Res Publica 2005

Doug Bandlow asks, "Can Democrats be pro-life?"

Being pro-life has been political death for any Democrat with national aspirations. Many on the left are unable to even contemplate a legitimate argument against legal abortion.

The satirical weblog "BlameBush!" recently seemed to speak for some abortion activists when it opined that "we must protect a Woman's Right to Choose and err on the side of inhumanity."

Which unfortunately captures the problem with the pro-abortion lobby: it does err "on the side of inhumanity." That is a strange position for a party that claims to speak for the poor and disadvantaged.

Newt Gingrich has a Walking Tour of God in Washington, D.C. included in his new book, Winning the Future.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich says he "got fed up with people who argue that somehow the concept of the creator wasn't central to how the Founding Fathers understood America." So in a book being published today, he includes a 19-page "Walking Tour of God in Washington, D.C.," cataloging references to the Bible, Moses and a heavenly father on the Capitol, monuments and memorials.

Read more about the book here.

Political Lesson of the Day:

Mary Mapes is a great example of how obsession can blind one to the point of making fatal mistakes, especially in politics by letting yourself be blinded... John Podhoretz discusses this well:

Mapes wanted the story on the air. She wanted it desperately. The authors of the report say she was bewitched by competitive pressures (because other news organizations were on the story, too). They show that she displayed astonishingly poor judgment - and, in the aftermath of the story's airing, just kept lying through her teeth both to her superiors and to the report's authors.

But here's the thing. It doesn't matter whether CBS executives met in a room, twirled moustaches and gave each other high-fives about getting George Bush. What matters is that they turned their airwaves over to someone who was clearly in the grip of an obsession.

And here's the other thing. They were able to do such a thing because they did not see her obsession as an obsession - because, no doubt, most of them wanted it to be true, too.

That's what happens when you're blinded by bias. Thornburgh and Boccardi didn't want to say so. The world doesn't need them to say so. The world knows the truth.