McCAIN'S MISTAKE
Sen. John McCain stepped into a hornet’s nest when he told the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle that while he would "love to see a point where" Roe v. Wade "could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary," he would not support repeal "in the short term, or even the long term." Appearing on CNN on Sunday, he added that "we all know, and it’s obvious, that if we repeal Roe v. Wade tomorrow, thousands of young American women would be performing illegal and dangerous operations" (transcript of remarks courtesy of Hotline).

What’s obvious is that McCain misspoke. His campaign assures us that the U.S. Senator and presidential candidate realizes that a Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe would not ban abortion but simply return the issue to the states and the Congress. (Whether a ban would lead to the carnage he suggests is at least open to question. For the last year before Roe, the Centers for Disease Control reports 39 maternal deaths from illegal abortion and 27 from legal abortions.) During his CNN appearance, he said that he does in fact want to see Roe repealed eventually. His campaign says that McCain was trying, however inartfully, to suggest that progress toward full legal protection for the unborn will in practice have to be incremental because the culture is not ready for it.

George W. Bush unveiled a similar position a few months ago, also clumsily, and the National Right to Life Committee accepted it. Yet the NRLC attacked McCain in unusually vituperative terms: "McCain will sacrifice any principle in order to curry favor with certain political elites, in an attempt to further his personal political ambition." Why the double standard? Probably because McCain’s misguided campaign-finance proposals would require groups like the NRLC to reinvent themselves or go out of business. They’re upset not because he’s secretly pro-choice, but because he has a warped view of the First Amendment.

McCain’s comments certainly have been unwise and confusing. But a man who has compiled a 16-year pro-life voting record deserves a chance to remove the foot he has placed in his mouth, clear his throat, and tell us what he really believes. Yesterday, he did this in a letter to NRLC president Wanda Franz: "I have always believed in the importance of the repeal of Roe vs. Wade, and as President, I would work toward its repeal" (a promise Bush, by the way, has not made). He concludes, "I truly hope this clarifies any ambiguity on my position." What’s more, McCain’s campaign web page includes a very clear pro-life message.

BEACH READING
President Clinton released another one of those absurdly long vacation reading lists the other day--you know, the dozen books he’s going to read over the next five days, when he’s not golfing, fundraising, or, well, doing other things. This year’s list contains an interesting entry: Waves of Rancor: Tuning in the Radical Right, by Robert Hilliard and Michael Keith. From a review of the book posted by an Amazon.com customer: "In their survey of the use of communications media by the Right, the professors round up the usual suspects (David Duke; Skinheads), but readers may be startled to also find in the roster of villains such figures as Rush Limbaugh, Bill Buckley, the Gun Owners of America, the Libertarians (!), and the Promise Keepers. . . . A Democratic fundraising letter from James Carville is reproduced IN LARGE PRINT. Perhaps its prominent inclusion clarifies the intentions of the authors."

VOTING RIGHTS

A Mexican political party intends to set up 576 voting centers in California, Illinois, and Texas next month for Mexicans living in the United States to participate in the presidential nominating process, according to a report in Reforma, a Mexico City newspaper. The vote is scheduled for September 12.