 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Making headlines in recent weeks for leading an antiwar faction in the House, Kucinich is not known for being thin-skinned. But apparently the Roman Catholic couldn't stand up to a little criticism from the far-Left journal, The Nation.
A quick look at Kucinich's record shows the odd journey of this singular lawmaker. In the Ohio state Senate, Kucinich voted to ban partial-birth abortions. In 1996, while running for U.S. House, the former "boy-mayor" of Cleveland said, "I believe that life begins at conception." When Kucinich was coming to Washington, the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy counted the former mayor as one of a handful of "anti-choice" Democratic newcomers. Upon arriving in our nation's capital, the Cleveland Catholic lived up to his billing. In the 105th Congress, Kucinich — no conservative — earned a 90 percent rating from the National Right to Life Committee. His only heresies in the eyes of these abortion foes being his support of the Shays-Meehan campaign-finance bill. That's correct: This left-wing congressmen voted with the National Right to Life Committee on every single abortion vote in his first two years. That was more pro-life than three Ohio Republicans that year. The votes included sticking up for a ban on partial-birth abortion and voting to thwart President Clinton's plan to give foreign aid to overseas agencies that perform and counsel abortion. For the next two years, the story was the same. Kucinich voted again to ban partial-birth abortion, block aid to International Planned Parenthood, and prevent taxpayer dollars from funding abortions in federal prisons. His score in the 106th Congress with the National Right to Life Committee was 95 percent — again, only voting against them on Shays-Meehan. The 10th district Democrat even towed the pro-life line during the first year of the Bush administration. In April, Kucinich supported the "Unborn Victims of Violence Act," which criminalized harming a fetus in a crime, and he opposed the Democratic substitute that would have defused the fetus-is-a-life parts of the bill. In May, 2001, Kucinich again voted against funding International Planned Parenthood. Two months later he voted to block federal funding of prison abortions. On the cloning ban, the congressman voted the straight pro-life line, supporting the bill and opposing his party's efforts to soften the ban. On September 25, 2001, Kucinich helped kill a measure by California Democrat Loretta Sanchez that would have allowed for federal funding of abortions in overseas U.S. military bases. But then something happened. In May, 2002, Congresswoman Sanchez pushed the same measure to the floor. Again, it narrowly failed. But this time, Kucinich voted to allow tax dollars for soldiers' abortions. Two months later, Republicans pushed the partial-birth-abortion ban to the floor (Clinton had repeatedly vetoed it). Kucinich again abandoned his earlier stance and voted "yes" on an amendment that would allow the procedure to protect the "health" of the mother — an exception that makes the ban entirely ineffective. Then, when the final vote came to pass this bill-the same bill he had supported every time before — Kucinich abstained. He voted "present," which is a conspicuous way to express that one neither supports nor opposes the bill. Then, just weeks ago, Kucinich again voted "present" on the "Abortion Non-Discrimination Act," which would have prevented governments at various levels from forcing private hospitals or clinics to perform abortions or health plans to cover an abortion. So the question is: What happened to the erstwhile pro-life leftist? In May, 2002, when Kucinich did his U-turn on funding soldiers' abortions, The Nation carried a tiny article titled "Regressive Progressive? Dennis Kucinich." "In his two terms in Congress, he has quietly amassed an anti-choice voting record of Henry Hyde-like proportions," the article read, referring to the conservative Republican former chairman of the House Judiciary Committee (and Kucinich's fellow Catholic). The author saw Kucinich's pro-life stance as a slap in the face to the far left. "That a solidly anti-choice politician could become a standard-bearer for progressivism . . . speaks volumes about the low priority of women's rights to the self-described economic left." Apparently, Kucinich conceded that if he were to lead the Left (possibly one day, he hopes, as their presidential contender), he must get on board with the abortionists. The editors of The Nation surely are proud that they exposed Kucinich as a man who sticks to his faith — and that they remedied that situation promptly. — Timothy P. Carney is a reporter for the Evans-Novak Political Report. |
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
<% dim printurl
printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%>
emocratic
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, chairman of the Congressional Progressive
Caucus, has progressed rather suddenly from an anomaly — a pro-life
liberal — to just another Left-winger doing the abortion lobby's
bidding.
