduction in abortion isn’t saving nearly enough souls, so who cares about the underlying problem of women being prevented from exercising their bodily autonomy?
Back in October Rick Santorum said, “Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s OK; contraception is OK. It’s not OK. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” After reading what leading conservative pundits have to say on gender and sexuality this last week, it’s no surprise they would find Santorum appealing.
By: Ben Adler, The Nation, February 20, 2012
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