Politics

Social Cons vs. National Review

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A coalition of social conservatives thinks that the eggheads over at right-wing mothership National Review are shilling for Mitt Romney–and that it just ain't right:

Twenty-two conservative activist leaders will publicly release a letter this week challenging the conservative magazine National Review's "puff work" for presidential candidate Mitt Romney and implying that the magazine is quietly abandoning the social conservative grassroots and constitutionalism. The editors refuse even to acknowledge receipt of the letter, which cites information about which they've misled their readers, most strikingly:

  • Romney's stance and record after his "awakening" are not pro-life.
  • The Massachusetts Constitution says the people are bound only by laws ratified by the legislature; and only the legislature can suspend or alter laws. Blaming judges who admit they cannot create laws and have no authority over the legislature or governor, Romney unconstitutionally ordered officials to act as if judges legalized homosexual "marriage."

However, I'd say it blunts the sense of their wrath at NR just a leeeetle bit that the very first thing the press release quotes to buttress the point that true-blue (true-red?) righties should deny Mitt three times and more is an article from NR's own website, the supposed Romney ass-kissers:

John Haskins of the Parents' Rights Coalition notes NR's glaring refusal to face the implications of a devastating article (May, 2004, National Review) by a leading legal scholar, illuminating why fawning, pro-establishment attorneys such as Jay Sekulow, radio lawyer Hugh Hewitt, and (an NR pro-Romney blogger) David French have facilitated Romney's unconstitutional actions:

"The deeper failure must go to the man who stood as governor, holding the levers of the executive. And if it is countdown for marriage…it is countdown also for Mitt Romney, whose political demise may be measured along the scale of moves he could have taken and the record of his receding, step by step… [I]t became clear that even conservative lawyers had come to incorporate, and accept, the premises that gave to the courts a position of supremacy in our constitutional schemes."
The Missing Governor (National Review Online May 17, 2004)
— Hadley Arkes, Professor of Jurisprudence, Amherst College

I fully support all conservatives rising up in righteous indignation about the flaws of all the GOP front-runners. Keep it up!