KERRY BLOWS IT ON ABORTION

I went to school at Notre Dame. I've sung a dedication to victims of a monument to the victims of the "abortion holocaust." My dad is (I think) a single-issue abortion voter. I knew a lot of people who went to anti-abortion protests in the Clinton era. I tried to avoid the topic. I'm a lazy pro-lifer. I can't figure the issue out. How can we know whether the fetus is a person or not. Yes, better not to take the chance, but I'd rather not think about it. I can't feel the outrage. I'm laid-back on the issue.

But Kerry managed to offend me. That he emphasized his Catholic faith while at the same time insisting not only on the right to abortion but to government-funded abortion was sickening. It was as if he was not just saying his own view, but arguing that Catholics are collectively wrong on this issue. With his argument that allowing abortion is an extension of the principle that we shouldn't impose his beliefs on others, he was taking on a much bigger adversary than President Bush. This was an insult to the Catholic Church. The argument by the way is absurdly bad. If consistently applied, it would mean that we shouldn't impose our beliefs that stealing, embezzling, or drive-by shootings are wrong on other people. That Kerry would think this argument fit for the American public to view is disturbing. It reminds us why it's a relief to have a president with no illusions about being an intellectual. President Bush knows that he has his place in society's division of labor, and refining complex arguments is not it.

The abortion stance threw a light on the mangled wreck that is John Kerry's conscience. He fought in Vietnam though he thought it was wrong. He seems to think himself virtuous for admitting to war crimes. He voted for the Iraq war because it was to his political advantage. Each time, he justifies himself with absurdly bad arguments. He claims that he authorized the president to use force only when it was a last resort-- of course, a last resort in John Kerry's retrospective opinion, not that of the man authorized. Now he suggests that abortion is murder but we have to allow it anyway, and also pay tax dollars to support it, to avoid imposing our religious beliefs on others. This really is part of a worldview. He no doubt thinks that the Vietcong was wrong to establish a Stalinist state, but that we were obligated to let them do it.

I can't say it enough. He's a bad man.