benched

By Diogenes ( articles ) | May 15, 2008

The National Abortion Rights Action League has officially endorsed Barack Obama's candidature. They've taken a good long look at his pro-abortion enthusiasms and clearly they like what they see. Clinton told NBC News she was "disappointed":

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Senator, you lost out on the endorsement today of NARAL, the National Abortion Rights Action League. They went with Senator Obama. It's fair to say you were almost present at the creation of NARAL. You've been extraordinarily close to that organization for so many years. That had to hurt.

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, obviously, I've -- I am disappointed because of the work that I've done for so many years. I'm proud to have the support of, you know, many other groups that -- share my -- views and my commitment to issues. But we're going forward.

NARAL's plug is not a total surprise. Several of the high-profile "any time for any reason" pro-aborts -- including Katha Pollitt, Kate Michelman, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Frances Kissling -- have already announced their support for Obama. NOW still remains in the Clinton camp, however, and a glance at the reactions to NARAL's endorsement posted at its Dead Baby Blog shows that tempers are frayed and the choice was not a universally popular one (language alert: contains unedited girl-talk).

Your Uncle Di was flat wrong in his surmise that establishment feminists would let Hillary feign enough "moderation" on life-issues to make her electable while still tending her flame. Though her NARAL rating, like Obama's, is a perfect 100 percent, her carefully poll-tested 2005 statement that abortion can sometimes be "a tragic choice" shocked and alienated a lot of the old guard. Perhaps also many erstwhile supporters have painful memories of Bill Clinton's amours, and of the degrading spectacle whereby prominent feminists forswore every principle of sexual ideology in his defense; they may see in Obama a reliably pro-abortion, pro-sodomy feminist with none of the squalid history of Clintondom to worry about.

The WSJ's Dan Henninger had a column a couple months ago in which he maintains the competition for the Democratic nomination is less a political contest than an audition for a part in a play. The "script" is already fixed and the same for all aspirants. There are no substantive policy differences among the Dems; the question is who gets chosen for the role -- hence the emphasis on personality, charm, empathy with various voter groups, etc. The pro-aborts can hardly doubt that Hillary shares their vision; in fact, the only occasion on which she displays a natural and spontaneous enthusiasm -- the only time she wears a genuine smile -- is when she's addressing a pro-abortion rally, obviously enjoying the ease of being at home among her own. Yet the Steel Shaft Girls have been conducting their own audition and asking themselves, in an election year, whom they want on the business end of the knife. This season, at least, it's not Lady Macbeth.