Rokita Goes "Full Monty" on Abortion

Republican Indiana Secretary of State and 4th Congressional District aspirant Todd Rokita most have received polling data during his term showing he wasn't running strongly in evangelical circles.

As I noted in a previous post, Rokita employed a strong Christian overture in his affinity fraud PSA, he has been courting home schoolers, and he's been attending churches like Family Harvest, where the pastor refers to same-sex relationships as "a perversion" and calls for the repeal of Roe v. Wade. Between 6:40-7:00, this video shows Secretary Rokita standing and applauding when the pastor says we are "pro life and proud!"

It's unfair to automatically ascribe what a pastor says to a congregant's belief system. Many people pick a church for non-doctrinaire reasons, such as location, friends who attend, the music, anonymity in a congregation, devotion to serving those particular church members, etc., and many politicians visit churches without knowing in advance the message du jour.

But Rokita talks the talk, too.

When asked about his stance on abortion by a homeschool group, here's what Rokita said:

I am pro life. No exceptions. I’m a believer. I don’t value one life over another, even in cases of rape and incest and even if it’s a threat to the mother. It’s not up to us.

I vehemently oppose Rokita's position, but you can't fault it for lacking philosophical consistency.

If you believe, like Rokita apparently does, that life must be preserved from the second a little squirmer cracks the eggshell, how can you permit abortion just because a woman is raped or abused by her father? In what other context would you let a woman take a "human life" without repercussion because something tragic happened to her?

This is why I've never understood what I call the Republican Party's "compromise exception trilogy" of "rape, incest, and danger to the life of the mother." The issue of a threat to the mother's life is the diciest proposition of the three. What does a "pro lifer" advocate if a doctor says delivery will likely kill both mother and child? It would seem the "pro life" thing would be to save somebody, wouldn't it?

In making his declaration, Rokita puts himself in a camp of only 15% of Americans (according to a Wall Street Journal poll conducted on October 22-25, 2009), who believe abortion should be illegal in all circumstances.

Of course, this is a smart play politically, given that those 15% probably make up more than 50% of Republican Party primary voters in the 4th District.

Politics is, after all, coalition building, and Rokita is clearly angling for the strident, religious faction in the Republican Party. In a district where Democrats are always long-shots, Rokita can afford to be (and maybe even has to be) uncompromising.

Rokita Goes "Full Monty" on Abortion

I Would Fire Louis Caldera In a New York Minute

I normally do not make personal political attacks, but I cannot stop myself.

I must be channeling the rant of fictitious White House deputy communications director, Toby Zeigler: "I'm tired of being the field captain for the gang that couldn't shoot straight."

This is not a nuanced, analytical argument, and I offer no apologies.

I don't care if Louis Caldera graduated from Westpoint and Harvard Law and served as President Clinton's Secretary of the Army. I don't care if the Latino community would be pissed. Louis Caldera is too stupid to hold any position of significance if he cannot foresee the public relations catastrophe associated with flying a plane low in the sky in New York City followed by F-16s. Yet Caldera, who now serves as President Obama's director for the White House Military Office, authorized exactly that.

And for what?

An Obama administration official to The Wall Street Journal: "The mission was to send [the aircraft] up to get a picture of (Air Force One) flying around the Statue of Liberty. They said they needed to update their photo files."

Are you (expletive)ing kidding me?!?

First, why was this exercised classified? Were they afraid somebody from New York was going to walk into the photo intentionally and wave at the camera? Or were they afraid that if people knew, a real attack might occur? If they thought there was any such risk, why would you do it at all when an intern with a Photoshop demo copy could get you what you needed?

Putting aside the idiocy of obvious and massive risks versus the non-existent rewards, who in America thinks this is how we should spend a single penny of government money during a recession? When did having a photo of Air Force one in the same frame as the Statute of Liberty become a national priority? Do we have to have one with all of our significant national landmarks? What's next? Scaring the (expletive) out of the people at the Hoover Dam?

I hope the media stays on the White House until Caldera is gone. I'm apoplectic and embarrassed in equal measure that somebody who got so high up in my party could be so incredibly, calamitously imbecilic.

I started my blogging crusade with an idea of helping craft a Marion County party of which all Democrats could be proud after a series of scandals and PR goofs. When I voted for President Obama, I never contemplated actually thinking, "Compared to the Obama's administration's PR operation, we're geniuses here." If Obama wants to save his own neck, he better start doing a little "off with their heads" and getting rid of the politicos who are worthless. Caldera is a good place to start.

I Would Fire Louis Caldera In a New York Minute