There is a must-read editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal for anyone who wishes to understand the political calculation that is driving attitudes about the war in Iraq. It is very clear now that Senate majority leader Harry Reid and others have concluded that they will reap a partisan advantage if the U. S. war in Iraq fails. On April 12, Senator Reid said this:
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Conversion to the Pro-life Cause?
I have already written about my doubts about Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani’s conversions to the pro-life cause. Despite what they say, I’m just not buying it. I think Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo sums up my sentiments better than I could myself: “Excuse me for being cynical but usually conversions occur on the road to Damascus – not on the road to Des Moines.” True that.
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Nancy Pelosi: In Her Own Words
Here is how the law defines partial birth abortion: “An abortion in which a physician delivers an unborn child’s body until only the head remains inside the womb, punctures the back of the child’s skull with a Sharp instrument, and sucks the child’s brains out before completing delivery of the dead infant.” Here is what Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi says about partial birth abortion:
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Supreme Court Upholds Partial Birth Abortion Ban
This news is heartening. The Washington Post reports: The Supreme Court today narrowly upheld a nationwide ban on a controversial late-term abortion procedure, voting for the first time to restrict abortion rights and handing a major victory to President Bush and his social conservative allies.
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Does a right to privacy equal a right to incest?
When the Supreme Court handed down its infamous Lawrence v. Texas decision (which banned anti-Sodomy laws) in 2003, opponents of the decision argued that this precedent would lead to attempts to legalize all manner of aberrant sexual practices. It looks like these critics turned out to be right. Time magazine reports:
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Doonesbury Lampoons Romney
Does Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney have the courage of his convictions? The comic strip Doonesbury doesn’t think so. As I have written before on this blog, he has a long way to go before he convinces pro-life voters that he is really pro-life. Right now, he appears to both liberals and conservatives as a rank opportunist whose “convictions” are shaped by whatever will get him the most votes in his next election. Thus far, his is hardly an inspiring candidacy.
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A Sober Assessment of the Iraq War (relatively speaking)
The Washington Post’s editorial on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War is perhaps the fairest evaluation that you will be able to read in the mainstream press. The title is “Lessons of War: The fighting in Iraq enters its fifth year.” The editors write:
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NYT: Is the Surge Working?
Though the report is not entirely positive, here are some encouraging words from an unlikely source—The New York Times. This opinion piece evaluates the success of the U.S. troop surge in Iraq:
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Giuliani on public funding of abortion
In case you missed it, here’s the video of Rudy Guiliani in 1988 supporting publically funded abortions. Here’s the troubling line: “There must be public funding for abortions for poor women. We cannot deny any woman the right to make her own decision about abortion because she lacks resources.” Here’s the video:
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Wrong from Wright
N. T. Wright delivered an controversial lecture last November about America and its war on terror. Wright’s lecture was titled, “Where is God in ‘The War on Terror’?”, and he argues among other things that the American war in Iraq is but an immoral extension of America’s imperial ambition to dominate the world. Here’s his description of the Iraq war: “the angry superpower, like a rogue elephant teased by a little dog, has gone on the rampage stamping on everything that moves in the hope of killing the dog by killing everything in reach.”