The Occasional Observer

First, Terence Jeffrey on Rudy:

“Murder and graffiti are two vastly different crimes,” Rudy Giuliani once said. “But they are part of the same continuum, and a climate that tolerates one is more likely to tolerate the other.”

Good point, Rudy.

Now, what about a climate — not to mention a Republican presidential candidate — that not only tolerates, but allows unelected judges to legalize the practice of delivering a child until only its head remains within its mothers womb so the child can be killed by sucking out its brains?

What about a climate where same-sex couples are given the same legal status as married couples, whether the resulting arrangements are candidly called “same-sex marriages,” or are semantically papered-over with terms such as “civil unions” or “domestic partnerships”? ...

The late Russell Kirk argued in The Conservative Mind that the first canon of conservatism is “[b]elief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as conscience. Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems. …

By advocating abortion on demand and same-sex unions, Rudy is doing something far more egregious than, say, defacing a New York subway train. He is defacing the institution that forms the foundation of human civilization.

That is not conservative.

Rudy will not win the Republican nomination because enough of the people who vote in Republican caucuses and primaries still respect life and marriage, and are not ready to give up on them — or on the Republican party as an agent for protecting them.

And the nightcap, K-Lo on Mitt's need to more effectively communicate his pro-life convictions. In essence, she's saying Mitt's pro-life conversion makes him a more, not less, effective advocate of pro-life policies, and that he needs to define his convictions before the charges of the critics (flip-flopping opportunist) stick. But give it a read. As always, K-Lo's columns are worth it.