Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen lauds the candidacy of Rudy Giuliani this week for its potential to “indicate that the end is nigh for the stranglehold the Leviticus lobby has had on the GOP.” She typically mourned the “moderate and secular” GOP of the pre-Roe v. Wade era – without mentioning that that lovable grouping was forever mired in the Congressional minority. It’s probably not surprising for liberals to mourn those misty, watercolor memories of when the Republicans were nearly carbon copies of the Democrats, and a minority to boot.
A few Quindlen howlers emerge in this exercise, starting with her knee-jerk defense of Hillary Clinton, that the Republican platform of 1992 had a “wacky emphasis on whether kids can sue their parents.” Quindlen never mentions that in the summer of 1992, conservatives were very focused on Hillary Clinton’s academic articles asserting that the child should be presumed competent over the parents in many disputes. She claimed the religious right declared “The Democrats were godless liberals – ‘contemporary socialism’ was how the 1992 GOP platform put it – no matter how often they went to church or voted for war.” But the actual sentence using that term is more about Hillary’s child-rights advocacy than it is about religion.
Does Quindlen fail to see the irony of protesting her preferred party being characterized as godless, even as she composes entire columns asserting all would be right with the world if the Republicans would be much more godless in their policy talk? Both parties should be godless liberals, not just one!
As for going to church, just after sneering that religious-right darling Ronald Reagan “scarcely ever went to church,” she asserts “By contrast, the Clintons were inveterate churchgoers.” As in a weekly, never interrupted habit? Reporters often toss around these claims about church attendance by politicians (remember the news reports of ”devout Catholic” John Kerry in 2004?) without actually going to the trouble of proving it. And even if the Clintons never missed a Sunday service at Foundry United Methodist in DC, would going to church excuse all the moral offenses the Clintons committed? If Quindlen believes politicians should fence off religion and not let it ever influence their lives, she should probably not boast that her favorite politicians are always in the thick of the Sunday church crowd.