mordor incorporated

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Nov 21, 2007

It seldom hurts to pay attention to what the opposition are up to. The Catholics for a Free Choice website provides us with a lengthy study of pro-life-ish tendencies within the progressive movement in general and the Democratic Party in particular, with a particular focus on Catholic Democratic office holders. It is a monster PDF file (52 pages), and needlessly hard to view, but worth a look if you're interested in how the pro-aborts size up their allies and enemies. My sense is they've got a good grasp of who's helping them and who's hurting (their remarks on the late Cardinal Bernardin are especially noteworthy). The following paragraphs are taken from the conclusion:

In the November 2006 elections, the Democratic Party won a majority in the House of Representatives for the first time since 1994, with prolife Democrats providing seven of the 31 new seats. However, as this report has shown, and in the profiles that follow, not all of these prolife Democrats are as prolife as they claim to be, nor does the organization that claims to represent them have as much influence as it would like us to think. ...

Future elections, especially the presidential one in 2008, will likely see the Catholic hierarchy and its conservative allies seeking to shape the result, vilifying prochoice Catholics running for office and placing abortion above all other issues -- to the detriment of women and their families throughout the U.S.

Who is the intended reader of this report? It's not easy to say. In general, its principal aim seems to be that of reassuring nervous Democratic party operatives that pro-life Catholic Democrats are not to be taken as seriously as they claim (exaggerating their pro-life support and often voting contrary to stated convictions), whence the party is encouraged to stiffen its commitment to abortion at any time for any reason.

As Phil Lawler says, a basic law of politics is to find out what your adversary doesn't want you to do, and then do more of it. Take a half-hour to study this document, and then ask yourself which statement is closer to the truth: Catholics for a Free Choice doesn't want us to do what Cardinal Mahony is doing -- or, Catholics for a Free Choice doesn't want us to do an Archbishop Burke.