Support for McCain in the pages of
Commonweal? The author understands what
Doug Kmiec, for example, apparently cannot:
For those who believe, as I do (and as the Catholic religion does), that abortion is unjustifiable homicide, there is no logical way to vote for the presidential candidate of a party committed to the preservation and extension of abortion rights. As for the common argument given by a certain kind of Catholic-namely, that the Democrats are right on so many other things, and together these outweigh abortion-that seems to me to be an argument that is either intellectually careless or downright disingenuous. For how can anything outweigh the slaughter of innocents? Catholics who make this argument may say they believe abortion to be homicide, they may even actually think they believe this; but they can’t possibly believe it. For how could anybody really hold such contradictory beliefs? McCain has a prolife voting record in the Senate, Hillary and Obama have prochoice records. On this count, then, it’s easy for me to choose McCain.
Curtsy to
Prof. K. for the link. I share his delight in this passage:
I don’t doubt that Hillary and Obama are patriots. I don’t even doubt that the upscale secularists who have taken over the Democratic Party are patriots; but theirs is a “soft” patriotism, a patriotism twice diluted, once with the waters of cosmopolitanism, and again with the waters of something tasting of pacifism. McCain, by contrast, is a “hard” patriot, not in the least a pacifist. But isn’t there a danger that a patriot of this stripe will prove to be a warmonger? Yes, some danger. But George Washington wasn’t a warmonger, and neither was Dwight Eisenhower, and neither, I think, is McCain. Retired warriors are willing to fight, but rarely do they yearn for another battle (think Colin Powell).
