Daniel Henninger on Giuliani and the Religious Right

Daniel Henninger of Opinion Journal had an article this morning that says, more or less, that Christian conservatives should grow up.

I responded, though my comment didn’t make it to their board. Of course, I’ll respond here, instead, and stretch it out.

His first error was saying that “values” have only been important in elections since the exit polling in 2004. I’m not sure why I kept reading from here, since this showed that he really had no idea what he was saying.

Henninger falls back on the classic foolishness — to say that Giuliani’s multiple marriages are the same as Reagan’s two. This, of course, ignores the fact that Giuliani’s second wife found out about the divorce by way of the New York press, and she had toget a restraining order to keep Giuliani’s mistress out of the house.

I’ll be honest with you … I’m divorced. I’m also married. That doesn’t put me on the same level with Giuliani’s betrayal of the idea of marriage.

Henninger goes on to ask if votes should be decided on “one or two issues or for a governing philosophy.”

Of course, when those two issues are protecting human life and preserving the traditional family, I would argue that they show a governing philosophy — life is not fundamentally important to him, nor is the family. Since these are the foundation of society, his philosophy can’t be compatible with mine.

Henninger goes on to call those of us who view abortion as an important issue as infantile. His patronizing little rant about how there should never be anything “non-negotiable” left me with one question: under what conditions would this Wall Street Journal columnist support a candidate who wants to increase the capital gains tax?

It’s not a question of needing to grow up (”… if Mr. Giuliani and the religious right can reach some shared understanding of political and personal adulthood.”), it’s a question of priorities. It’s a question of what’s right and wrong.

There are things we should all view as non-negotiable: our basic morals, values, and standards. Moreover, the law defines certain traits as non-negotiable. No one can be President born a foreign citizen or who is under age 35. I guess the Constitution is an infantile document in Henninger’s view.

Henninger is picking up the drumbeat of the only-fiscally-conservatives, those who want to see an end to the social conservative agenda that distracts conservatives from “the business of America,” as Herbert Hoover put it.

We of the “value voters” are being told over and over again that our candidates aren’t electable, and we have to compromise and elect someone who doesn’t share our values just to win. It is high time that we told the fiscal wing of conservatism that Rudy Giuliani is unelectable. If they don’t want to see a Democrat in the White House, don’t nominate him.

Living Off the Fad Of the Land

Yes, I’m listening to the Newsboys today …

Still, it seemed like a reasonable way to title two phenomena within the Republican Party

(1) Rudy Giuliani - he has come out and said that he’s pulling for the Red Sox in the World Series.

Please … a Yankees fan pulling for the Red Sox? I don’t know or care more than a basic amount about professional baseball, but I get that Red Sox fans and Yankees fans DON’T pull for the other team. This is pathetic political pandering … about as bad as Hillary Clinton declaring that she’s always been a Yankees fan.

Are baseball fans really this gullible, that politicians just have to voice support for teams to grab a couple more votes?

That’s sad.

(2) It seems to sum up the whole Fred Thompson campaign pretty nicely, too.  Devoid of substance, energy, and effort, it’s pretty much run on name-recognition and the fact that he’s famous, so you might as well elect him.

Fred Thompson has apparently decided to mail his registration for the NH primary, rather than showing up for the traditional photo-op. One might view that as pioneering iconoclasm, if he was doing something else. But, you know, there are all those new shows in the fall TV line-up …

“American Spectator” stuff …

A hit piece from “American Spectator”? Nah … it can’t be.

Yes, indeed. They felt the need to do a hit on Mike Huckabee. I have to admit, I haven’t followed “American Spectator” since David Brock left them and admitted that his own “definitive” rebuttal of Anita Hill was poorly researched and mostly unsubstantiated. I figured that there were lots of news sources and ones that conveyed conservative opinions, I didn’t need one with that kind of integrity standard.

But the magazine has readers, and so this is worth answering. If for no other reason, let’s deal with the charges up front.

For my own part, the definitive factors are that the reporter made no effort to contact Huckabee or his campaign for information about anything. In actual journalism circles, I believe that that’s called “lazy.”

He tosses out accusations, not even bothering to notice that charges were resolved, and that Huckabee was vindicated. You have got to love that kind of journalistic integrity, don’t you?

Here’s the Huckabee campaign’s response to the hatchet-job:

THE HUCKABEE RECORD
Re: Quin Hillyer’s A Tale of Two Candidates:

The October 24, 2007 article by Quin Hillyer, “A Tale of Two Candidates,” is a biased and complete distortion of the record of Governor Mike Huckabee that needs to be addressed.

It is indeed disappointing — but perhaps telling — that Mr. Hillyer contacted neither the Governor nor the Huckabee for President Campaign for this article. The resurfacing of these old allegations, which have previously been addressed, and the Governor’s surge in recent polling, is also suspect.