McCain's world: young upstarts inspiring people to take our liberties seriously and challenging the perpetual war establishment ... bad; crusty old farts clinging to power and enriching themselves on the public teet until they're octogenarians ... good.
Remember ... John McCain got absolutely SLAUGHTERED in a presidential campaign in large part because his opponent was able to inspire young people to turn out in droves for him. Apparently, "Maverick" hasn't taken the lesson to heart. He and his girlfriend Lindsey Graham represent the hyper-militarist, neo-con old guard of the GOP. Hopefully, they are a dying breed.
Mitt Romney’s eldest sister, who has backed prominent Democrats for office and is in Tampa showing support for her brother, had some reassuring words Wednesday for women concerned about the Republican Party’s hard line on abortion. Mitt Romney would never make abortions illegal as president, Jane Romney said when National Journal asked her about the subject after a “Women for Mitt” event. "He’s not going to be touching any of that,” she said. “It’s not his focus.”
[...]
But as Jane Romney put it, “Mitt’s much more in the middle” when it comes to abortion.
Mitt Romney has said he supports legal abortion in cases of rape and incest, and when the life of the mother is in danger. As for the fate of abortion rights, “Recognize this is the decision that will be made by the Supreme Court," he said in an interview with CBS News this week. "The Democrats try and make this a political issue every four years, but this is a matter in the courts. It's been settled for some time in the courts." Jane Romney said she believes “life is sacred” and suggested those seeking abortion should be required to undergo counseling. But she also said that abortion should “absolutely” be safe and legal. “Every woman needs to be left to make her own choice,” she said. A ban on abortion is “never going to happen” under a Romney administration, Jane Romney said. “Women would take to the streets. Women fought for our choice, we’re not going to go back."
[...]
With the way Romney has backed off in the last few days from the pro-life stance he pretended to hold in order to win the GOP primary, does anyone REALLY doubt that Romney's sister is entirely correct in her assessment of him? She's right about Romney. And what's more, we all KNOW that she's right about him.
I have been saying for years that Romney is a fraud on the pro-life issue, trying to be all things to all people. But when it comes time to fight for anti-Roe judges, or for defunding Planned Parenthood, or for any other controversial right-to-life initiative, does anyone really believe that Romney will go to the mat in the same way the Dems are willing to fight to the death for abortion? Of course not. It is my heartfelt belief that pro-lifers will come to rue the day they ever supported Mitt Romney's bid for the presidency.
And, yet, the pro-life movement continues to make preposterous claims on Romney's behalf. Just stop. It is one thing to say that Obama is just so much worse that supporting Romney is a necessary evil. But pro-lifers just need to stop claiming that there is otherwise a pro-life argument in Romney's favor. There's just not. And, if he's elected, pro-lifers will eventually ask themselves "What were we thinking in supporting this guy?"
Romney and His People Are Truly Contemptuous of Social Conservatives
How many more instances like this must we be treated to before those social conservatives who plan to fall into line and vote for Dullard Flip Rino because ... well ... we JUST HAVE to ... wake up to the fact that the GOP has, via the nominee it has chosen, decided you are no longer welcome?
Follow my lead and DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, vote for Mitt Romney. There ARE alternatives. Vote 3rd party. Don't buy into the lesser of two evils spin coming from the major parties.
Vote your conscience. Vote your values. Don't vote for Rockefeller RINOs like Romney.
Meet Romney advisor Eric Fehrnstrom. Earlier today he had this exchange on CNN:
HOST: Is there a concern that Santorum and Gingrich might force the governor to tack so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election? ERIC FEHRNSTROM: Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.
It happens every time Dullard Flip Rino gets a big boost and begins to feel comfortable that he's got the nomination in the bag. EVERY TIME. He or his campaign lets the fascade slip and shows their true anti-conservative colors. EVERY TIME.
Here, Romney is fresh off his big win in Illinois and having received the endorsement of Jeb Bush, and his campaign makes it clear that all that conservative mumbo-jumbo the candidate has been spouting in order to fool enough conservatives and GOP voters to win the nomination has all the staying power of an etch-a-sketch drawing.
Santorum Central needs to get this ad on the air pronto:
What’s wrong with a strategist acknowledging a basic fact of political life, that candidates tend to move towards the center after the primaries to compete for independents in the general? Philip Klein explains in a post titled, “Romney advisor says his conservatism can be erased”:
Romney ran two races in Massachusetts as a moderate and even a self-described “progressive,” before changing his positions in the run up to his first campaign for president. Just last month, he described himself as “severely conservative” at the Conservative Political Action Conference. But as Fehrnstrom statement suggests, Romney’s appeals to the right are simply a matter of positioning rather than principle, something that can easily be changed once the target audience changes.
If Romney’s fiercest critics wanted to come up with a way to describe Romney’s approach to politics, I don’t think they could have come up with a better analogy than Etch A Sketch. The fact that it’s coming from one of Romney’s long-time aides is stunning. An even scarier thought for conservatives: if the Romney campaign is willing to take them for granted before even clinching the nomination, imagine how quickly Romney would abandon conservatives if he ever made it to the White House.
Yeah, that’s the killer. Before the campaign, I could imagine conservatives nominating Romney if he swore up and down that he’d be a right-wing warrior while in office. There’s always a chance that he’d be telling the truth and a chance is all you need to justify voting for a guy who stands the best chance of knocking out The One. But here’s one of his very top aides all but telling you that “severe conservatism” is rhetoric aimed at getting him through the primaries — and yet we’re going to go ahead and nominate him anyway. Think this is the guy who’s going to the mat as president if a Republican Congress gears up to advocate sorely needed yet unpopular spending cuts and fiscal reforms?
(emphasis added)
Nailing it by saying what I've been saying for years. You CANNOT trust Dullard Flip Rino. He is a self-described "pro-choice progressive" who feels most comfortable when he is running to the left.
Join me, therefore, in vowing to NEVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, EVER vote for Mitt Romney.
Between this despicable "joke" from Romney supporter Scott Brown, and the comments today from Romney supporter John McCain about the GOP needing to "move on" from the debate over the HHS contraception/abortifacient/sterilization mandate, it is clear that the Romney campaign is sending the message that the Catholic Church is on its own should Romney win the nomination.
If Romney hadn't already disqualified himself from getting your vote, then this ought to do the trick. Please join me in vowing to NEVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, EVER vote for Mitt Romney.
“I think we have to fix that,” the Arizona Republican said when asked by David Gregory on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about the idea of a Republican “war on women.” “I think there is a perception out there because of the way this whole contraception issue played out – we need to get off of that issue in my view. I think we ought to respect the right of women to make choices in their lives and make that clear — and get back onto what the American people really care about: jobs and the economy.”
This is what RINOs do. They accept the Dem talking points about the issues. So, instead of framing this as a First Amendment Free Exercise issue in which the Catholic Church has a vital religious freedom stake, the previous GOP nominee for president uses the verbiage of the left in defining this as a "woman's right to choose" issue, even if her choice is on the dime of the Catholic Church.
And the previous GOP nominee is a big supporter of the current RINO the GOP establishment is busy trying to shove down our throats. And don't think for one minute that Dullard Flip Rino doesn't share McLoser's sentiments and would sell the Church and the First Amendment down the river in a heartbeat if they think it will mean making social issues irrelevant during this election.
Jim Heath, a reporter for ONN-TV in Ohio, just Tweeted a remarkable piece of news: Mitt Romney told him he does not support the Blunt amendment, which would empower employers and insurers to deny health coverage they find morally objectionable.
I just got off the phone with Heath, and he graciously played me the audio. Heath asks Romney if he’s for the “Blunt-Rubio” amendment, and defines it. Romney replies:
“I’m not for the bill. But, look, the idea of presidential candidates getting into questions about contraception within a relationship between a man and a woman, husband and wife, I’m not going there.”
That’s pretty remarkable. If Romney knew what he was saying, the Senate GOP caucus, which is set to vote on this amendment tomorrow, may feel as if Romney has pulled the rug out from underneath them. And this has become an important issue for conservatives. So it’ll be interesting to see how the base reacts to this, particularly since the GOP primary is anything but over and Rick Santorum — who’s perceived as a more reliable social conservative — is likely to use this to attack Romney, who will be under continued pressure to connect with social and religious conservatives.
Perhaps Romney now feels confident enough in victory in the GOP primary that he’s willing to risk some ire from the base in order to begin his pivot to general election mode in advance of winning the nomination.
“Regarding the Blunt bill, the way the question was asked was confusing,” a spokesman told TPM. “Governor Romney supports the Blunt Bill because he believes in a conscience exemption in health care for religious institutions and people of faith.”
You can see that all the RINOs [LIARS!] are trying to spin this by explaining that Mitt was confused about which bill they were talking about. Bull!!! DO NOT let the post-interview spin fool you. Romney's initial reaction is what he REALLY believes, and the spin is the Romney campaign scrambling to clean up another one of his messes. Here's how you can tell:
Notice how easily Mitt adopts the language of the left in describing the bill. Notice how he uses this opportunity to get to the left of Santorum and try to paint Santorum as some sort of "bedroom police" - again utilizing the rhetoric of the left.
And then recall how comfortable Mitt was in getting to Rick Perry's left on Social Security and adopting the language of the Democrats in essentially arguing that Perry was going to force Grandma to eat dogfood, or worse, was going to push Grandma off a cliff. Romney seemed like a natural in making those arguments, just as he seems like a natural in his arguments against the Blunt bill and criticizing Santorum's support of it.
Now, contrast those two instances of Romney feeling comfortable in his own skin with those many, many, many times during his campaign in which Romney seemed ill-at-ease and downright uncomfortable trying to sound like a "severe conservative" in his attempts to appeal to grassroots conservatives (i.e. the base of the GOP).
Why is that? I'll tell you why: Because, as Romney has said on multiple occasions, he can't be who he is not, and can only be who he is. Well, THIS is who he is. The Romney in that video - selling out Congressional Republicans trying to do the heavy lifting of overturning the HHS mandate - is who Romney is. Should he win the nomination, we will have an entire campaign season of Romney being who he is to the chagrin of conservatives. And in the unlikely event he were to defeat Obama, we would have an entire 4 years of Romney being who he is and the Republicans in Congress going along with him, again much to the chagrin of conservatives. And in 4 years, he'd be running for re-election, being who he really is, again much to the chagrin of conservatives.
DO NOT VOTE FOR THIS MAN. Not in the primary, and not in the general election. Because I believe in my heart of hearts that the Romney in the video above, and the Romney who demagogued Rick Perry on Social Security, is just the tip of the iceberg of who Romney REALLY is, I will NEVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, EVER vote for him.
@ByronYork I thought Romney skipped past the question, to seize a chance to stick it to Santorum on contraception. Not a considered answer.
It may not have been "considered" in the sense that Romney let his mask slip, but make no mistake: the answer Romney gave reveals the TRUE core of Mitt Romney. Romney's core impulse is to run to the left of his opponent - that's his comfort zone. Heck, he even ran to the left of Ted Kennedy for crying outloud. If you want to get Romney off his game, force him to have to run to the right; but he's on his turf when it comes to taking the discussion leftward.
Verona, PA – Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) proposed legislation that would prevent the government from forcing religious institutions to provide services against their faith doctrine. Today, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said he would oppose it. When Mitt Romney had the chance, he forced Massachusetts Catholic hospitals to go against their private beliefs and provide morning after abortion pills to patients. All the candidates are entitled to make misstatements here and there – but this is a much deeper issue.
Hogan Gidley, National Communications Director, said: “As Governor, Mitt Romney has a clear record of taking away the freedom of religion. We all know Romney’s liberal record on this, so when he’s asked a question about a bill that would protect our religious freedom – and Romney’s gut reaction is to say he’d oppose it – we shouldn’t be the least bit surprised.”
“On the other hand, Rick Santorum was asked the same question, but he wasn’t confused because Rick Santorum has consistently supported religious freedoms.”
... that I won't be voting for Mitt Romney (a.k.a. Dullard Flip Rino) UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Not in the primaries, and not in the general election should he be nominated.
NEVER. NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. EVER!
I'm rooting for Santorum to win the nomination. Should he fail (and I believe he is the only one left with a real shot at denying Romney the nomination), I will not settle for being force-fed yet another establishment RINO.
(And please don't come here spouting such nonsensical and demonstrably false platitudes as "A vote for an unelectable 3rd-party candidate is a vote for Obama". Should anyone ever feel so inclined, just keep such inane rhetoric to yourself. It's not convincing, and such nonsense will not change my mind. In fact, the more I hear it, especially to justify a vote for Dullard Flip "Obama Lite" Rino, it only further entrenches me in my views. So save your energy - you'll need it to continue to justify the unjustifiable to an increasing number of skeptical conservative voters. For my part, should Romney win the GOP nomination, I will actively campaign against him and in favor of Virgil Goode, and will try to convince as many conservative and independent voters as I can not to waste their votes on a candidate they don't believe in, but to support a true conservative like Virgil Goode instead.)
For those who haven’t been paying attention, Virginia’s legislature has been going after the abortion industry root and branch. Last year they passed a law requiring aborttoirs to be regulated as if they did what they do: perform a surgical procedure which can be life threatening. This year a bill is being finalized that requires a woman seeking an abortion to see ultrasound pictures of the baby. Somehow this bill, which does not require any medical procedure the woman was not going to receive in the first place, has the pro-abortion lobby in a tizzy. Dahlia Lithwick at Slate has predictably styled this as rape.
Gov. Robert F. McDonnell is backing off his unconditional support for a bill requiring women to have an ultrasound before an abortion, focusing new attention on one of the most controversial pieces of legislation in Virginia’s General Assembly this year.
Until this weekend, McDonnell (R) and his aides had said the governor would sign the measure if it made it to his desk. McDonnell, who strongly opposes abortion, will no longer make that commitment.
[...]
There is only one explanation that fits all the facts. McDonnell wants to be Mitt Romney’s choice for vice president should Romney almost certainly win the GOP nomination. The ultrasound bill is causing too much controversy and probably has Romney’s handlers wearing brown trousers at the thought of having to actually take a pro-life position in a general election campaign. McDonnell takes to opportunity to look moderate and abandons ship...
My Comments: I already knew Dullard Flip Rino was a pro-abort squish, so his discomfort with the recently-passed Virginia pro-life law comes as no surprise to me. But for an allegedly "pro-life Catholic" like Bob McDonnell to suddenly go wobbly and hint opposition to signing the pro-life law just to appease Romney's handlers? May he rot.
When Romney does finally go down to an inglorious defeat (and he will, be it either in the primaries (hopefully, to Santorum) or in the general election), I hope like hell he takes people like Bob McDonnell down with him.
McDonnell's egregious sell-out of the pro-life cause (much worse than Santorum's sell-out of pro-lifers by endorsing Specter) for the sake of raw political ambition and a potential spot on a Romney ticket makes that outcome inevitable. May he fall far and fall hard.
I am pro-life. I believe deeply in the sanctity of innocent human life and believe governments have a duty to protect human life. The more our society embraces a culture of life for all people, the better country we will have. Over the course of my 20-year career in elected office, I have been glad to play a leading role in putting in place common-sense policies that protect and defend innocent human life in the Commonwealth. One of those bills was Virginia's informed consent statute, of which I was the chief patron in the House of Delegates, finally seeing its passage in 2001. This session, the General Assembly is now considering amending this informed consent statute to include a requirement that any woman seeking an abortion receive an ultrasound in order to establish the gestational age for appropriate medical purposes, and to offer a woman the opportunity to voluntarily review that ultrasound prior to giving her legal informed consent to abortion.
Over the past days I have discussed the specific language of the proposed legislation with other governors, physicians, attorneys, legislators, advocacy groups, and citizens. It is apparent that several amendments to the proposed legislation are needed to address various medical and legal issues which have arisen. It is clear that in the majority of cases, a routine external, transabdominal ultrasound is sufficient to meet the bill's stated purpose, that is, to determine gestational age. I have come to understand that the medical practice and standard of care currently guide physicians to use other procedures to find the gestational age of the child, when abdominal ultrasounds cannot do so. Determining gestational age is essential for legal reasons, to know the trimester of the pregnancy in order to comply with the law, and for medical reasons as well.
Thus, having looked at the current proposal, I believe there is no need to direct by statute that further invasive ultrasound procedures be done. Mandating an invasive procedure in order to give informed consent is not a proper role for the state. No person should be directed to undergo an invasive procedure by the state, without their consent, as a precondition to another medical procedure.
For this reason, I have recommended to the General Assembly a series of amendments to this bill...
You can read the snivelling rest if you'd like, but it's the weasel words of a liar, a hypocrite, and a coward, so take it for what it's worth.
UPDATE #2 And for those of you keeping score at home, rack up another huge victory for Planned Parenthood.
Between (1) electing the most pro-abortion President in history, (2) passing Obamacare, (3) successfully rallying the Democrats to hold out and defeat the Stupak Amendment thereto, (4) having the President take the government to the brink of shutdown rather than deprive Planned Parenthood of one penny of taxpayer money in the federal budget, (5) getting the opportunity to put the screws to their arch-enemy the Catholic Church by being invited to help write the HHS mandate requiring the Church to violate its teachings by covering contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilization, (6) cowing Susan G. Komen back into the Planned Parenthood fold via a campaign of intimidation, and now (7) cowing an allegedly pro-life Catholic governor who previously had strong social conservative bona fides into backing down on signing one of the more pro-life pieces of legislation to have passed in a long time, Planned Parenthood is on quite an impressive role.
It would be difficult to argue that any private organization in the country comes close to matching the power and clout of Planned Parenthood. They certainly seem to always get their way.
And the transformation to Establishment-RINO-Fiscal-Conservative-Social-Moderate (and don't bother me with all those divisive social issues) is complete.
Jerk.
UPDATE #4 Posting this update just because I want to use this word, and didn't think of it when writing any of my previous descriptions of McDonnell:
Silly me; I thought that when one candidate in a primary race lost a state, it meant that another candidate was stronger. Not so, according to an unnamed but “prominent” Republican Senator contacted by ABC’s Jonathan Karl. If Romney can’t win, it’s time to call in … Jeb Bush?
“If Romney cannot win Michigan, we need a new candidate,” said the senator, who has not endorsed anyone and requested anonymity.
[...]
It would have to be somebody else, the senator said. Who? “Jeb Bush,” the former Florida governor.
The Secret Senator believes that Rick Santorum would lose 35 states in a general election, and apparently thinks so little of Newt Gingrich’s chances that he doesn’t even raise him as an alternative. No, it would be better to call the younger Bush and skip over the rest of the primaries, apparently, since it would be almost impossible at this point for a new candidate to qualify on enough ballots to win a majority of the delegates.
[...]
How about this for an idea: let’s hold a primary among those candidates who had the courage to put themselves on the line for almost a year, and stop worrying about those who sat on the sidelines. Stop looking for a Deus ex machina and start building the organization that will help whomever the voters choose as the nominee win the general election.
[More]If the GOP tries this, it will forever sever ties with social conservatives and with grassroots GOP voters, and will consign itself to permanent minority status.
... Dear Senator Jerk, I would rather go down with Santorum than win with your type. And if Santorum does lose, I hope to God that he takes you with him.
But when you're a liberal RINO who governed like Obama-lite who is pretending to be a conservative in order to win the GOP nomination but who has no conservative record to run on (like Dullard Flip Rino), smearing your opponents with lies is all you have.
Mitt Romney is now arguing that Rick Santorum’s record exposes him as one of those Republicans who “act like Democrats” once they get to Washington. Romney surrogate Tim Pawlenty adds that Santorum “clearly has been part of the big-spending establishment in Congress.” Another Romney surrogate, former senator Jim Talent, says of Santorum, “He certainly has been outspoken on social issues . . . but when you get outside those issues into fiscal, spending, regulatory issues, his record shows that he’s been in the liberal wing of the Republican party.”
[...]
So, is Romney’s claim true? Was Santorum a spendthrift in the Senate? Fortunately, credible third party analysis is available to help us answer this question, so we need not merely accept the Romney campaign’s verdict as the final word on the matter.
The National Taxpayers Union (NTU) has been rating members of Congress for 20 years. NTU is an independent, non-partisan organization that — per its mission statement — “mobilizes elected officials and the general public on behalf of tax relief and reform, lower and less wasteful spending, individual liberty, and free enterprise.” Steve Forbes serves on its board of directors.
For each session of Congress, NTU scores each member on an A-to-F scale. NTU weights members’ votes based on those votes’ perceived effect on both the immediate and future size of the federal budget. Those who get A’s are among “the strongest supporters of responsible tax and spending policies”; they receive NTU’s “Taxpayers’ Friend Award.” B’s are “good” scores, C’s are “minimally acceptable” scores, D’s are “poor” scores, and F’s earn their recipients membership in the “Big Spender” category. There is no grade inflation whatsoever, as we shall see.
NTU’s scoring paints a radically different picture of Santorum’s 12-year tenure in the Senate (1995 through 2006) than one would glean from the rhetoric of the Romney campaign. Fifty senators served throughout Santorum’s two terms: 25 Republicans, 24 Democrats, and 1 Republican/Independent. On a 4-point scale (awarding 4 for an A, 3.3 for a B+, 3 for a B, 2.7 for a B-, etc.), those 50 senators’ collective grade point average (GPA) across the 12 years was 1.69 — which amounts to a C-. Meanwhile, Santorum’s GPA was 3.66 — or an A-. Santorum’s GPA placed him in the top 10 percent of senators, as he ranked 5th out of 50.
Across the 12 years in question, only 6 of the 50 senators got A’s in more than half the years. Santorum was one of them. He was also one of only 7 senators who never got less than a B. (Jim Talent served only during Santorum’s final four years, but he always got less than a B, earning a B- every year and a GPA of 2.7.) Moreover, while much of the Republican party lost its fiscal footing after George W. Bush took office — although it would be erroneous to say that the Republicans were nearly as profligate as the Democrats — Santorum was the only senator who got A’s in every year of Bush’s first term. None of the other 49 senators could match Santorum’s 4.0 GPA over that span.
This much alone would paint an impressive portrait of fiscal conservatism on Santorum’s part. Yet it doesn’t even take into account a crucial point: Santorum was representing Pennsylvania.
[...]
Among the roughly one-third of senators (18 out of 50) who represented states that — based on this measure — were at least as far to the left as Pennsylvania, Santorum was the most fiscally conservative. Even more telling was the canyon between him and the rest. After Santorum’s overall 3.66 GPA, the runner-up GPA among this group was 2.07, registered by Olympia Snowe (R., Maine). Arlen Specter, Santorum’s fellow Pennsylvania Republican, was next, with a GPA of 1.98. The average GPA among senators who represented states at least as far left as Pennsylvania was 0.52 — or barely a D-.
But Santorum also crushed the senators in the other states. Those 32 senators, representing states that on average were 16 points to the right of Pennsylvania in the presidential elections, had an average GPA of 2.35 — a C+.
In fact, considering the state he was representing, one could certainly make the case that Santorum was the most fiscally conservative senator during his tenure.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell: Romney's Anti-Santorum Hatchet Man [UPDATED]
Yet another thing Romney has in common with Obama: he knows that when you want to take down a Catholic, you scrape together 30 pieces of silver and go out and buy yourself another Catholic to do your dirty work for you. Another Catholic like ... say ... Virginia's Gov. Bob McDonnell who will only too willingly defame a fine man like Rick Santorum if it means a spot on a Romney ticket.
One of Rick Santorum’s campaign slogans is “The Courage to Fight,” and sometimes his supporters might wish the senator would consider that old saying about discretion sometimes being the better part of valor. Any heckler or liberal reporter (but I repeat myself) can throw Santorum the most loaded “gotcha” question and, rather than brushing it aside, Santorum refuses to back down from a fight.
So it was when the subject of women in combat came up last week — the Obama administration wishes to expand the employment of women in such positions — and please observe the predictable response from Team Romney:
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell chided Rick Santorum on Monday for expressing concerns about women serving in military combat roles.
Santorum told CNN last week that having women on the front lines could lead to a “compromising situation where people naturally may do things that may not be in the interest of the mission because of other types of emotions that are involved.”
He later said he was referring to both male and female emotions.
Either way, the remark did not sit well with McDonnell, a leading Mitt Romney supporter whose oldest daughter Jeanine did a tour of duty in Iraq.
“I like Rick Santorum a lot, I just disagree with any inference he might have made that somehow women are incapable of serving in the front lines and serving in combat positions,” McDonnell said in an interview Monday with CNN’s Kyra Phillips.
“And I base that in part on my own daughter’s own experience as a platoon leader in Iraq with 25 men working with her,” he continued. “She did a great job, as in some very risky situations, and yet endured and led and I’m proud of her. So, I just wanted to make sure people didn’t think that women aren’t capable of doing the job. And I’ve got firsthand experience in saying that.”
Governor McDonnell, you’re arguing like a liberal: Taking the conservative argument about a policy and trying to portray it as being an attack upon people.
[...]
McDonnell’s argument is dishonest and, furthermore, why can’t Mitt Romney fight his own fights? Should Mitt Romney wish to pick an argument with Santorum over this issue, by all means let him do so, instead of hiding behind Bob McDonnell’s skirts. Does anyone think it enhances Romney’s reputation to deploy his proxies to make liberal arguments against a conservative rival in a notoriously liberal venue like CNN? Why are Republicans doing the liberals’ work for them?
[...]
Far be it from me, as a Maryland resident, to meddle in the internal affairs of the Old Dominion, but if I were a Santorum supporter in Virginia, I’d be outraged by McDonnell’s scurrilous and unseemly attacks on Senator Santorum’s good name. I might even be tempted to contact Governor McDonnell’s office at 804-786-2211, and tell the governor to cease his mendacious campaign of character assassination against Mitt Romney’s conservative rival. If that didn’t get results, I might go so far as to contact the Republican Party of Virginia at 804-780-0111 and ask them why they were supporting McDonnell, who has so obviously hired himself out as Romney’s hatchet man.
Well, as I say, this is the course of action that might seem incumbent upon me if I were a Virginian, concerned about the fair honor of that venerable commonwealth. Were it my privilege to call myself a Virginian, I think my cheeks would blush with shame at the very thought of the dishonorable conduct of Governor McDonnell, who has defamed a fine Christian man like Rick Santorum at the behest of Mitt Romney.
(emphasis in original)
This is how Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell went from being the man I most wanted to see elected to the White House some day to being a GOP establishment hack who I wouldn't vote to be dog catcher. McDonnell should be ashamed of his loathesome attack on Santorum. Now that I see his true colors, I consider McDonnell to be only slightly above the smarmy creep for whom he's shilling. When Romney does finally go down to an inglorious defeat (and he will, be it either in the primaries (hopefully, to Santorum) or in the general election), I hope like hell he takes people like Bob McDonnell down with him.
Please note Gov. McDonnell's phone number prominently listed and highlighted above in the quoted text. I hope you'll give his office a buzz and let them know what you think.
What McDonnell has done is to begin the argument by framing it falsely: If you are opposed to Obama’s policy of expanded roles for women in combat, you must have a prejudicial attitude toward women’s ability. Thus, instead of arguing about the policy, the argument is, “Santorum is a sexist who is prejudiced against women” — an accusation which, by the way, is utterly irrelevant to whether the policy is wise. (That is to say, a prejudiced sexist may be capable of articulating an entirely sound policy argument.) But the implicit accusation of prejudice is made for the political purpose of pre-emptively discrediting Santorum, which is why I say McDonnell argues like a liberal.
It's worse than that. McDonnell argues like a liberal and he SHOULD know better, having himself been on the receiving end of just such scurrilous attacks.
Flash back two-and-a-half years ago - just before the Virginia gubernatorial elections. If you recall, The Washington Post waged just such a scurrilous campaign of attacks against McDonnell and in favor of Creigh Deeds arguing that McDonnell was an out-of-touch culture warrior guilty of sexism because of a graduate dissertation McDonnell wrote regarding the negative effects of women working outside the home. The thrust of The Post's unfair attacks on McDonnell were laid out in a September 1, 2009 editorial entitled "Bob McDonnell, Culture Warrior":
ON MORE THAN one occasion, Robert F. McDonnell, the Republican candidate for governor in Virginia, has offered a soporific description of his graduate school dissertation as a "thesis on welfare policy." This is false.
In fact, Mr. McDonnell's study, written in 1989 at age 34 in support of his master's degree in public policy and degree in law, is a full-throated attack on liberals, modernity, the Great Society and inheritance taxes, among other supposed ills, which he linked to and blamed for homosexuality, declining morality and the degradation of the traditional family, along with the proliferation of pornography, out-of-wedlock sex, day care, birth control, pregnant teenagers, divorce, single mothers, working women and feminists.
The thesis is a wistful ode to a bygone 1950s America, when, Mr. McDonnell noted, 70 percent of American families were led by working fathers and homemaker mothers, and "every state in the union made sexual intercourse between unmarried persons a crime." Sounding at times like an Old Testament prophet, Mr. McDonnell wrote that government must discriminate in favor of married couples and against "cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators," for "[t]he cost of sin should fall on the sinner not the taxpayer."
[...]
A deeply researched, passionately written manifesto, the thesis posits a detailed Republican strategy to roll back the evils that Mr. McDonnell saw as afflicting American society generally and the family in particular. On the eve of his political career, Mr. McDonnell was a committed and convinced culture warrior of the right.
[...]
... in his 14 years in the state's General Assembly, Mr. McDonnell did aggressively pursue a socially conservative agenda largely in line with his thesis. As governor he could do the same, although he would be constrained by a legislature at least partly controlled by Democrats. He could not ban abortion and contraception, but he could help restrict access. The Bob McDonnell who wrote that thesis would make a divisive, disruptive and partisan governor -- a sharp departure from the tradition of generally pragmatic executives who have helped make Virginia one of the better-managed states in the union. Virginians deserve specific answers about where the thinking of his early middle age has shifted, and where it remains consistent.
And The Post continued to hound McDonnell as an out-of-touch sexist right up until election day. For McDonnell to now "go there" with Santorum, adopting the assumptions, tactics, and rhetoric of the left, is just despicable and marks him in my book as a person with no honor. I'm absolutely disgusted.
Somehow I doubt GOP voters are going to buy Dullard Flip Rino 6.0 - "anti-establishment Washington outsider" version - any more than they were willing to buy previous unelectable versions of this loser.
Isn't Mitt Romney basically the Republican version of John Kerry? They're both shallow Massachusetts pretty boys with nice hair, lots of money, a patrician background, a liberal record, and a penchant for flip-flopping on the issues.
And I'm afraid, if nominated, the "varmint hunter" will fare about as well (actually, probably NOT as well) as did the guy who wanted to "get me a huntin' license."
What the hell does "severely conservative" mean? Certainly doesn't sound like he believes being conservative to be a good thing. As the writer at HotAir points out,
The awkwardness of that phrase is Romney’s whole candidacy in a nutshell. The word “severely” is almost always used colloquially in a pejorative or clinical sense (“severely unhappy,” “severely handicapped”), yet he’s using it here in a boastful way, as if to say that he can be as strident and unreasonable as he thinks the crowd needs him to be to give them comfort on his ideological bona fides as nominee. I go back and forth between being annoyed that a guy as intelligent as he is can’t even fake his identification with the right more effectively and feeling sympathy for him that he can’t connect with his audience on a gut level.
I mean, SERIOUSLY.
Look, if you keep having to try to convince a doubting GOP base that you're "conservative" by continuing to mention that you're "conservative", but you don't even know the right words to use to convincingly make your case, there's a very good chance that YOU'RE NOT REALLY CONSERVATIVE.
... Although he didn’t mention Rick Santorum by name, Mitt Romney emphasized in his speech last night that he was the only candidate in the race who was not a Washington insider. Santorum was dismissive of Romney’s outsider claim this morning, reports The Hill:
“Gov. Romney, ‘Mr. Outsider,’ was for government takeover of healthcare, was for government takeover of the private sector in the Wall Street bailout, and was for the government takeover of industry and energy with cap-and-trade,” Santorum said on CNN. “So ‘Mr. Private Sector’ was ‘Mr. Big Government’ when he was out there running.”
[...]
“I ran for the U.S. Senate the same year Mitt Romney ran for the U.S. Senate, and I won,” Santorum said. “It’s not that Gov. Romney didn’t want to be Sen. Romney — he wanted to be Sen. Romney, but he ran as a very liberal Republican in Massachusetts who had just become a Republican, and he lost. He lost badly in a year when Republicans had one of the biggest Republican sweeps in history, when the Republican revolution occurred.”
Exactly. Romney's not so much a "Washington outsider" as he is a wannabe Washington insider who LOST in a year in which Republicans were winning in record numbers, and running against Ted Kennedy who was vulnerable due to scandals involving: (a) his presence when his nephew allegedly raped a woman; and (b) a sandwich Kennedy made involving himself, Chris Dodd, and a waitress. Yeah, "Mr. Electable Outsider" is only an "outsider" because he's NOT electable.
I like the way Santorum fights. Unlike Gingrich, Santorum hits above the belt, lands his punches, and draws blood.
Rick Santorum must be either surging or plausibly on the cusp of a surge. Because there’s no other explanation for the Romney campaign’s abrupt, and intense, series of attacks on Santorum today in e-mail blasts to and a conference call with reporters.
Here's the money quote from Rick Santorum in response to Dullard Flip Rino's attacks:
“If Governor Romney were confident running on his record and his vision for the future, he would,” said Santorum communications director Hogan Gidley in a statement. “But Gov. Romney does what he always does and directs his well-funded attack machine to destroy the opponent. Mitt Romney’s act is tired, old and wearing thin with voters and I suspect at this point, with the media too. Romney never touts his own record — because it’s abysmal. In the Republican Party we have a name for someone who supports government healthcare mandates, big bank bailouts, and radical cap and trade initiatives — we call them Democrats.”
BINGO!!!
It will only get worse from the Romney camp in the days ahead. And, I hope that you will be thoroughly PO'd enough about it that, if that fraud manages to win the GOP nomination, you will join me in refusing to vote for him UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
In potential Election 2012 matchups, it’s President Obama 46% and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney 45%. However, if former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is the Republican nominee, the president holds an eight point lead, 49% to 41% (see tracking history). These matchup results are updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Rick Santorum trails the president by two points, 46% to 44%. Ron Paul trails by three, 45% to 42%.
... what is the remaining justification for supporting the liberal Dullard Flip Rino?
Looks like the ... you know ... ACTUAL pro-life conservative Rick Santorum is equally "electable"
Allegedly "Pro-Life" Version of Romney Told Catholic Hospitals in Massachusetts to Administer Abortion Pills
It's widely known by now that Obama got his idea for the individual health care mandate from none other than likely GOP nominee, Willard Mitt Romney (aka Dullard Flip Rino).
A defining moment in Mitt Romney’s post-pro-life-conversion political career came in his third year as governor of Massachusetts, when he decided Catholic hospitals would be required under his interpretation of a new state law to give rape victims a drug that can induce abortions.
Romney announced this decision — saying it was the “right thing for hospitals” to do — just two days after he had taken the opposite position.
[...]
... when Romney was running for governor, he filled out a questionnaire for NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts. It said: “Emergency contraception does not cause abortion. Rather, it prevents pregnancy from occurring. Will you support efforts to increase access to emergency contraception?”
Romney said: “Yes.”
The next year, the Massachusetts legislature considered an “emergency contraception” mandate. It would have allowed pharmacists to sell Plan B — an abortifacient — without a prescription and without parental consent. It also would have required all hospitals to inform rape victims of the availability of such “emergency contraceptives” and provide them to the rape victim if she wanted them even when they would cause an abortion.
Maria Parker of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, the public policy organization of the state’s Catholic bishops, explained in testimony to the state legislature why Catholic hospitals could not do this.
The normal Catholic ban on artificial contraception did not apply in a rape case, Parker said. But while contraception was acceptable in such a situation, killing an unborn child was not.
[...]
Parker concluded her testimony by quoting what Cardinal Frances George of Chicago had told the Illinois legislature when it proposed a similar law: “Our hospitals cannot and will not comply with this law.”
[...]
The same day the Globe ran its editorial, Romney held a press conference. Now he said his legal counsel had advised him the new emergency contraception law did trump the 1975 conscience law.
“On that basis, I have instructed the Department of Public Health to follow the conclusion of my own legal counsel and to adopt that sounder view,” Romney said. “In my personal view, it’s the right thing for hospitals to provide information and access to emergency contraception to anyone who is a victim of rape.”
A true leader would have said: I will defend the First Amendment right of Catholics to freely exercise their religion — against those who would force them to participate in abortions — all the way to the Supreme Court.
And this was the allegedly "PRO-LIFE" version of Romney? Too weak-kneed a pro-lifer (or perhaps more likely NOT REALLY A PRO-LIFER AT ALL) to stand up to a little criticism by the freakin' Boston Globe?
And this is the guy who's supposed to take on Obama over Obamacare in general and the HHS mandate in particular? No, the Obama campaign won't point to Romney's own record in this regard in order to deflect attention away from the HHS mandate. No, Romney won't at all fold like a cheap tent under the withering barrage of the Chicago-style campaign machine and the constant anti-life carping of the The Washington Post and The New York Times.
Catholics of all political stripes, and conservatives of whatever faith or no faith, DO NOT support this man to be the nominee of the Republican Party. And if he is nominated, DO NOT vote for him to be President. He is a fraud. He is a pro-abort. He is a big-government-health-care-mandating-religious-liberty-trampling liberal Republican. He is not to be trusted.
I won't vote for him UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, and neither should you.
A convert to the Catholic Church who became Catholic because of a belief in and devotion to the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. * A graduate of Baylor University and the University of Virginia School of Law. * Former Mayor of the Town of Columbia, Virginia. * Married with four children: two boys and two girls. * Primary interests include the Catholic Church, family, Early American History, and law/politics * Primary purpose of this blog is fostering enlightened discussion about the roles played by the institutions of religion, family, and state in our daily lives. * Under the protection of St. Thomas More, martyr, and patron of lawyers, judges, civil servants, politicians, statesmen, and large families (not to mention troubled marriages).
O Glorious St. Thomas More, Patron of Statesmen, Politicians, Judges and Lawyers, your life of prayer and penance and your zeal for justice, integrity and firm principle in public and family life led you to the path of martyrdom and sainthood. Intercede for our Statesmen, Politicians, Judges and Lawyers, that they may be courageous and effective in their defense and promotion of the sanctity of human life - the foundation of all other human rights. We ask this through Christ our Lord. AMEN.
Pray that, for the glory of God and in the pursuit of His justice, I may be able in argument, accurate in analysis, keen in study, correct in conclusion, loyal to clients, honest with all, courteous to adversaries, trustworthy with confidences, courageous in court. Sit with me at my desk and listen with me to my clients' tales. Read with me in my library and stand always beside me so that today I shall not, to win a point, lose my soul.
Pray that my family may find in me what yours found in you: friendship and courage, cheerfulness and charity, diligence in duties, counsel in adversity, patience in pain -- their good servant, and God's first. AMEN.
Dear Scholar and Martyr, it was not the King of England but you who were the true Defender of the Faith. Like Christ unjustly condemned, neither promises nor threats could make you accept a civil ruler as head of the Christian Church.
Perfect in your honesty and love of truth, grant that lawyers and judges may imitate you and achieve true justice for all people. AMEN.
"Give me the Grace Good Lord, to set the world at naught; to set my mind fast upon Thee and not to hang upon the blast of men's mouths. To be content to be solitary. Not to long for worldly company but utterly to cast off the world and rid my mind of the business thereof."
"The ordinary acts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest."
*****
"What does it avail to know that there is a God, which you not only believe by Faith, but also know by Reason: what does it avail that you know Him if you think little of Him?"
*****
"The things that we pray for, good Lord, give us grace to labour for."
Give me, good Lord, a full faith and a fervent charity, a love of you, good Lord, incomparable above the love of myself; and that I love nothing to your displeasure but everything in an order to you.
Take from me, good Lord, this lukewarm fashion, or rather cold manner of meditation and this dullness in praying to you. And give me warmth, delight and life in thinking about you.
And give me your grace to long for your holy sacraments and specially to rejoice in the presence of your blessed body, sweet Saviour Christ, in the holy sacrament of the altar, and duly to thank you for your gracious coming. AMEN.
"It is necessary to go back to seeing the family as the sanctuary of life... In the face of the so-called culture of death, the family is the heart of the culture of life" (Centesimus Annus, #39).
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