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NRL News
What the
2008 Election Taught Us Political analysts of our day, stirred up a hornet’s nest in a November 11 speech he delivered to the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. So why had “A roomful of academics erupted in angry boos,” according to Mike Allen and Andy Barr of Politico.com? They write in their story, the accuracy of which Barone did not challenge, that Barone, a senior writer for U.S. News & World Report, told an audience of about 500, “The liberal media attacked Sarah Palin because she did not abort her Down syndrome baby.” Barone went further: “They wanted her to kill that child. ... I’m talking about my media colleagues with whom I’ve worked for 35 years.” When contacted for comment, Barone, the principal co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, wasted no time in e-mailing a response to Allen and Barr. He said he “was attempting to be humorous and ... went over the line.” While I greatly admire Barone, that excuse was as lame as his observation was accurate. More about that in a moment. I am composing this editorial exactly one week after pro-abortion-to-the-hilt President-elect Barack Obama carried 53% of the vote and 364 electoral votes in defeating the pro-life team of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin. Among many conclusions we could draw, let me offer these five. #1. To pro-lifers, it makes no difference whether President-elect Obama won 364 electoral votes or all of them. We are in this for the duration. When each of us signed on, at some level we already knew (as Mother Teresa told us many times) that “God calls us not to be successful but to be faithful.” I interpret that to mean we can only do what we can do—but no less—and confidently leave the outcome in God’s hands. I do not doubt, nor have I ever doubted for a single moment, that eventually the cause of unborn babies will prevail. It may not occur in my lifetime, but that is why we are so thrilled by the emergence of an army of motivated, talented, and faithful young people. (See pages 18 and 19.) #2. Pro-lifers are both idealists and practical to the nth degree. As the story that begins on the back cover explains, the pro-life Movement did its part—more than its part—to help McCain and Palin win. Among the 5% of people for whom abortion was the most important reason they voted for a candidate, 4 out of 5 went to McCain and Palin. Among the 34% that said abortion influenced their vote, 25% went to the pro-life team. The simple fact of life is that the public (understandably, in these times) put the economy at the top of its list of most important reasons for voting the way it did but (less understandably) broke overwhelmingly for Obama on that issue. President-elect Obama ran a brilliant campaign, to be sure, but it would difficult to imagine anyone who’s ever been luckier. #3. From morning to night, the public will be told that our Movement is dead, and good riddance. Why? Well, because defending those least able to protect themselves has always been a “distraction” from the “real” issues, and (more to the point) now that the man who can heal all divisions is President, we actually are, at best, irrelevant, at worst, unneeded. The truth is, of course, that Obama has no more interest in downshifting his drive to increase the number of abortions than we are of standing idly by in neutral. You will not only be more essential than ever, but because of your steely determination, we will grow stronger than ever. But isn’t this counter-intuitive or merely wishful thinking on my part? Let me explain why it isn’t. As I told hundreds of people who e-mailed me after the election, I’m not big on persecution=growth. I do believe (to quote Jacki Ragan, NRL’s director of state development) that Obama will undertake a slash-and-burn campaign to root out every pro-life policy and program and law enacted in the last 30 years. However, we will live to fight another day not primarily because Obama and the ruthless pro-abortion Democratic leadership in the House and Senate will unleash their full fury against us, but because our cause is much larger than any of us individually or all of us together. Our job has always been to keep the moral lamp lit, whether conditions seem close to dawn or closer to midnight. Obama, a very, very shrewd politician, will pick the time and a place of his choosing to advance his anti-life agenda. Whether it’s early, late, or in the middle of his term, we will be gearing up, preparing for his onslaughts. (See the story that begins on page one.) What if, as we all expect, the Democratic leadership tries to stifle free speech in the guise of re-establishing the grotesquely misnamed “Fairness Doctrine”? Well, our Movement is indefatigable, irrepressible, and indestructible. But if every pro-life voice were stilled, the stones themselves would cry out on behalf of unborn babies. #4. For all the reasons all of us know, the winds were always at Obama’s back. I’d like to offer a lengthy quote from Cardinal Sean O’Malley, in an interview given to the Boston Globe. It signals the pride that many people, white as well as African-American, felt at the election of Obama but also the gut-level regret at the company our 44th President keeps. “So, to me, the election of an Afro-American is like the Berlin Wall falling. I mean, for my generation, I suppose young people today can’t appreciate that, but to me it is something very big. My joy, however, is tempered by the knowledge that this man has a deplorable record when it comes to prolife issues and is possibly in the pocket of Planned Parenthood which in its origins was a very racist organization to eliminate the blacks, and it’s sort of ironic that he’s been co-opted by them. ... However, I hope he realizes that his election was not a mandate to rush ahead with a pro-abortion platform.” What an unbelievably bitter irony that the first African-American elected President would break bread with and be embraced by an organization whose biggest “growth market” is pregnant African-American women. #5. If you look for silver linings in this unfortunate loss, at the top would be the introduction to a national audience of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. I have long since learned that the readers of my daily blog, “Today’s News & Views,” and NRL News are extremely well informed. Thus, I don’t have to go into any detail about the guttersnipe attacks and backstabbing Gov. Palin endured. From the beginning, what struck me was her utter unflappability. Here is someone who no sooner enters the pit of national politics than she and her entire family come under an attack as widespread and vicious as it was cold-blooded and calculated. Not a single whine, not a single woe-is-me. She stood tall and seemed to consider the offensive against her a test of her mettle and her readiness to play in the big leagues. The woman has moxie and is as tough as nails. Palin was hated/despised/loathed for many reasons which ran the gamut from merely puzzling to utterly bizarre. She energized the pro-life and Republican base more than any other running mate for McCain could have done. The Establishment Media, lapdogs to Democrat in general, Obama in particular, was about to unofficially officially coronate Obama. They were bitterly unhappy that Palin’s selection had upset their timetable and in their spite they left no insult unhurled, no mud unslung. She was hated for what the Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins described (in an admiring profile) as Palin’s “dissident, out-of-category feminism.” Palin is a mortal threat to the kind of anti-life feminism which insists that mothers and unborn children (when they are “unplanned”) are mortal enemies. Barone was absolutely on the mark. Palin and her husband knew that their fifth child would have Down syndrome. It was bad enough that they didn’t abort Trig. Worse yet, there was Palin’s vow during her acceptance speech: “To the families of special-needs children all across this country, I have a message. For years, you sought to make America a more welcoming place for your sons and daughters. I pledge to you that if we are elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House.” And adding insult to injury, there is that never to be forgotten image, caught on television (and youtube) forever of little Piper Palin licking her hand and flattening Trig’s hair during their mom’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. What a standing rebuke to people who have devoted their lives to propagating the insidious notion that life is only for the planned and the perfect. Let me conclude by imploring you to please read the story that begins on page one and to redouble your commitment to rejuvenating the greatest movement for social justice of our era. Your unswerving and unswerveable dedication in the face of formidable odds not only will enable us to weather the storms ahead, it will serve as a living testimony that kindness and generosity is its own reward. Your unflinching witness will remind Americans of a truth they may have forgotten and pro-abortionists never knew: “America is great because she is good,” Alexis de Tocqueville wrote two centuries ago. “If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” |