Here is my essay in today's American News. It might be poor writing, but perhaps it compares favorably with the previous submissions by Professor Schaff.
Obama's forum responses too anemic
Published on Friday, August 22, 2008
When Barack Obama was asked "What was the most gut-wrenching decision you have ever had to make?" we can forgive him for not having as good an answer as John McCain.
When the senator from Arizona was asked that same question at the Saddleback Church Forum, he recalled his decision not to accept early release from a North Vietnamese prison. McCain had a friend with him, Ed Alvarez, who was captured two years before he was. According to the military code of conduct, you could accept release only in the order of capture. "So I said no."
Obama couldn't say what is very probably true: That, having been born in 1961, he never had to face a genuinely gut-wrenching decision. Two world wars, Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement, all that was history when he went off to college. Like most Americans born after the middle of the last century, he has led a charmed life. That would at least explain his anemic answer: "I think the opposition to the war in Iraq was as tough a decision as I've had to make."
How does that make sense? Obama acknowledges that there were "political consequences" to consider. He neglects to mention that, in pursuing the Democratic nomination, the consequences were all in his favor. Of course, things would have been different if a massive weapons program had been discovered in Iraq. But if Obama was so sure that no such weapons existed, how hard could the decision have been?
No one can blame Obama for being born in the right half of the 20th century, but he might have squarely faced the most divisive issue in that period of our national history. When McCain was asked "At what point is a baby entitled to human rights?" he answered: "from conception." Whether you agree with McCain or not, he has faced the real issue and he knows what he thinks about it.
Obama's reply was again anemic: "From a theological or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity is above my pay grade." Well, isn't he sort of angling for an upgrade just now? And how much would it cost us to get a straight answer?
Without an answer, a coherent position on abortion is impossible. Obama says that he is pro-choice because "Women don't make these decisions casually, they wrestle with these things in profound ways." OK. When a mother decides to punish her child, she might well take the decision very seriously. But the state still gets to decide when punishment crosses the line and becomes abuse. If an adult man is attracted to a 14-year-old girl, he might wrestle with his feelings in profound ways; but it's the state that decides the age of consent.
At what point in the biological life of a human being is the state compelled to recognize that being as a person? At what point do that person's rights become more important than the wishes of his or her parents? If Obama knows what he thinks about this, he isn't telling.
Maybe he doesn't know what he thinks; and maybe the reason is that it's not just Obama who has led a charmed life. It is possible that the young Obama never had a single professor at Columbia University or Harvard Law School who didn't lean left on every political issue. Liberalism was leading a charmed life on our college campuses in the 1980s. Obama never had to ask himself exactly what he believed about abortion or why he believed it. The party line took care of all that. When everyone knows what the right answer is, what need is there to explain oneself?
But if he won't tell us what he thinks, surely he can admit what he has done as a legislator. He insisted at the Saddleback forum that he favored restrictions on late-term abortions. In fact he opposed all such restrictions in the Illinois legislature, even voting against a 2003 bill that would protect children accidently born alive as a result of abortions.
Perhaps he is being less than candid, or perhaps those votes would be too gut-wrenching to acknowledge.
Kenneth C. Blanchard Jr., is a professor of political science at Northern State University. His columns appears occasionally in the American News. Write to him at the American News, P.O. Box 4430, Aberdeen, S.D., 57402, or e-mail [email protected]. The views presented are those of the author and do not represent those of Northern State University.
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