Signs of the Times

My boss reads the NYTimes and usually leaves it lying around the kitchen where I can get at it. Here's a couple of stories from the April 7th issue and my thoughts on same.

Rice Testimony p.A13:

Ms. Rice has ruled out issuing the kind of apology made by her former counterterrorism chief, Richard A. Clarke, who said in testimony two weeks ago that he and the government had failed the country. That statement was immediately denounced as grandstanding by the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, and one administration official said, "Condi's not going there."

The decision not to make a similar apology, one longtime colleague of Ms. Rice's said, came after a discussion of the risks of appearing to appease the administration's critics. An apology "promotes the notion that we were at fault," [the official said].

Is it just me, or am I the only one bothered by the fact that no official in the Bush or Clinton administration has taken any responsibility for 9/11 except for Richard Clarke? No sane person can blame the Bushies for 9/11; criticizing their response to the event does not make it any less unpredictable. But blame is different from responsibility. And there is enough responsibility for everyone. Bush could say, "I accept responsibility for the deaths that happened on my watch and I will always regret the things I could have done to prevent this." If he said that, I would vote for him.

The Abortion Question p.A19:

Seven women were tried this year in the northern Portuguese fishing community of Aveiro for getting abortions. They were prosecuted — facing three-year prison sentences — along with 10 "accomplices," including husbands, boyfriends, parents and a taxi driver who had taken a pregnant woman to a clinic.

Portugal offers a couple of sobering lessons for Americans who, like Mr. Bush, aim to overturn Roe v. Wade. ... If [America] did criminalize abortion, they would face a backlash as the public focus shifted from the fetus to the woman. "The fundamentalists have lost the debate" in Portugal, said Helena Pinto, president of UMAR, a Portuguese abortion rights group. "Now the debate has shifted to the rights of women. Do we want to live in a country where women can be in jail for abortion?"

I've heard it argued that overturning Roe v. Wade would be good for the pro-choice movement for precisely this reason. And as Kristof writes, "an overturn of Roe v. Wade would probably mean bans on abortion only in a patchwork of Bible Belt states, pregnant women would travel to places like New York, California and Illinois for their abortions."

To draw a parallel, the worst thing the Christian Right could do today in the marriage debate is to attempt to invalidate the marriag licenseses issued in San Fransisco. We immediately go from "protect a sacred institution" to "they took away my husband!" From human caution to inhuman cruelty.

I'm not ready to endorse overturning Roe - not by a long shot. But the Portugal trials are a good example of how important the context of a debate is on public opinion.

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