Author Archives: Luke Brinker

by | February 26, 2012 · 2:55 PM

Rick Santorum and Other GOP Abortion Flip-Floppers

By Luke Brinker

Rick Santorum, the arch-conservative former Pennsylvania senator and GOP presidential hopeful, has earned a reputation as a hard-line culture warrior. Not only does Santorum oppose abortion even in cases of rape and incest, he also inveighs against “the dangers of contraception.” But Santorum hasn’t always been such a down-the-line social conservative.

This week, the Huffington Post dug up a statement from 1995 in which Santorum confessed to having previously been a pro-choice Republican. The revelation puts Santorum in an awkward position, given that he’s portraying rival Mitt Romney, a former pro-choicer himself, as an inconsistent and insincere social conservative. That the two leading contenders for the GOP presidential nomination used to support abortion rights is instructive: even some of the most stridently anti-abortion Republican politicians have histories of endorsing a woman’s right to choose.

Ronald Reagan, a secular saint among conservatives and renowned in pro-life circles for his authorship of Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation, signed the Therapeutic Abortion Act as California governor in 1967, six years prior to the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. With the ascendance of the Religious Right in the 1970s, Reagan switched to a staunchly anti-abortion posture. Reagan’s vice president, George H. W. Bush, entered politics in the 1960s as a vocal supporter of Planned Parenthood. Prior to joining Reagan’s ticket in the summer of 1980, Bush maintained a pro-choice stance on abortion.

Contemporary examples of pro-choice-turned-pro-life Republicans include former Minnesota Gov. and presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (whose failed 2008 presidential campaign centered on the abortion issue). Perhaps these men underwent sincere conversions to the anti-abortion cause, but it’s not insignificant that their flip-flops dovetailed with the position of the preponderance of the Republican base. (To be fair, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Richard Gephardt, Jesse Jackson, and Ted Kennedy are but a few Democratic politicians who switched from anti-abortion to pro-choice positions at some point in their political careers.) The last pro-choicer to win the Republican presidential nomination was Gerald Ford, in 1976 (and even Ford equivocated on the issue during that campaign; he only became more forthright in his pro-choice views well after his political career ended). Rudy Giuliani valiantly tried and spectacularly failed to secure the GOP nomination as a pro-choice moderate in 2008. Republicans with national ambitions have, no doubt, taken heed of Giuliani’s example (and that of Arlen Specter in 1996 and George H. W. Bush in 1980 before him). Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, one of the GOP’s rising stars, is currently pro-choice. If he aims for higher office someday, don’t be surprised if he abandons his current position.

Republicans’ storied history of abortion flip-flops makes Romney look fairly typical in his position switch on the issue. Of course, what makes Romney stand out isn’t just that he’s changed his position on abortion; he’s also been on various sides in debates over climate change, gay rights, gun control, the Reagan presidency, Afghanistan, taxes, and more. But considering that social issues lie at the heart of his main challenger’s campaign, it’s unclear whether former pro-choicer Rick Santorum is social conservatives’ optimal messenger to take Romney on.

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by | February 24, 2012 · 2:13 PM

Islam, Religious Intolerance, and the Left

By Luke Brinker

For four days, Afghanistan has been convulsed by deadly protests  over the accidental incineration of several Korans at a NATO air base on Monday night. At least seven people died in protests in Herat, and an Afghan soldier, indignant at the Koran burning, killed two NATO soldiers in eastern Afghanistan. The violent reaction to the Koran burning episode raises important issues of religious intolerance and how it is discussed in polite American circles.

The New York Times editorial board, seeking to sound a note of moderation and reason, wrote, “The behavior of the American soldiers was shockingly insensitive. And while Afghans’ anger is understandable, there can be no justification for violent rampages.” The Afghan anger is “understandable” in the sense that the Koran, viewed by Muslims as the direct word of Allah, is revered and sanctified by Muslims to a far greater extent than the Bible is by Christians or the Torah is by Jews. There is nothing wrong with seeking to comprehend the sources of Muslim rage. It is remarkable,  however, that many to the left of center do not subject Islam to the same level of critical scrutiny as they do Christianity.

Rick Santorum, whose firebrand social conservatism has its roots in orthodox Catholic theology, is regularly – and justifiably – ridiculed for his archaic views on contraception, women in the military, gay rights, and secular public education. By contrast, liberals rarely take Muslims to account for their hostility to women, Jews, Christians, atheists, gays, and the secular state.

For the past week, Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan, a member of the terrorist group Islamic Jihad, was a cause celebre for the international left. Adnan went on a 66-day hunger strike to protest his detention without charge by Israeli authorities; he ended his fast when an Israeli high court judge ordered his release in April if prosecutors have not charged Adnan by then. Many left-liberal commentators, including Peter Beinart, emphasized the injustice of Israeli detention policies while acknowledging that Adnan was no saint. But debatable as the Israelis’ detention of Adnan without charge may be, is it too much to ask that the media devote some measure of attention to Adnan’s activities in Islamic Jihad, his actual beliefs, and whether Adnan renounces violence against the Jewish state?

Adnan’s case – and his status as a symbol of the persecuted Palestinians – is telling. There is a decidedly illiberal strain of thought on the left holding that it is permissible to tolerate intolerance, provided that the perpetrators of intolerance are widely seen as “victims” – of Western imperialism, the Israeli occupation, capitalism, or some other such malady. This fetishization of victimhood conveniently ignores the worldviews of the alleged victims. For instance, while many Israeli policies toward Arabs are at odds with liberal democratic principles, is it not pertinent to ask whether, in a Palestinian state, Arabs would afford Jews the same rights that Arab citizens of Israel enjoy? Is it not relevant to note that in Afghanistan, where angry mobs are railing against NATO for the accidental if insensitive burning of Korans, conversion to Christianity is a capital crime? We are not discussing a clash between culturally insensitive bigots and oppressed advocates of equality and toleration. How do American liberals, with their support for abortion rights, gay marriage, and secularism, think they would fare in conservative Muslim societies?

For too long, concern about fundamentalist Islam has been monopolized by the American right. But liberals, who theoretically support social toleration and political equality, could be formidable, credible critics of extremist Islam. Paul Berman, author of The Flight of the Intellectuals, is one such critic. Many liberals may be fearful of taking on Islam for fear of appearing bigoted, or out of a desire to avoid association with Shariah alarmists like Santorum and Newt Gingrich. On this score, I can think of no better response than the concluding words of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel. Some argue, Hirsi Ali writes, that “criticism of Islam is … too painful for Muslims to bear.” But Hirsi Ali, herself the victim of an attempted forced marriage and of the fundamentalist mindset that oppresses women in Islamic societies, asks, “Tell me, how much more painful is it to be these women, trapped in that cage?”

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by | February 22, 2012 · 1:55 PM

A Hollow Michigan Victory for Romney?

By Luke Brinker

The latest polls out of Michigan show that Rick Santorum’s once robust lead over native son Mitt Romney has vanished. But while Romney’s chances of eking out a win in the state on February 28 look increasingly good, it’s unlikely that he’ll be able to convert a Michigan victory into a win in the swing state this November.

NBC and Marist, whose latest poll  gives Romney a narrow 37 percent to 35 percent edge over Santorum, also polled voters on their preferences in general election match-ups. President Barack Obama trounced Santorum by 26 points, 55 percent to 29 percent, underscoring the right-wing former senator’s significant liabilities as a general election candidate. Most striking, however, was the size of Obama’s lead over Romney, whose father was governor of the state and who is generally considered the most moderate candidate in the GOP field. The president scored 51 percent to Romney’s 33 percent, calling into question Romney’s swing state appeal.

It’s worth noting that Michigan has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1984, the year of President Ronald Reagan’s re-election landslide. Still, the long-suffering state is widely seen as a key battleground, given its status as the birthplace for the so-called Reagan Democrats. Until quite late in the general election season, Sen. John McCain made a concerted play for the state in 2008, and the state was heavily contested in 2004, when Democrat John Kerry won the state by a mere three points over President George W. Bush. With an unemployment rate pegged at 9.8 percent — well above the national figure of 8.3 percent — the state had looked ripe for a Republican win in 2012. As recently as November, polling showed Romney leading Obama by five points in the state.

What accounts for the GOP’s reversal of fortune in Michigan? Put simply, it’s the auto bailout, stupid. While he supported the Bush administration’s Wall Street bailout in the fall of 2008, Romney infamously penned a New York Times op-ed entitled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” in November 2008. (Santorum, despite his blue-collar image, also opposed the bailout.) A managed bankruptcy — not federal support — was the best way to revive the sagging auto industry, Romney argued. Romney now asserts that because General Motors and Chrysler eventually did enter bankruptcy, he was right all along, but this oft-repeated talking point ignores experts’ assessment that absent the initial infusion of $80 billion in federal funds, the auto companies would never have been able to emerge successfully from the bankruptcy proceedings. With both GM and Chrysler now posting healthy profits — something few could have foreseen in the dark days of 2008 and 2009 — the bailout is generally seen as having worked.

Voters don’t often do counterfactuals, but in Michigan, voters appear to appreciate that the auto bailout headed off a disaster scenario in which the auto companies, their suppliers, and the numerous jobs in local communities dependent on Detroit’s carmakers collapsed in the absence of federal support. The psychological impact of such a catastrophe in the midst of the economy’s gloomiest days would have been devastating, so perhaps it isn’t surprising that the NBC-Marist poll finds that 63 percent of Michigan voters consider the bailout to have been a good idea. Without federal action, it’s a certainty that the state’s unemployment rate would be far greater, and even Rick Snyder, the conservative Republican governor and a Romney supporter, has had nice things to say about the bailout. Running against the bailout may not do as much damage in a GOP primary, but a general election candidate will have a hard time explaining to Michigan voters why Goldman Sachs merited a bailout but General Motors didn’t.

Romney’s repeated difficulties in relating to blue-collar voters — difficulties compounded by his image as a Mr. One Percent who enjoys firing people who provide services to him and who accuses critics of his private equity record of being jealous of his wealth – will likely carry over into other Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. Without Ohio (where recent polling shows Obama narrowly leads Romney), there is simply no way for Republicans to wrest the White House from Democratic hands. While Tea Party types will blame a Romney loss on his allegedly insufficient conservatism, Romney’s plutocratic image and the improving economy will likely do far greater damage in the fall.

So while Romney may well win his home state next Tuesday, his victory there will not portend anything for the fall. “Romney wins Michigan” looks like it’s more and more probable to be the headline next week, but it almost certainly won’t be on the morning of November 7, 2012.

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by | February 19, 2012 · 5:42 PM

As Syria Fractures, McCain and Graham Beat War Drums

By Luke Brinker

As Syria descends further into civil war amid an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, support for military aid to that country’s rebels is being sounded by two of the Senate’s most reliable hawks. Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who along with Sen. Joe Lieberman are the Senate’s leading supporters of neoconservatism in foreign policy, are urging the US government to arm the Syrian opposition. This raises the question of just who the Syrian rebels are.

While there’s no denying that Assad is a vile, brutal dictator, policymakers should be wary of assuming that his opponents are upstanding people simply by virtue of being his opponents. As Peter Oborne writes in the Sunday Telegraph of London, US intelligence confirms that Al-Qaeda is actively plotting against the Syrian regime, and that the terrorist organization was likely behind two Damascus car bombings in which 50 people died. Al-Qaeda, a Sunni group, loathes the minority Alawites who compose the Assad regime, adding a sectarian dimension to the Syrian conflict. While neoconservative ideologues like McCain and Graham may frame Syria’s civil war as a contest between the forces reactionary dictatorship and liberal democracy, there is abundant evidence that Syria is convulsed by a theological, not ideological, war. David Warren of the Ottawa Citzen notes that the Sunni supremacists who dominate the opposition instill tremendous fear among Syrian religious minorities, including Christians. Syrian Christians, Warren writes, don’t necessarily harbor a deep love for Assad, but they’re savvy enough to realize that the collapse of his government may well mean the mass slaughter of non-Sunnis.

In the United States of Amnesia, the sectarian civil war in which Iraq found itself six years ago may be far too distant a memory to resonate with the likes of McCain and Graham. Perhaps, though, they would do well to consider a more recent instance in which the US committed itself to a course of action in the Arab world without truly considering who it was aiding and what the consequences would be. True to form, McCain and Graham were among the chief enthusiasts for the international campaign against Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi, despite evidence from the outset that Al-Qaeda constituted a significant element of the Libyan opposition. When rebel forces summarily executed Qaddafi last fall, a gloating McCain hailed the extrajudicial killing, predicting that such other strongmen as Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin could be next. Of course, the real test of the Libyan rebels was never whether they could capture and/or kill Qaddafi, but what would they would establish in his stead. One year after the Libyan uprising began, the verdict does not look good. The Observer of London reports that Amnesty International has condemned the new regime’s use of illegal detention and torture, while the National Transitional Council lags in institution-building and securing its hold on key Libyan territory.

The American mind is often Manichean in its approach to international affairs. Liberal interventionists and neoconservatives go abroad in search of monsters to destroy, rarely pausing to contemplate whether each particular conflict truly consists of a battle between pure good and pure evil. What is needed to correct this profoundly flawed worldview is a fundamentally conservative skepticism about the ability of US force to solve any problem and to establish liberal democratic norms where they have never existed.

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by | February 14, 2012 · 1:57 PM

Why Fox News is Alienating Conservatives

By Luke Brinker

Keach Hagey’s Politico story about mounting conservative disillusionment with Fox News has been making the rounds today. Hagey reports that Fox chief Roger Ailes’s conscious effort to “tone down” the network’s heated rhetoric and the channel’s hiring of liberal-leaning commentators have provoked the ire of rock-ribbed conservative viewers.

Perhaps most striking, however, is the sense on the part of some viewers that the channel has become little more than a partisan mouthpiece for the Republican Party. (That’s not quite the same thing as being a promoter of conservatism). Here’s how Hagey begins his story:

As a white, male, middle-aged conservative talk radio host from Virginia, John Fredericks is something close to the Platonic ideal of a Fox News fan.

And until last year, he was one. But then Fox’s treatment of the Republican primary race — the presentation of Karl Rove as a political analyst despite his having “thrown in for Romney” andSean Hannity’s clear ties to the Republican establishment — began to grate on him. So he changed the channel.

“I’ve gone from all Fox to no Fox, and replaced it with CNN, which I think right now is giving me a much fairer analysis of what’s going on,” he said. “I feel they’ve lost that independent conservative mantra that had drove people like me to them. I used to feel that I got it straight, and I got an independent conservative view. Now, what I get is some wholly owned subsidiary of the RNC [Republican National Committee].”

This dynamic reflects a choice made at the highest echelons of Fox. Ailes, who made his name as a public relations adviser to President Richard Nixon, is a committed Republican, and as someone who wants to see President Barack Obama defeated in the fall, his main focus is the nomination of an electable GOP candidate. Hence the increasing prominence of analysts like Karl Rove, who has made quite clear that he views Mitt Romney as the most acceptable candidate in the Republican field. The story goes on to mention that Andrew Napolitano, a libertarian Tea Party type who supports Ron Paul for president, recently had his show on Fox Business cancelled, to the consternation of many of his fans. While Napolitano’s ratings were poor, such a move, coming on the heels of Glenn Beck’s departure last year, engenders suspicion among anti-establishment types who see the network as squelching grassroots sentiment in favor of the GOP elite.

Blatant partisanship is not unparalleled in cable news, of course. There’s never been any question which party Fox favors, and while MSNBC employs conservatives like Joe Scarborough and eclectic liberal Chris Matthews, its “Lean Forward” ads show an increasingly strident partisanship. There’s nothing wrong with any of this, but as Hagey’s story attests, viewers may not countenance a network that serves primarily as a party propagandist, instead of a principled voice for conservatism or liberalism.

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