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A BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Sidney Blumenthal

On November 10, Sidney Blumenthal, former assistant and senior adviser to Bill Clinton and author of "The Clinton Wars," addressed the Public Affairs luncheon of the embattled Planned Parenthood chapter of Austin, Texas. [LINK]

A week before, on November 4, the Browning Construction Company abandoned its work building a $6.2 million Planned Parenthood clinic in Austin, as a result of a pressure campaign mounted by the religious right [LINK]. The new clinic would provide gynecological services, AIDS testing, vasectomies, cancer screening, contraceptives, and abortion services. But Texas Right to Life and the Texas Contractors and Suppliers for Life Association, backed by right-wing Christian radio stations, intimidated contractors, plumbers and even drywall installers. One contractor received 1,200 phone calls. "God does not want this thing built," said a conservative leader.

The Planned Parenthood chapter decided that it would have to act as its own contractor. At its luncheon, where the announcement was made, bags of concrete surrounded the platform. Evan Smith, editor of The Texas Monthly, introduced the speaker, Sidney Blumenthal.

Here are some excerpts from Blumenthal's remarks, followed by the hyperlink to the entire speech:

"What's happening here in Austin is not isolated, not in its efforts to close down Planned Parenthood services, or in its methods of intimidation. It is another incident in a long train of abuses. Its scope may not be widely understood, but that scope is, in fact, wide. A radical, extreme war is being waged, in my view, against the American tradition, against the separation of church and state, against long-settled law, against positive social policy whose benefits are proven, against science, against the Constitution, and even against religion, in the name of religion. This radicalism involves seemingly fringe groups and the Bush White House, eccentric billionaires with bizarre agendas and the leaders of the Republican Congress. This radical strategy is concerted, well-organized, well-financed, aligned with the most powerful political forces in the government. It is a strategy that is long-term, seeking to outlaw and move to the back alleys the services that George H. W. Bush once called a matter of public health, to divide and conquer religions and to alter and derange the Constitution forever."

* * *

"The Bush administration has replaced science systematically with ideology, and appointees to key boards and agencies are stacked with people who have ulterior motives and agendas. And here's an example. In 2002 Bush named Tom Coburn, a former congressman, to co-chair the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS. He was renowned as an anti-condom activist. And as a member of Congress his biggest campaign was to push the FDA to label condoms as ineffective against the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Then Bush named a man named Joseph McIlhaney, who was a doctor, founder of The Medical Institute. It sounds bland, but it's a right-wing institute. And he was also a member of the Advisory Council. And this is what James Dobson, who was the head on the Focus on the Family group said. He is a right-wing evangelical leader. And this was very explicit. He said, "Rather than expecting science to solve our problems, Dr. McIlhaney said a better solution involves a return to spiritual and moral guidelines that have been with us for thousands of years."

This breathtakingly broad assault, clearly in its early stages, is related to the Bush administration effort to pack the federal courts with far right judicial nominees, who among other things, will harass and outlaw family planning and abortion as their past histories have shown. They are mostly members of a little-known but very influential group called The Federalist Society, which has become a credentialing agent on the right for those in the law, a tightly run operation that processes conservatives in their careers, from law school, to clerkships, to law firms, to appointments on the federal bench.

Begun during the Reagan era, its officers and members are the most influential figures in the Department of Justice and the White House Council's office, and they are in charge of the selection process for nominees for the federal bench. They have ruled out, and the president has agreed, not to hear the recommendations of the American Bar Association. They have replaced the ABA with this Federalist Society coterie. The ABA is somehow considered too liberal and they have replaced professionalism with ideology.

Just consider some of these nominees to the federal court. There's William Pryor, who is now being considered. This is somebody who called Roe v. Wade, "The worst abomination of constitutional law in our history." Boy, it must be worse than Dred Scott , upholding slavery. He opposes abortion even in the cases of rape and incest—nominated to the federal courts.

There's Carolyn Kuhl. She tried to overturn Roe v. Wade as the co-author of the most aggressive memo to the Solicitor General when she worked in a past Republican administration, urging the Justice Department to file an amicus brief in the Supreme Court to outright overturn Rowe.

Then there's Patricia Owen, who you know well in Texas, who dissented in two cases involving young minor women, insisting that they had to notify their parents before they could consult with a doctor about seeking advice involving reproductive health. She was overruled and she was even admonished by another justice, Alberto Gonzales, now the White House legal counsel, for her radicalism.

And now, Bush has nominated Janice Rogers Brown. She ruled in one case that even if there were no state law establishing parental notification, young women still had to receive permission. She wrote that she could not see how it can be unconstitutional, even in the absence of a law. This nominee is against, among other things, the incorporation of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution and applying it to the states. In a talk recently before the Federalist Society, she said that what "became manifest in 1937 was consolidated in the 1960's." She spoke of our "enduring Constitution" and that 1937 "marks the date of the triumph of our own socialist revolution." What is she talking about?"

* * *

"In Washington there is a group called the Catholic Information Center for Opus Dei. Now, you think I'm going to start getting into the Da Vinci Code, but it's scarier than that. The Center is run by a priest named Robert McCloskey, and his program is to purge, he believes, 80 percent of Catholics from the church in America. He says, "There's a name for Catholics who dissent from church teachings. They're called Protestants."

And in Washington at this Center, he has involved in his political activities the following people who he has personally baptized into his set—Robert Bork, Robert Novak, the conservative pundit, Lawrence Kudlow, who you may see on MSNBC as a financial expert, Alfred Regnery, the chief conservative publisher in the country, financier Lewis Lehrman, U.S. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, whose baptismal sponsor was the leader of this group in the Senate, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who, I'm sure you all remember, saying to a very surprised Associated Press reporter that he was against "man on dog sex." As the reporter replied, and I think I have the words pretty accurately—it's a young woman—she said, "I'm freaking out here."

Now, McCloskey makes no apologies. He has written that the gospel should be preached not to the poor but to the wealthy, and he and his followers have met with Bush, who has appointed a number of them to key positions. They're quite influential in Washington, though unknown. One of them is a man named Robert George. He's a member of the President's Council on Bioethics. He's making decisions on stem cell research. He's a leading opponent, and he has compared RU 486, the abortion pill, to Zyklon B gas used by the Nazis in concentration camps. And he remarked to the Washington Post in 2001, talking about the man who appointed him to his position. He said, "In 1960 John Kennedy went from Washington down to Texas to assure protestant preachers that he would not obey the Pope. In 2001 George Bush came from Texas up to Washington to assure Catholic bishops that he would." He said this approvingly."

* * *

"Well, where will this lead? There should be little doubt about the future and what lies ahead if there is a second Bush term. What have been postponed in this period are appointments to the Supreme Court for political purposes. The Republicans do not want that controversy during a presidential campaign, and so the expected retirements of a number of justices has been postponed, and certainly if Bush wins again they will resign, and there will be open Supreme Court seats. And there should be little doubt about the kind of justices that Bush will put on that court. They will join Antonin Scalia, who in his public remarks has endorsed theocracy—and I use my words carefully here—they will declare Rowe v. Wade unconstitutional. And then they will act against Title X. It will be under heavier assault, if not thoroughly starved for funds and effectively wiped out. And the conflict between this radicalism and the American tradition will reach a new level of intensity unseen so far, and we'll have to get even more concrete here."

The full text of Blumenthal's remarks upon the Bush administration's radical assault on choice can be read at: [LINK].

A BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY