Kmiec says he’s having second thoughts about Obama

By Benjamin Mann

Washington (CNA) — Pepperdine University law Professor Doug Kmiec, a Catholic supporter of President Barack Obama in the 2008 election, has rebuked the president, saying he may withdraw his endorsement over the federal contraception coverage mandate.

“Where is the common good, sir, in not making room for the great Catholic traditions of education, health care, and meeting the needs of the least among us?” Kmiec asked the president in a letter he made public Feb. 6 through the website Catholic Online.

On the same day, the Washington, D.C., newspaper The Hill published excerpts of an e-mail from Kmiec saying he was “now unhappily without a candidate,” until he could “have an opportunity to speak with the president” about Health and Human Services’ new rules on contraception coverage.

“This matter goes to the heart of who we are as a people,” Kmiec stated in his letter to the president. He went on to ask why President Obama would “put the cold calculus of politics above faith and freedom.”

The Pepperdine University professor, who served as U.S. ambassador to Malta from 2009 to 2011, suggested the president was forcing him to choose between “friendship” and his “duty to faith and country.”

“The Barack Obama I knew would never have asked me to make that choice,” he wrote.

On Jan. 20, Health and Human Services finalized rules on “preventive services,” which will take effect under the health care law signed by President Obama.
Over 160 U.S. Catholic bishops have spoken out against the mandate, which will require religious employers to cover contraception and sterilization.

An exemption exists only for institutions that primarily work to “inculcate religious values” and mainly employ and serve members of their own faith.

In his e-mail to The Hill, Kmiec said he was left wondering, “Why exactly did we not walk down a path that would have led to common ground – namely, coverage without ethical objection?”

“That’s what I need answered before deciding on 2012,” he wrote.

The former Maltese ambassador said he found it “most troubling to be tossed into this dilemma,” since he remains “very proud of the president’s success on the healthcare initiative” and other issues.

Both Kmiec’s letter to the president and his e-mail to The Hill show a stronger opposition to the mandate than he had previously expressed in the run-up to the final rule.

During 2011, the former ambassador had called for a broader religious exemption, while simultaneously maintaining that even a universal mandate would not infringe on religious freedom.

In a Nov. 22 National Catholic Reporter column, he said there was “no violation of religious liberty when HHS announces a temporary or permanent regulation requiring all employers – religious or nonreligious, Catholic or not – to provide employees with an insurance benefit for artificial contraception.”

Religious freedom, Kmiec said in that essay, would only have been violated if the department had “demanded a religious employer to affirmatively endorse or require the use of artificial contraception or any other choice contrary to its own teaching.”

A vast majority of the U.S. bishops, however, have declared that the rule violates the Church’s rights over its own ministries.

While Kmiec stopped short of explicitly reversing his past defense of the mandate, his rebuke of the president contained strong words on the topic of religious freedom.

Kmiec said the president’s profession of faith at the Feb. 3 National Prayer Breakfast had “touched neither soul nor heart in the room,” coming just two weeks after his administration finalized the contraception rule over the objections of Catholics and others.

“In deciding against a reasonable accommodation of Catholic concerns in the implementation of the health care program, you lost sight of your own beliefs… The polite, but tepid applause this morning was a sign of concern that you have lost your way on this most essential topic.”

Kmiec warned the president that he had “already lost the votes” of many “people of independent mind.”

A self-described pro-life Catholic and Republican, Kmiec served as a constitutional legal counsel to presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He caused controversy in 2008 by endorsing Barack Obama, arguing that his policies could reduce abortion without making it illegal.

Kmiec had previously worked as an adviser to Mitt Romney during his bid for the 2008 Republican nomination, until Romney’s withdrawal from the race. In a February 2008 Slate column, Kmiec noted that Romney had spoken out “in defense of the best traditions of religious liberty” during his campaign.

READER COMMENTS

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 3:24 AM By Maryanne Leonard
After all that Barack Obama put Doug Kmiec through, it is a wonder that the professor did not see the light to the extent he has any sooner. Sometimes less educated minds see simple truths more clearly and more swiftly. I don’t believe Obama is going to change his tune just because his so-called “old friend” Doug Kmiec has had a change of heart on the matter and moved back toward the position of the Church when the Catholic Church, Catholic bishops, EWTN, etc., etc., have not moved Obama to respect the American tradition of freedom of religion. When you buy a guard dog, it is wise to expect it might bite someone; when you join forces with the Barack Obamas of this world, it is wise to expect the same.

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 4:53 AM By Juergensen
No need to change your mind, Doug. After all, the USCCB hasn’t changed a single word in Section 34 of “Faithful Citizenship.” Under it, you can still vote for Obama if you simply “intend” not to support abortion when you pull the lever for him (Sec. 34, “Faithful Citizenship”). It’s that easy, Doug. And if you’re still leaning away from Obama, keep in mind John Maguire’s famous words on this forum: “December 18, 2010 1:46 PM By John F. Maguire ~ ‘I assure you, I’d rather be a true progressive than a false conservative.'”

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 5:01 AM By SCM
It’s about time Kmiec saw the evil doings of Obama. Obama even supported partial-birth abortion in the last tri-mester when he was in IL politics. Obama has not changed, and been very consistent in supporting evil. It’s unfortunate that it took so long for many to open their eyes. Even though Obama is a good speaker, and very good at telling lies – – – – All politicians public voting records can be found on the internet, as well as many of their public statements. There are no excuses for supporting Obama in the first place.

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 5:02 AM By Ski Ven
Typical intellectual.

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 5:08 AM By Debbie
When a Presidents supports and uses our tax dollars to help perpitrate the murder of approx 1 MILLION innocent babies each year – the Biggest Human Rights violation this Country has ever seen – and the biggest sin against Social Justice – there should be no question. Obama has always supported the murder of children even long before he was elected President. His record is public and on the internet for those who are not too lazy to look.

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 5:43 AM By Fr. Richard Perozich
Candidate Obama was fairly clear about his agenda during the 2008 campaign. If Mr. Kmiec really knew Mr. Obama in 2008, then he should have known his agenda. The rest of us did know, and we voted against it and him who promotes anti Catholic, anti American values.

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 5:59 AM By k
This is from his letter on February 6. On February 10, Douglas Kmiec was one of the people that signed the letter accepting and praising the compromise that the Obama administration came up with.

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 6:46 AM By Frank A
Dear Professor why is it taking you so long to wise up to this blatant socialist. You are a law professor formerly at what was a great Catholic University, Notre Dame. What greater proof do you need than the actions against the Constitution and the Catholic that this president has taken. Look no further than Rick Santorum or Neute Gingrich for a Catholic Constitutional candidate. God guide you in your search.

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 6:52 AM By OneoftheSheep
A prolife Catholic who voted for and supported a man who has made no secret of his full and wholehearted support for abortion, the abortion industry and a contempt for Catholic values? Really?

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 7:11 AM By Dan
I’m sorry, but having to listen to this pathetic man is a most penitential experience. At least Pelosi makes no claim to be pro-life. She knows what she is about. Kmiec gives the impression he is clueless about who or what he is and what be believes. Obama played him for the confused soul he is, and used him and then dropped him after he has served his purpose. Kmiec, just go away, and go away quietly, given the damage you have done.

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 7:15 AM By Bob
Kmiec is one of those people educated beyond their intelligence. He should have been able to understand Obama from the first moment they met.

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 7:28 AM By Larry
“’The Barack Obama I knew would never have asked me to make that choice,’ he wrote.” And just who is that?

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 8:00 AM By Juergensen
Doug: If Obama’s lust for butchering babies wasn’t a problem for you in 2008, why is a little pill a problem for you now?

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 8:02 AM By JMJ
Maryanne, you said it very well, but, poor Mr. Jurergensen is still in his rut. I guess that he hasn’t read what our Blessed Holy Father, Pope John Paul said about this voting matter that he is having such a hard time with. +JMJ+

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 8:41 AM By Del
Who care’s what this man has to say. He lost his credibility a long time ago.

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 8:46 AM By MD
Mr. Kmiec, what do you think the result would be when you support someone who so vehemently opposes life? Obama has never made it a secret that he not only supports abortion, but late term abortion and is a staunch supporter of Planned Parenthood. The problem is not Obama, it’s all the people who elected him and didn’t see the writing on the wall. God Love You.

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 8:56 AM By Catherine
JMJ, Before he died, even Blessed Holy Father Pope John Paul lamented that he did not discipline more. Juergensen is honoring God by telling the truth. The rut you are referring to is the longstanding rut called DISOBEDIENCE.

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 9:14 AM By Ski Ven
Maybe the next thing the intellectuals will tell us is that it is not necessarily a mortal sin to vote for Obama as long as you don’t intend to attack the Catholic Church when you vote for Obama.

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 9:34 AM By John F. Maguire
Yipes, my ‘bon mot’ (for some on this website, my ‘mal mot’) to the effect that I would rather be a true progressive than a false conservative, gets quoted — which is fine by me but wait — it gets quoted in the context of a false reading of the the bishops’ voting-ethics document _Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship_. Worse, it gets quoted in the context of something which, at least expectably, promises to BE truly progressive, namely, the work of serious, conscientious reconsideration of past commitments. ~ What has prompted this reconsideration among Catholics — among traditionally Democratic Catholics? The stark tragedy of the present Administration inasfar as, or rather inasmuch as, this Administration is an abortocratic Administration — plus the fact that, more than merely tendentially, this Administration is on the warpath against the moral and religious integrity of Catholic institutions; which is also to say, on the warpath against the Apostolic liberty of Holy Church.

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 10:48 AM By William 
With all due deference Prof. Kmiec isn’t a Catholic anymore than is Nancy Pelosi. Supporting Obama and the Democrat party is antithetical to the very essence Catholicism. In the first place the Dems are the most rabid political force in history pushing for abortion. It’s a non-skid slope to infanticide from there and a very short leap from that point to euthanasia. In the second place, Mr. Kmiece, in signing on to an ideology [progressivism/socialism] which denies the free will with which we were endowed by our Creator. Again, that’s antithetical to Catholic and Christian theology. If you go back and read St. Augustine, that statement will become much clearer. The health care mandate forces people, many against their will, to place themselves in the maw of government run universal healthcare. Let’s for the record note that the vast majority of Catholic “social justice” teaching abridges bedrock Catholic principles.

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 11:15 AM By John F. Maguire
Early on, 2008 candidate Barack Obama was already introduced to the natural-law defense of the life of preborn infants that had been outlined for him by Pepperdine law school professor Douglas Kmiec. Senator Obama was also aware that Douglas Kmiec had invited the Supreme Court to revisit _Roe v. Wade_ in light of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution (“nor shall any State deprive any person of the right to life… without due process of law”). Before shifting to Senator Obama, Doug Kmiec as a Republican noticed (as many bloggers on this website have yet to notice) that Mitt Romney’s abortion flip-flops ALL SCANTED the 14th Amendment, alas, the better to reiterate President Richard Nixon’s state prerogativism, according to which the right-to-life of preborn infants is dependent upon the vote of state legislatures. Here is what is crucial: by the measure of both the natural law and the 14th Amendment, state prerogativism discloses itself as gravely mistaken. Worse: as a matter of judicial politics, there was then, as now, no pro-life Justice on the Supreme Court who was NOT a state prerogativist. What the Supreme Court needed in 2008 is what the Supreme needs today: INTEGRALLY PRO-LIFE Justices. Justice Scalia, for example, is not an integrally pro-life Justice; rather, he is a state prerogativist. By sharp contrast, what recommends Professor Kmiec in this connection is that he has rejected state prerogativism, as has Senator Santorum. Senator Santorum, we see, is defending the integrally pro-life position within the Republican Party. Now an Independent, Douglas Kmiec is defending an integrally pro-life position all ’round — for the sake of reconstructing both Parties. That he tried his best to convert Barack Obama — yes, from within the position afforded him by his public endorsement of Obama — is a political strategy that, given the Nixonian/Romneyite position on abortion, appeared worth the effort.

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 12:40 PM By Juergensen
John Maquire writes: “Before shifting to Senator Obama, Doug Kmiec as a Republican noticed (as many bloggers on this website have yet to notice) that Mitt Romney’s abortion flip-flops . . . ” ~ Mitt Romney was not the nominee in 2008, rather John McCain was. This is a quintessential red herring. Trying to justify Kmiec’s vote for Obama over McCain in 2008, Maguire compares Obama to Romney! This is priceless.

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 1:35 PM By John F. Maguire
To the contrary, Mr. Juergensen: All three persons you’ve mentioned, namely, President Obama, Senator McCain, and Governor Romney ACCEPT the _Roe v. Wade_ HOLDING that preborn infants are non-persons within the horizon of the 14th Amendment, the essential difference between team McCain-Romney, on the one hand, and team Obama-Biden, on the other hand, is that the Obama-Biden team, WRONGLY, is against overturning _Roe v. Wade_, while team McCain-Romney favors overturning _Roe v. Wade_, but for the WRONG REASON, alas, not because preborn infants are juridically cognizable PERSONS under the 14th Amendment but rather because the 50 states supposedly have a PREROGATIVE to vote thumbs-up/thumbs-down on the right-to-life of preborn infants. In short, team Obama-Biden and team McCain-Romney are indeed “comparable” because, and just because, both teams are abortocratic, the former team against overturning _Roe_; the latter team, at least nominally in favor of overturning _Roe_ but neither team recognizes the PROTON PSEUDOS — the PRIMARY ERROR — of the Supreme Court’s _Roe_ decision, namely, that the _Roe_ decision is violative of the 14th Amendment’s acknowledgement that no PERSON shall be deprived of life without due process of law.

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 3:48 PM By cjo
Kmiec is another lost cause. Being “prestigiuos” doesn’t prove that one has any common sense.

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 4:19 PM By John F. Maguire
As a professor of constitutional law, Douglas Kmiec has a keen sense — a keen jurisprudential sense — that, in the objective juridical order, the United States Supreme Court needs to revisit the holding of _Roe v. Wade_, viz., that preborn infants are NOT “persons” pursuant to the Organic Law of the United States of America. Against Douglas Kmiec on this point, you invoke “common” sense. By the measure of right reason however, common sense, not infrequently, turns out to be an admixture of sense and nonsense. If however all living human bodies are persons; if preborn infants are living human bodies, then preborn infants are indeed persons, and therefor properly cognizable as such under the fundamental law of this, our American Republic. From within this perspective, CJO, what is nonsense is the refusal of the Nixon-McCain-Romney wing of the Republican Party to acknowledge preborn infants as juridically cognizable persons under the 14th Amendment.

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 4:44 PM By Clinton
Mr. Kmiec, you should know that we either serve God or we turn away from Him. “He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters.” Luke 11:23

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 8:32 PM By Cody in Tucson
SCM – Correction on your comment, it was worse than that. Obama was a big supporter of INFANTICIDE, not partial birth. Obama fought to make sure that if a baby survived an abortion, actually born alive, and since the intent was that the baby was to have been killed, then a 2nd doctor would arrive on the scene and make sure the baby was murdered, as intended. Obama was frequently absent from votes in the IL Senate or voted “present” but he fought tooth and nail on this one!

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 10:10 PM By Elizabeth
May all people (especially Catholics) that voted for Obama see the light as Mr. Kniec has finally done!!!

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 10:15 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
For such a highly educated man, the guy doesn’t have a clue! God bless, yours in Their Hearts, Kenneth M. Fisher

Posted Thursday, March 08, 2012 10:57 PM By Abeca Christian
JMJ that little cheap shot at Juergensen isn’t so becoming of you. I disagree with you, I fancy Mr. Juergensen, he tells it like it is and He is a gentleman, wish we had more folks like him running our church and perhaps we wouldn’t be in this mess. Babies are dying while pro-lifers are giving cheap shots at the scandalized. Scandalizing of the souls should move us to speak up but unfortunately some just can’t bare it no longer and are in a some kind of rut.

Posted Friday, March 09, 2012 5:20 AM By Juergensen
Maguire says: “As a professor of constitutional law, Douglas Kmiec has a keen sense.” But God says: “You shall not kill” (Exodus 20:13). What will Kmiec and his fellow travellers say when God asks them to requite the blood that flowed from the millions of babies dismembered under Obama?

Posted Friday, March 09, 2012 7:24 AM By Ski Ven
I am so shocked to discover that an intellectual thinks ill of common sense! I honestly did not see that one coming!

Posted Friday, March 09, 2012 7:33 AM By Larry
“By the measure of right reason however, common sense, not infrequently, turns out to be an admixture of sense and nonsense.” Common sense, professor, is the faculty which enabled the little boy to yell out, “the Emperor is naked!” when others were far too sophisticated to notice. “From within this perspective, CJO, what is nonsense is the refusal of the Nixon-McCain-Romney wing of the Republican Party to acknowledge preborn infants as juridically cognizable persons under the 14th Amendment.” From this I would gather that there is no moral bar to the re-election of Obama? That seems to be the point upon which you spend the most time and energy: “proving” that one can, in good conscience, vote for Obama.

Posted Friday, March 09, 2012 8:31 AM By Dana
“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, “He is THE ONE WHO CATCHES THE WISE IN THEIR CRAFTINESS”;I Cor.3:19 All too often, too much (secular) book learning can turn us into fools, as in the case of he who occupies the White House. Though to honest, it would appear he’s forgotten anything and everything he was ever required to learn. In the case of his friend Mr. Kmiec, it would appear his learning has intruded on his understanding of the wisdom of God. Or as Kenneth Fisher wrote, the guy’s clueless.

Posted Friday, March 09, 2012 8:32 AM By Catherine
St. Alphonsus Ligouri said, “Those elect who once knew the Catholic Faith but exchanged it for falsehoods for the distinct purpose of rationalizing their own personal sins, their punishment is to be locked into their own blindness until death.” Many intellectuals rationalize these personal sins and they are now completely guided and ruled by error because of some particular delicious sin that they have embraced. Simply stated…Now the sin guides the intellect instead of God. The intellectual also misguidedly thinks of himself as extremely adept at convincing others that he is much wiser than even God. The intellect, who has now become blinded, cannot see that he has taken that keen gift and used it to turn against God and even against himself. Unless they repent, that same keen intellect will be the vehicle that lands them in hell for all eternity. Yes, we have even witnessed the highly proficient attempts to make excuses for error and to distort our Catholic Faith by intellectuals on CCD. How many times did God send Our Lady to appear to the most simple, humble and uneducated children? These children were incapable of twisting the truth to benefit themselves. Look at our Catholic Universities and other Catholic Institutions that are Catholic in name only. These Institutions are run by those who would consider themselves as the progressive intellectual elite. Many have truly deceived themselves into calling this rationalization of error progress or true progressiveness. Let us remember to pray for the conversion of the many souls who have exchanged their own God given gift of a keen intellect and then turned that keen intellect into a most deceitful weapon to offend God and lead others astray. Let us ask all of the many other Professor Kmiecs’ of our many Catholic Institutions, as well as those who post regularly on CCD to reflect on St. Alphonsus Ligouri’s very sobering warning. “Their punishment is to be locked into their own blindness until death.”

Posted Friday, March 09, 2012 10:10 AM By Juergensen
There is a splendid editorial over at Catholic World News by Phil Lawler titled “The Noise-to-Signal Ratio at the USCCB.” Essentially it discerns that with the USCCB busily issuing so many pronouncements on so many issues that are simply not matters of faith and morals but rather are prudential, viz., on which Catholics can disagree (e.g., taxes, unemployment benefits, agricultural policy, deficits, welfare, defense spending, housing assistance, foreign aid, job training, tax credits, Pell grants, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), the USCCB has so muddied the waters in America that on the few occasions it does speak on a matter of faith and morals – such as the contraception mandate – few listen, and those who do say “Well, we may not agree on contraception, but I agree with you on taxes, unemployment benefits, agricultural policy, deficits, welfare, defense spending, housing assistance, foreign aid, job training, tax credits, Pell grants, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program!” Let us heed the words of Joseph Ratzinger, now the reigning pontiff, in this regard: “We must not forget that the episcopal conferences have no theological basis; they do not belong to the structure of the Church as willed by Christ, that cannot be eliminated.” Eliminated … hmm … I like that.

Posted Friday, March 09, 2012 10:30 AM By John F. Maguire
In reply to Ski Ven: What is conventionally called “common sense” is not the same thing as right reason (recta ratio). No one should be surprised that common sense not only encompasses (a) a cumulative compound of common-place insights but also (b) a cumulative compound of common-place biases.

Posted Friday, March 09, 2012 11:55 AM By John F. Maguire
No, Larry, I’m describing the “quandary” that cognizant pro-lifers find themselves in when forced to choose between to two abortocratic candidates for high office. Senator Rick Santorum, for one, understands this quandary better than any candidate now in the race because he, as an integral pro-lifer, he understands that the _Roe_ holding that preborn infants are non-persons runs contrary to the 14th Amendment. The Nixon-McCain-Romney position, by sharp contrast, is to AGREE with the _Roe_ holding and, in consequence, submit the right-to-life of preborn infants to state-legislatures, as if state-legislatures had the prerogative to deprive living human bodies (persons) of the right to life.

Posted Friday, March 09, 2012 12:10 PM By k
Juergensen thanks for the tip on the editorial. It is a good one. Hope the bishops read it.

Posted Friday, March 09, 2012 12:42 PM By Ski Ven
Whatever Maguire. Those of us who have common sense saw this horrible train wreck coming. We tried to warn others, but you intellectuals insisted that Obama is A-ok and that the people who are opposed to Obama are ignorant and bigoted. Now the Church is being attacked by Obama because many people listened to the intellectuals and voted for Obama. How is that “right reason” working out for you intellectuals, huh Maguire?

Posted Friday, March 09, 2012 1:05 PM By Larry
But surely you see where your reasoning leads, Professor Maguire. If Romney is nominated instead of Santorum, and it’s highly likely he will be, then your argument will have painted Obama and Romney as morally equivalent on abortion–thus eliminating abortion as an argument for voting against Obama. That’s where ALL your arguing perpetually leads–to levelling the playing field on abortion between Obama and the Republicans. Do you think the rest of us are so stupid that we cannot see that you are nothing but a shill for Obama?

Posted Friday, March 09, 2012 1:42 PM By John F. Maguire
In his general audience in St. Peter’s Square, Wednesday, March 30, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI drew our attention to Alphonsus Ligouri’s intellectual formation: “Endowed with outstanding intellectual qualities, when he was only 16 years old he obtained a degree in civil and canon law. He was the most brilliant lawyer in the tribunal of Naples: for eight years he won all the cases he defended. However, in his soul thirsting for God and desirous of perfection, the Lord led Alphonsus to understand that he was calling him to a different vocation. In fact, in 1793, indignant at the corruption and injustice that was ruining the legal milieu, he abandoned his profession — and with it riches and success — and deciced to become a priest despite the opposition of his father.” Alphonsus applied himself assiduously to the study of Sacred Scripture, the study of Church history, and the study of Christian mysticism. Due to these studies, and a certain ‘something else,’ Alphonsus “acquired a vast theological culture which he put to good use when, after a few years, he embarked on his work as a writer.” Throughout his life, Alphonsus LIgouri never disdained secular life or secular learning. Christ’s friendship, he taught, is possible to all Christians: “the religious as religious; the secular as secular; the priest as priest; the married as married; the man of business as a man of business; the soldier as a soldier; and so of every state of life” (_Practica di amare Gesu Christo. Opera ascetiche_ (Rome 1933, p. 79).

Posted Friday, March 09, 2012 5:54 PM By John F. Maguire
In reply to Larry: Two abortocrats are not at necessarily “morally equivalent” because they are both abortocrats. Nor will abortion be eliminated as an issue in an Obama-Romney contest; far from it. Nor yet am I leveling differences between candidates where there are big differences indeed. Instead, I am showing the proximity of Governor Romney to President Obama: both accept the HOLDING of _Roe v. Wade_ that preborn infants are non-persons under the 14th Amendment. For example, to date, Governor Romney has refused to endorse Congress’s use of the 14th Amendment to legislate protection for the right-to-life of preborn infants at the federal level. In short, like President Nixon and Senator McCain, Governor Romney agrees with the _Roe_ holding that preborn infants are not persons. Does he advocate overturning _Roe_? Yes, but not because he believes that preborn infants, as living human bodies, are persons under the 14th Amendment; no, rather, he thinks state legislatures possess the prerogative to decide whether preborn infants should be protected or no. Governor Romney is not an integral pro-lifer; he is a state prerogativist.

Posted Friday, March 09, 2012 6:29 PM By Ski Ven
Larry, it seems like the rest of us just can’t comprehend how stupid the elitist intellectuals think we are. Most of the things they say insult our intelligence. They can at least have enough respect for us to tell us lies that have a modicum of credibility.

Posted Friday, March 09, 2012 6:52 PM By John F. Maguire
Why would I speak of a voting QUANDARY were I a “shill” for President Obama? (The ‘ad extra’ title of the present thread, by the way, is Quandary.) ~ Larry, my purpose in this post is to identify THAT SIGNIFICANT MOMENT in Governor Mitt Romney’s campaign when Romney had a chance, a real chance, to join the pro-life movement, the real pro-life movement. At the Palmetto Freedom Forum in September 2011, Princeton Professor Robert P. George asked the five Republican candidates present (Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and Mitt Romney) [I’m quoting from Professor Michael J. New’s account from _National Review Online_ (Sept. 26, 2011)] “whether they would SUPPORT LEGISLATION under Section Five of the 14th Amendment that would restore legal protection for unborn children. The 14th Amendment guarantees that no state shall ‘deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.’ The fifth section gives Congress the power to enforce, ‘by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.’ The strategy Professor George is proposing would be for Congress to legislate that unborn children are persons under the 14th Amendment. ~ Michelle Backmann, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich said they would support such legislation. Ron Paul said crime should be a state-level issue. […] MITT ROMNEY said that he feared such legislation would provoke a constitutional crisis. Instead, he would focus on appointing judges who would return abortion regulation to the states.” Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, we see here, are state prerogativists — they agree with the _Roe_ Court’s holding that the preborn infant is a non-person under the 14th Amendment, which is also to say that they agree with President Obama that the preborn infant is a non-person under the 14th Amendment. This, Larry, is what I mean by Obama/Romney proximity.