THE WANDERER, AUGUST 23, 2007
JOSEPH SOBRAN'S
WASHINGTON WATCH
The K-Word's Debut
Judith Warner, defending late-term feticide in THE
NEW YORK TIMES, complains that it "could become legally
risky for doctors to use digoxin -- a cardiac drug -- to
kill the fetus up to one day in advance of the
procedure."
Well, blow me down! This is the first time I have
ever seen anyone in the Paper of Record use the word
"kill" to describe what abortion does. Next thing you
know, they'll be calling those dead things "babies."
Paul Is a Four-Letter Word
Speaking of taboos, the allegedly conservative
WASHINGTON TIMES continues to ignore the one and only
conservative seeking the Republican presidential
nomination, Congressman Ron Paul of Texas. It appears as
if the TIMES's Bushite editor, Wesley Pruden, has banned
any mention of Paul in the paper's pages.
Instead, the TIMES goes on slanting the news to
create the impression that the United States is winning
the war in Iraq. This is also the theme sung by its
roster of commentators.
Maybe so. Maybe the surge is finally working! But
all this ceaseless optimism is getting mighty fishy.
First Saddam Hussein was a serious threat to us because
of all those nuclear weapons; but once he was toppled,
democracy was going to sprout irresistibly across the
Muslim world.
Well, "mission accomplished," and the Iraqi people
voted with purpled fingers; and time and again we were
told that the turning point had finally come; just as
we're being assured again today that the most formidable
and expensive military in history is at last whipping the
stateless insurgents.
Only Ron Paul is raising the most basic question of
all, the one even the "anti-war" Democrats won't touch,
namely, Why should we be in the Middle East in the first
place? Or, to put it another way, if "we win," what on
earth do we win?
Funny that we never talk about conquest anymore.
Today it's known as defense.
What Happened to Our Constitution?
Regnery's Politically Incorrect Guides, despite
their coy titles, are an excellent series of correctives
to liberal propaganda. I'd be tempted to call the latest,
THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT GUIDE TO THE CONSTITUTION, by
Kevin Gutzman, one of the most inspired, if only the
other volumes I've seen weren't so hard to top.
How to discuss this book without gushing
superlatives? I find it even better than its advance
praise announced. I've studied this subject for most of
my adult life, and I can hardly imagine a better book of
its kind -- fearless, incisive, going straight for the
intellectual jugular.
Gutzman contends that the American judiciary, legal
establishment, law schools, and media have completely
misled the public about the meaning and history of the
U.S. Constitution, substituting case law -- the
accumulated opinions of the courts -- for the simple
truth. Flimsy "precedent" has usurped the place of
history, fact, reason, and even logic. So precedents take
precedence, as it were, over the actual words of the
Constitution.
The U.S. Supreme Court winds up treating its own
rulings -- in Roe v. Wade, for example -- as more
authoritative than the Constitution itself. No wonder the
public is confused: The whole system is incoherent and --
well, "corrupt" is a mild term for it. The Constitution
becomes whatever the courts say it is. This is a recipe
for unbridled, arbitrary power, such as we are already
experiencing.
Gutzman puts his finger on the key issue: state
sovereignty. Abraham Lincoln falsely said that the states
had never been sovereign, even under the Articles of
Confederation -- a lie plainly refuted by the second of
the articles: "Each state retains its sovereignty,
freedom, and independence...." Mark you that: "retains"!
So much for "Honest Abe." (And he =was= honest, in little
things. Like Shakespeare's Honest Iago, he saved his
whoppers for large matters.)
Unless the states retain their sovereignty,
including the ultimate right to secede, there is no real
check on "federal" tyranny. The whim of a Court majority
can literally mean violent death for millions. If even
one state had been able to threaten secession over Roe,
the Court would never have dared to foist such a
monstrous ruling on us. Yet nobody even proposed
impeaching those who had usurped the states' most basic
right: the right to protect innocence from violence.
Gutzman's conclusion is gloomy, but I find it hard
to see how he can be accused of undue pessimism; to me it
seems simple realism. I reached the same conclusion long
ago and see no way around it, no "solution" except for
the remote possibility that a stupid and sinful populace
and its equally depraved rulers will have a massive
conversion. This is about as likely as President Bush's
suddenly speaking in Miltonic periods, Johnsonian
paragraphs, and Chestertonian epigrams.
When it comes to the U.S. Constitution, idiocy has
been institutionalized so thoroughly that any hope for a
return to reason seems like sheer fantasy. Gutzman shows
that the truth can still be known and uttered, but not
that it has any hope of prevailing in any future we can
foresee.
--- Joseph Sobran
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