… Wesley Clark gives his campaign manager heartburn, ulcers and a coronary. Clark: Abortion decision is the mom’s alone
Democrat Wesley Clark said yesterday he would never appoint a pro-life judge to the federal bench because the judge’s anti-abortion views would render him unable to follow the established judicial precedent of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
The Presidential candidate also told The Union Leader that until the moment of birth, the government has no right to influence a mother’s decision on whether to have an abortion.
“Life,” he said, “begins with the mother’s decision.”
I am given to understand that this man is a strong possibility for the Democratic nomination, yes? Then for his sake I hope that this article horribly mangled what he said, because otherwise he has done the political equivalent of spitting on his hands just before grabbing the third rail. No, really:
Clark was asked if would appoint or reject a prospective judicial nominee who passed all of Clark’s criteria but happened to be known as pro-life.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It would depend. I don’t have litmus tests. I want a guy who will do judicial precedent.”
But following the interview, Clark telephoned a reporter to clarify.
“I’m not going to be appointing judges who are pro-life,” he said.
Asked again how he will know a nominee’s position on abortion without applying a litmus test, Clark said:
“You just work through what the judge has done and if you find guys who follow judicial and established precedent, you’re not going to find a judge who is pro-life.” (Bold mine)
I’ll be slightly fair and note that he could very well have had just badly expressed himself. Unfortunately for him, that excuse will only take him so far: to get out of this Clark’s going to have to abase himself – fast – or else deal with the fact that he’s just given the prolife movement an active reason to show up at the polls in November. Hell’s bells, I’m status quo regarding abortion and I’m appalled at the “Life begins with the mother’s decision” line. The fucking PRC sanctions and performs those kinds of abortions, not the United States of America – and if you don’t think that this article will come back to haunt Clark again and again and again for the rest of his campaign, well, then, go ahead and ignore me.
Moe
(Via John Cole, who is likewise unamused. So are Matthew Stinson and James Joyner, albeit on more Constitutional grounds.)
That’s an incredibly unfortunate choice of words. All the more so, because it probably translates to the same policy as every Dem other candidate.
Sigh…That’s the problem with these refreshing, outside the beltway types.
Bad day for the front-runners. From tomorrow’s New York Times:
“Four years ago, Howard Dean denounced the Iowa caucuses as “dominated by special interests,” saying on a Canadian television show that they “don’t represent the centrist tendencies of the American people, they represent the extremes.”
The article unearths a number of other Dean quotes. Let’s just say Clark’s team won’t be alone when it comes to spinning the next few days.
Oh, for the love of….
see above.
That’s an incredibly unfortunate choice of words. All the more so, because it probably translates to the same policy as every Dem other candidate.
Yes, unfortunate in that it’s probably true. The “[l]ife begins with the mother’s decision” line is also indefensible.
I’m essentially also a status quo guy w/r/t abortion, on purely practical grounds. I’m not against, however, making it more difficult to get one via careful regulation, or by restricting the times during which it can be performed (with an overriding, continuing exception for the life of the mother).
I assume that you are worrying about post-birth implications of that statement? Because otherwise it is a competely accurate statement of Democratic abortion policy: no limits on abortion all the way up to moments before birth.
Not a word about this in today’s papers. But more on the Dean interview. And now Marshall has rumors/reports of push-polling designed to suppress older voter turnout — unless they’re voting for Dean.
I see a tipping point in the near distance. Sorta.
Wesley Clark on Abortion and the Rule of Law
Here’s what Clark said to The Union Leader, a New Hampshire newspaper: I’m not going to get into a discussion of when life begins. I’m in favor of choice, period. Pure and simple. Life begins with the mother’s decision. I don’t think you should…
Harley, which way is it tipping?
My quick two cents on the issue posted here:
Clark said no activist judges on either side of an issue, and the rule of law, and the process of law, is above his own personal opinions. The paper mangled what he said by leaving off an important qualifier. I’ve extracted the quotes, rearranged from the way the paper fed them to us, and brought in the omitted qualifier here.