Gender, Abortion & Rand Paul's Handling of the MSM

Rand Paul is now officially in the race for President. The attacks from the left have commenced. One, Paul is mean to women. Two, let's try to get Paul in a corner on the abortion issue.

The left seems to have their knickers in a bunch over the latest salvo in the war on women. The headline from Salon: “No no no no no no no no: Listen!” He-man Rand Paul lectures a lady — again. From Washington Post, it's Rand Paul's problem with female interviewers just cropped up again. Really? The left's going to play the victim card now when a Republican gets testy with a reporter in an interview if the reporter happens to be female? This would be the same left that spends their days and nights bemoaning a supposed lack of gender equality and looks upon the slightest hint of chivalry as yet another example of white male patriarchy?

Here's the video clip:



The interviewer, Savannah Guthrie, is, in fact, editorializing as part of a question, and the editorial is not favorable to Rand Paul. Paul's not having it, so he stops her in mid-question. In all fairness to both parties, Guthrie is doing what reporters should be doing, and Paul is perfectly within his rights to contest it. Frankly, Paul should be the example for how everyone on the right should be treating the MSM these days.

But apparently the left wants now to complain because Rand was mean to a lady. The hypocrisy is mindnumbing. If a woman is going into professions such as the law, politics, or journalism, their arguments are owed no deference because of their gender. This is the left trying to create a mountain out of a molehill, and I suspect this complaining has less to do with Rand Paul's lack of deference to a female member of the MSM than it does with battlespace prep for Hillary Clinton's candidacy.

Update: This from Ann Althouse's post, The Rand Paul Has Problems With Women Meme:

But even for those of us who don't want special sensitivity to women and who think it will hurt women's opportunities — in journalism, in politics, and elsewhere — we observe how well women are treated with an understanding of what has gone on in the past when women were subordinated and diminished and dissuaded from entering the fray. . . . With that background understanding, what is objectively equal treatment may feel unequal.

Of course, it's also true that Rand Paul has his opponents who will use whatever works, and I fully expect them to accuse him of sexism whenever they can now. Once it's a meme, that's how it goes. If he remains "short tempered and testy," whatever hits women will be highlighted as Rand Paul's problem with women. If he manages to take the edge off, because he's trying "to get better," what niceness is aimed at women will be characterized as patronizing and even exclusionary. His opponents will want to box him in. Whatever he does will be wrong.

Update: Fox News ladie Dana Perino think this will play poorly for Rand Paul, while Megyn Kelly feels otherwise and indeed, takes offense at this effort from the left to "protect" the ladies, finding that in and of itself sexist.

But that is not all Rand Paul is in the news for today. A reporter in the interview below (at the 8:00 mark) asked Rand Paul to state his specific position on exemptions for abortion. Paul's response is probably the perfect one:



Allahpundit at Hot Air notes:

And this is no idle tu quoque. The great majority of Americans oppose late-term abortion; the vast majority, maybe a unanimous majority at this point, of Democratic leaders support it without restriction. They are, without exaggeration, absolute fanatics on this subject. And proudly so. . . .

Obama feels no differently. Neither does Nancy Pelosi, who’s gone as far as to use the word “sacred” when discussing her feelings on this topic. Paul’s response should be a stock answer for any GOP candidate who gets a question on a third-rail social issue going forward: We’ll weigh in just as soon as Hillary Clinton does. Want to know what Marco Rubio thinks about abortion exceptions? No problem — just as soon as Hillary tells us when life begins. Want to hear Ted Cruz’s take on gay marriage? He’d be happy to provide it — just as soon as Hillary answers a simple question about how many genders she thinks there are. The wedge question should cut both ways this campaign, whether the media likes it or not.

Well done, Rand Paul.

For the record, abortion is not and should not be a Constitutional issue. The decision to adopt it as such in Roe v. Wade was pure judicial activism and, by imposing their own personal morality under the guise of a "penumbra" of a Constitutional right, the Courts created a horrendous political divide in this country. It was an issue of social policy falling outside the text of the Constitution, and by the 10th Amendment, was a decision to be left to the individual state's to decide. Personally, if asked to weigh in on the issue at state level, I would allow abortion through the first two trimesters. That is a moral, ethical and pragmatic question for the mother. It becomes a societal issue, however, once the baby would be viable outside of the womb. Late term abortions are nothing more than murder.

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The Watcher's Question -- How Would You Improve Race Relations In America?

Each week the Watcher's Council holds a forum. This week's topic is "how would you improve race relations in America." Having been invited to respond, here is the extended version of my answer. A shorter version will appear at the Watcher's forum.

Update: The Forum has now been posted. There are several very good answers to the question. Do pay the forum a visit.

There will always be some degree of tribalism, it being human nature. But racism today is largely absent from this country. Those who harbor "racist" views are relegated to the very fringes of society. Virtually all Americans of whatever color or political persuasion would like to see nothing more than blacks fully embracing the opportunities life in this nation offers, and enjoying the fruits of their efforts equally with all others. So why are race relations problematic today, and why, by all metrics, are black Americans worse off than others? It can all be summed up in one picture:

This picture is from one of Rev. Al's protests a few years ago. The sign the woman is holding up says everything. Racism is no longer a real issue in society, but the left must maintain the canard that it is. Blacks must be made to see themselves as permanent victims of racism and as being championed by the race hustlers of the left. Moreover, it's important to note the poor grammar used on the sign. It screams out that the woman who wrote it has been failed by whatever schools she attended, thus limiting her opportunities to thrive in America.

So with that in mind, the first thing to understand about race relations is that the left are invested in seeing that the "racial divide" remains as wide as possible. This is political, as it has been since the early 60's, when the marxist "new left" -- our modern left -- made common cause with the heirs of Martin Luther King's civil rights movement. They morphed that movement from an effort to build a color blind society with equality of opportunity for all into a color centric, unified block of people who are fed daily a tautology that they are, and will ever be, permanently victimized by white conservatives. Actual history of support for blacks and civil rights was ignored or rewritten, and it was done so effectively that, to this day, blacks vote 90% as a block for Democrats. If the modern left ever loses even a portion of that block of support, it would be catastrophic. While quite literally everyone I know on the right would like to heal the "racial divide," for the left, their very political survival depends on using it to "divide and conquer."

Thus do you have Rep. John Lewis claiming that any effort to insure the integrity of the vote, something that should be of greater importance to blacks than any other racial group, is actually an effort to deprive blacks of their right to vote. Thus do you have a man at the pinnacle of academia, Harvard Prof. Henry Gates, and other black intellectuals teaching their students about critical race theory, color blind racism, white privilege, and to believe that black slavery was an unpardonable sin such that, irrespective of today's reality, they should keep their two hundred year old racial grievances alive until all blacks are paid reparations. Thus do you have the Department of Justice using disparate impact theory to claim that racism is rampant, despite the fact that they can find no actual incidents of racism in any individual instance. For the modern left, it is critical to keep blacks beliving that all of America today is nothing more than 1954 Selma, Alabama writ large.

The second thing to understand is that blacks have paid a heavy price indeed for their Faustian bargain with the left. By virtually every metric, while the lives of blacks have improved, and while many black individuals have been able to embrace the opportunities this country has to offer, a very substantial portion of blacks have not. It is obscene that, in America, some 25% of blacks live in poverty. It is obscene that, where in 1965, less than 30% of black children were born into a single parent family, that number is now over 70%. It is obscene that that 30 to 40 percent of inner city kids don’t graduate from school, and a very substantial number who do graduate are functionally illiterate. It is obscene that blacks are seven times more likely to commit violent crime than other races. And it is obscene that these problems are cyclical. Nothing the left has done for blacks has broken this cycle, and it all portends to get much worse as cities, where large numbers of blacks congregate and many of whom take public sector jobs, fall into bankruptcy and economic chaos from the failure of the blue political / economic model.

The third thing to understand is that the left takes blacks for granted. In the pantheon of left wing victim groups, perhaps no group gets more attention and ink, but falls lower on the scale of importance. No two things would perhaps benefit the black lower and middle class than good entry level jobs and better education. But those needs run up against the reality that unions, and especially teachers unions, are the financial foundation of the left. Thus did you have Obama, almost in his first days as President, end the school voucher program in the nation's worst performing school district. Thus do you have the D.C. city council voting to, in essence, keep Walmart from opening stores in their district. And thus do you have Obama on the cusp of legalizing millions of Central and South American illegal aliens -- nearly all of whom will be competing for jobs with the black lower and middle class -- in order to gain Decomcrat voters. When it comes to blacks, the left feels no need to balance their needs against those of leftwing economic interests because they have the only thing they need from blacks -- their votes -- already locked up.

The fourth thing to understand is the race card. The race card has been incredibly powerful tool, and the left has not hesitated to use it whenever possible since the 1960's. It has been used to silence all debate and end careers. It serves the triparte purpose of mining white guilt, keeping the focus off of the real problems in the black community, and keeping blacks focused on nursing historical racial grievances. How many blacks today see imaginary racism as their greatest threat? And when was the last time conservatives made an actual, concerted push to reach out to blacks? The answer to that last question is never. The RNC at the national level spends next to nothing on reaching out, having written off the black vote since 1964.

So, how to improve race relations? The answer in today's post-racial America starts and ends with politics. Conservatives must convince blacks that they have their best interests at heart -- that we see them as equal members in the melting pot. Conservatives must also convince blacks that the solutions we propose will, in the long term, work to their advantage. When conservatives call for the end to teacher's unions, no single group of people would benefit more from that then blacks. When conservative call for an end to, or at least a lowering of, the minimum wage, no single group of people would benefit more from that then blacks. When conservatives call for altering laws that decrease the stability of the family unit, no single group of people would benefit more from that then blacks. Conservative must make their case, both that they have black Americans interests firmly at heart, and that blacks have been sorely used by the left.

But to do that, conservatives have to break through a wall of lies and propaganda from the left, at the national level, but most importantly, at the local level. They need to appear at every black forum to make their case, from the NAACP to Howard University to the inner city schools and the local black churches, despite the fact that they will be buried under an avalanche of race cards. And they need to become vociferous in immediately responding to the race card whenever it is played. All of that requires determination, money, and conviction. Rand Paul has flirted with it, and my hat is off to him for at least making some efforts in this regard, but it needs to become a focus for conservatives and Republicans alike, at all levels. That and only that is how you will improve race relations in America.

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Rand Paul To Hillary Clinton: You Should Have Been Fired Over Benghazi

Hillary Clinton is finally appearing before Congress to answer questions on Benghazi. This in the wake of a State Dept. "investigation" that was an utter whitewash, finding that no one in the State Dept., from Hillary on down, bore culpability for the criminally reckless decisions that led to the death of our Ambassador in Libya and three other Americans. Clinton, in her opening statement, is magnanimously taking "full responsibility" for the Benghazi scandal, but defending against any culpability on the grounds that she had no idea what was going on. Kudo's to Rand Paul for hitting the nail on the head in his response to Clinton's testimony:



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