By Dave Andrusko
A Time for Truth
"In an interview with ABC's Peter Jennings last week, Kerry offered a convoluted explanation for why he did not consider early term abortion murder, even though he believed life began at conception. 'It's not the form of life that takes personhood in the terms that we have judged it to be in the past,' he said. 'It's the beginning of life.'"
Matea Gold, Los Angeles Times staff writer, July 26
"Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper? Of course it is. The fattest file on my hard drive is jammed with letters from the disappointed, the dismayed and the irate who find in this newspaper a liberal bias that infects not just political coverage but a range of issues from abortion to zoology to the appointment of an admitted Democrat to be its watchdog. ...
"I'll get to the politics-and-policy issues this fall (I want to watch the campaign coverage before I conclude anything), but for now my concern is the flammable stuff that ignites the right. These are the social issues: gay rights, gun control, abortion and environmental regulation, among others. And if you think The Times plays it down the middle on any of them, you've been reading the paper with your eyes closed."
Daniel Okrent, the Times's "Public Editor," July 25
If the polling data are to be believed, Americans are more into this presidential election than they have been in a long, long time. But while interest levels may be higher, what hasn't changed is that none of us can be an expert on the many, many issues that we face as citizens.
Put another way, given how much there is to know, it's easy to be misled or to inadvertently mislead oneself. That's why NRLC wants to ensure that you know where candidates really stand on abortion and euthanasia and stem cell research, just to name three areas.
But that's a lot harder than it may sound. Most of us casually read daily newspapers, watch the tube quite a bit, and surf the web incessantly (or some combination thereof). There are enormous amounts of information out there, but lots of what you'll read is highly misleading.
On our issues, nowhere is that more true than with the "mainstream press," and quite often the New York Times. Usually when I read its abortion coverage, I'm reminded of the Exxon Valdez. Often times, we find ourselves spending inordinate amounts of time cleaning up the accidental (and deliberate) spills.
Yet so often it's not what is written that is so damaging, it's what is not written. NRL Political Director Carol Tobias offers a prime example in her story on page one - - Ron Reagan, Jr.'s "non-political" political speech at the Democratic National Convention.
Reagan Jr., the son of the late pro-life President Ronald Reagan, professed to be talking about "embryonic stem cell research," but the hosanna he was singing was to human cloning. But as far as I can tell, hardly anywhere in the "mainstream" press was this even mentioned, let alone highlighted.
When he wasn't trashing opponents, most of Reagan Jr.'s remarks were a kind of travelog of wishful thinking. Drop those fetal stem cells in, and, poof, like magic, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, lymphoma, spinal cord injuries just go away. That not a single such breakthrough in humans is visible even way off in the distance (if ever) was conveniently omitted.
In the reporting that followed, there were only a couple of cautionary syllables to explain that all of the "cures" Reagan Jr. was touting are purely speculative. And there was a complete hush when it came to even mentioning the successes scientists have enjoyed using sources other than human embryos. All of this did not leave a very pleasant aftertaste in the mouths of pro-lifers.
In the bigger picture, the side-step on abortion is a microcosm of how Kerry and Edwards are simultaneously trying to evade taking responsibility for their extremist positions on a host of contentious issues, and voice support for positions they've rarely talked about before the last month or two but now want to be associated with. In other words, they skip over issues on which they know they are way out of the mainstream, such as abortion, and keep dropping broad hints they are comrades in arms on issues that they know resonate with Americans, such as "values" and "faith."
On abortion, Kerry has added another wrinkle: like a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, he sows seeds - - in this case, seeds of confusion. Bearing in mind that people can't be well-versed on every issue, what Kerry does is to drop a suggestion every once
and awhile on an unsuspecting reporter that, darn it, if it wasn't for that old "separation of church and state" problem, Kerry would be out there practically crusading for the unborn. A few months ago, Kerry offered (and then quickly took back) a hint that, if the stars were in just the right alignment, he might nominate a pro-life judge.
A moment's reflection, or just a couple of follow-up questions, could have dispelled the fog of confusion. Kerry will only appoint pro-Roe v. Wade justices. As he told the Associated Press earlier this year, "I am proud that I am the only presidential candidate to pledge that I will support only pro-choice judges to the Supreme Court."
And who can forget the exchange of hugs and kisses with NARAL's Kate Michelman at the special gathering arranged by his campaign two days prior to the April 25 "March for Women's Lives." Kerry dutifully mouthed NARAL's primary talking point, word for word: "More than 30 years after Roe v. Wade became the law of the land," Kerry intoned, "it has never been more at risk than it is today." It's enough to give Chicken Little a bad name.
Let me return to the benighted New York Times.
I refer you to a recent column by the Times's Public Editor (a.k.a. ombudsman), from which I quoted at the beginning. In answering yes to the question that headed his column - - "Is the New York Times a Liberal Paper?" - - Daniel Okrent merely pointed out what everybody on the face of the planet already knows: the Times has its own secular liturgy. This starts with "the editorial page, so thoroughly saturated in liberal theology that when it occasionally strays from that point of view
the shocked yelps from the left overwhelm even the ceaseless rumble of disapproval from the right."
What's really fascinating is just how deep in denial is Times publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. "He prefers to call the paper's viewpoint 'urban,'" Okrent writes. "He says that the tumultuous, polyglot metropolitan environment The Times occupies means 'We're less easily shocked,' and that the paper reflects 'a value system that recognizes the power of flexibility.'"
That "flexibility" does not mean, of course, balanced news coverage, or anything approximating it. Okrent argues that it's not intentional (I would disagree), but the result is the same: telling "only the side of the story your co-religionists wish to hear."
Worse yet (a point Okrent does not directly address) is that the news stories are so drenched with personal opinion that it is almost impossible to distinguish them from what's found on the editorial pages.
A final thought. As anyone who follows this knows, the core constituency of the Democratic Party has simply slipped its rails. Its hatred for George Bush is so compulsive, so obsessive, that it will say (and believe) virtually anything.
Yet, as Tim Russert, moderator of Meet the Press, told Katie Couric last month on The Today Show, the Kerry campaign vetted all the convention speeches ahead of time. They wanted "Hallmark card"-like rhetoric, fearing that if the undecideds see the real face of activist hatred, it will cost Kerry dearly in the fall.
And how's this for ironic? The conclusion to Ron Reagan, Jr.'s confusing mess of a speech is absolutely correct, although not in the sense that he meant it. "We can choose between the future and the past, between reason and ignorance, between true compassion and mere ideology," he said. "This is our moment, and we must not falter."
Only the wave of the future is not the commodification of life, but rather the embrace of unborn children, and true compassion is not the mindless ideology of choice, but the loving embrace of unborn children.
And it is most certainly true that for the sake of unborn children, this is our moment, and we must not falter.
Dave Andrusko can be reached at dandrusko@nrlc.org.