Deal W. Hudson

I'll Take That Bet & Double

Marjorie Campbell, marjorie@marjoriecampbell.com

Anybody to bet a good bottle of  Scotch with me? 

I'll take that bet and double:  two bottles of scotch says Mr. McCain can't get the Republican nomination.  Here's why:

1.  Immigration.  McCain is off the reservation on immigration.  He's riding solo through the prairie, chased by the gun-slinging members of his own party.  More likely they will shoot him dead than rope him as their presidential nomination.  Even those who will forgive his independence on immigration still have another major cramp in their voting hand . . .

2.  McCain-Feingold.  Here is my Republican-Central-Committee Husband's deal breaker.  This legislative slap at free speech rights by a Republican "who should know better" so deeply offended my husband's sensibilities that he sneers at the mention of the name.  Not all Republicans, I know, are so purposefully issue-driven.  Some are concerned more by sound bites like . . .

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3.  "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran".  Mr. McCain has an entertaining track record of saying what comes to mind without counting to 10.  Need I review the list of "funny" quips that have deeply offended even people who like his character?  And talking about his character . . .

4.  Fighter pilot mentality.  All the reasons why this man has such an extraordinary character fuel his faults.  He is not a manager:  he won't even share the remote control with his wife.  His maverick flair plays far better in movies than presidential campaigns. 

So, Marc, I'll take your bet, and double.  By the way, I'd like one of the bottles to be an old Lagavulin.  I can taste it already.  Yum.

The McCain Momentum

Marc Nadeau

The last weeks and days of the Republican primaries offer a spectacle that leads me to predict that Senator John McCain will surprise many people in the process (my personal prediction is that he will be the nominee).

Here's a quick look at the reasons why I believe s0, and why I'm betting some good bottles of scotch that the Senator will emerge - the McCain comeback.

1. There does not seem to be a big enough closet to contain all of Giuliani's skeletons;

2. Rudy and Mitt are tearing their shirts apart.  That's nice to see!!! 

3. Despite his lead in Iowa, Huckabee looks like a short-fused bigot...  Remember that his potential win in this state will only come at the detriment of Romney and Rudy - not McCain's;

4. By the way, where is Thompson...  He whines at FOX like a cry-baby who wants his candy!  They promised us a big-bang before his arrival.  But like a former Canadian politician compassionately said, you don't shoot an ambulance.  So, I'll give the guy a break; 

Where does it all bring us?

The only one who does not participate in the mud-slugging is McCain.  Any candidate who will drop from now on won't have a tendency to endorse somebody who will have snipped him - which tends to mean most of the pack except the gentleman from Arizona. 

To be quite honest and since I'm a big fan of Eisenhower, McCain just looks like the 34th President.  He's statesman/presidential, he's above the fray and decent and he appeals to a wider segment of the electorate - no small feat when the general elections will come.  Oh, and last but not least, on most issues he represents the true conservative vision.  In terms of perceptions,  things can only get better.  Nobody expects him to surface, but he'll hit like a torpedo.

Hillary will win the Democratic nomination, but she is mortally hit.  Her armor is not that strong.  This wound will get the best of her.  Bill and his establishment will save the day, but not the election. 

The way things go now, it might well be a McCain-Clinton feud and the legendary former POW won't even need to be nasty with her.  People will see the difference and vote for experience, compassion, kindness.  A father-like figure who cares.

Anybody to bet a good bottle of  Scotch with me?

Radical Feminism Is Soooo Gross

Marjorie Campbell, marjorie@marjoriecampbell.com

Deal, you are right that "radical feminism . . . is still out there making plenty of trouble."  And George Weigel specifically cited the very same institution of clinginess:  tenured faculties.  But are you both miscalculating the influence of these equality-means-sameness dames of the academy?  Last week, a Santa Clara freshman moaned to me about a required reading:  Rubyfruit Jungle.  "Rubyfruit Jungle," I yelped, "surely you are joking me?"  If you never read this piece of bad Lesbian pseudo-literature in the 1970s, count yourself lucky.  "Why," I asked this young woman, "do you have to read that thing?  It was trite 25 years ago - it must be downright boring now."  Nodding, this peppy young woman shrugged it off, "The teacher's an old feminist.  It's soooo grossssss."

. . . which is not to say, Deal, that unmorphed radical feminism persists only at college campuses.  Another bastion of the beast, Planned Parenthood, keeps trying to make itself central and relevant to young people.  In SF, for example, PP is currently running a "Design a T-shirt, Win an Ipod!" contest for the best slogan to capture the themes:  Prevention, Safe is Sexy and Planned Parenthood is For Everyone.   But, really, who's fooled by this nonsense?

It brings to mind a recent bus whirl I took across Heathrow to change terminals, amid the chaos and clang of franticly paced terror-proofing construction there.  In route, a video blasted hopes that we were "enjoying your Heathrow experience" - showing happy people breezily passing through a stream-lined modern airport system, unlike anything actually happening outside the bus windows, within the miles of concertina-wired fencing, or in the now-renowned inefficient, congested terminals.  The whole bus burst into laugher.

At some point, radical feminism propaganda grew silly and irrelevant, as Elizabeth Fox-Genovese detailed with intellectual precision in Feminism Is Not The Story of My Life.  That broad-based, continuing decline explains Mrs. Clinton's schizophrenic efforts to portray herself as a Jesus-loving, hymn-singing politician motivated by "the scriptural imperative to love our neighbor as ourselves" (according to my recent Faith, Family and Values email campaign update) while still clinging to the radical remainders in her base.

We will have to live with the fallout of radical feminism, I know, but the contamination is being contained and shrinking fast, in my opinion.  All of which brings to mind an entry for the Planned Parenthood T-shirt contest:  Great & Powerful Planned Parenthood (Pay No Attention To That Man Behind the Curtain).

Radical Feminism is Done?

Marjorie, did George Weigel qualify his assertion, "Radical feminism is done"?  I think it needs some qualification.

In the first place, it still dominates the academic culture of universities and colleges.  Once you have a generation of PhDs go into teaching, in this case the feminists, it takes another generation to flush them out.  "Women's Studies" has become an academic fixture and out of their classes, publications, and conferences they will send out small armies of feminists -- some radical, some not -- to inhabit the culture. 

Radical feminism is certainly no longer the fashion it was ten or so years ago -- it no longer has the sex appeal of a newly-minted ideology. 

As we can see in the career trajectory of Hillary Clinton, the radical feminists have started hide under pants suits and middle-class smiles intended to disarm the men they once labeled as the enemy. 

Radical feminism, then, has been institutionalized and domesticated, but its still out there making plenty of trouble.

Learning from Their Elders

Marjorie Campbell, marjorie@marjoriecampbell.com

I am my daughter's best mistake.  That's what many kids today have learned from parents like me, a radical feminist restored-to-good humor by the grace of God.  Though a painful exercise for my generation of women, it's a fine gift we have to offer the young women today.  And it seems to be working.

Last night, my heart rejoiced to hear George Weigel opine that "radical feminism is done" - a movement he once described as one of  "the more delirious forms of feminism, which insist that biology counts for nothing and means nothing, maleness and femaleness being cultural constructs."  Like other setbacks of modernity, radical feminism rested on "desperately defective ideas of the human person, married to modern technology."  "Young people today, " Mr. Weigel told his audience last night, "don't want to be like their parents.  They can see the results of radical feminism and they want something better for themselves."

I am my daughter's best mistake.  Any of us who tromped through the emotional swamps of late 20th century radical feminism, and lived to tell, can - and should - speak personally and honestly about feminism's Oz of heart aches, promiscuity, STDs, sexual objectification, devaluation of life, abandonment of romantic love and destruction of female dignity.  I am not the only one exposing the dark side of Oz.  Happily, this generation seems to be learning from their elders.

This morning on The Today Show three young adults explained their individual decisions to abstain from sex until marriage.  It's worth watching this video both for the ease of these young people in explaining this "controversial" choice the culture (literally) sneers upon and for the profound, influential impact they cite from the negative behaviors modeled by their elders.

This is all good news.  It takes only a little dog to pull back the curtain, but it takes our our voices, joined and raised together, to drive a lie to shame.

Understanding Mothers

Marjorie Campbell, marjorie@marjoriecampbell.com

I interrupt the political commentary on this blog to say a word about mothers.  Detoxing after Thanksgiving, my girlfriends and I can't seem to clear the same small bone stuck in our throats:  a pesky irritation that not all is right with our mothers.  I thought I choked on this type of maternal tiff alone but comments keep pouring in ... "why did my mother (fill in blank)?"  My favorite one (so far) is the soon-to-be Great-grandmother who wished her daughter "a grandson because girls are so hard to love."

My most reliable resource for understanding mothers, and the dynamic of mothers & daughters who inhabit grown up bodies is Erma Bombeck.  Here are three pointers from Erma, helpful hints that, I hope, will clear our throats and ready us for the next round at Christmas.

1. "My mother has elevated revenge to an art form.  Every year at the family reunion, we all check in with her to see whom we are speaking to and who is out in the cold.  The length of their sentence varies with their crimes." 

2.  "My mother's solution to life's problems was, 'Take a laxative.  A laxative cured an upset stomach, headache, fever, stomach rashes, dizziness, and general run-down feeling.  By the time she finished with you, nothing seemed important enough to open your mouth and complain about."

3.  " "When your mother asks, "Do you want a piece of advice?" it is a mere formality.  It doesn't matter if you answer yes or not.  You're going to get it anyway."

So is something amiss with our mothers during these holiday-athons?  No, to the contrary - like frigid wind and pouring rain is normal to southern New Zealand, wacky mother behavior is a fixture of our holidays!  Christmas ... here we come.

Giuliani Advisor is an Accused Pedophile Priest?

Deal Hudson

The Window for November 27, 2007

Giuliani Advisor is an Accused Pedophile Priest?

Since 2002, Msgr. Alan Placa has worked for Rudy Giuliani as a consultant at Giuliani Partners. In 2003 a grand jury report of Suffolk County, NY, accused Placa of sexually abusing multiple victims.

 

A spokeswoman for Giuliani Partners told Salon Magazine that the former New York City mayor believes Placa was "unjustly accused." The grand jury report contains accusations from three alleged victims, including two children (Placa is named as "Priest F" in the report.) According to testimony before the grand jury, "Everyone in the school knew to stay away from Priest F."

 

Placa has been suspended from his priestly duties for the past five years. He is "priest in residence" at St. Aloysius Church in Great Neck, NY. The pastor, Msgr. Brendan Riordan, is a close friend. In fact, Placa and Riordan co-own a penthouse apartment in Manhattan. The $555,000 apartment is one of six properties the two priests have owned together since the late 1980s. They also co-authored a book in 1977 called Desert Silence: A Way of Prayer for an Unquiet Age.

 

Monsignor Riordan himself was named in a sex abuse lawsuit against the Diocese of Worcester, MA; it was settled in the 1990s.

 

The Giuliani Connection

 

Placa and Giuliani have known each other since they attended Loughlin High School in Brooklyn. They became close friends and occasionally double-dated. After high school, they attended Manhattan College and joined the same fraternity, Phi Rho Pi.

 

Placa was ordained a Catholic priest in 1970. He served in various parishes and a preparatory seminary on Long Island before working for Catholic Charities and the Diocese of Rockville Centre. At Giuliani's first wedding, Placa was the best man. Placa helped him get his annulment in 1982 before he officiated at Giuliani's wedding to Donna Hanover in 1984. Placa also officiated at funeral services for Giuliani's mother and father and baptized both of his children.

 

Because Placa has a law degree from Hofstra University, he became a legal consultant to the diocese and was part of a three-person team reviewing charges of sexual abuse by priests. According to Newsday, Placa was the "chief architect" of the Rockville Diocese sexual abuse policy.

 

In addition to containing accusations against Placa, the Suffolk County grand jury claimed that the evidence "clearly demonstrates that diocesan officials agreed to engage in conduct that resulted in the prevention, hindrance, and delay in the discovery of criminal conduct by priests."

 

The grand jury report includes excerpts from a letter in which Placa brags about his ability to settle multi-million dollar clergy abuse claims for "$20,000 to $100,000."

 

During the 1980s, Placa was the legal advisor to the House of Affirmation in Worchester, MA, which offered counseling services to priests accused of sexual abuse. One person who worked at this facility called it a "pedophile boot camp." An abuse victim referred to it as a "breeding ground for sexual predators."

 

In June 2002, Giuliani called Placa "one of the finest people I know."

 

A Campaign Scandal in Waiting?

 

Although the relationship between Placa and Giuliani has been widely reported, it has yet to become an issue in Giuliani's presidential run. Could it be that Giuliani's capacity for loyalty to an old friend is more important to voters, particularly Catholic voters, than anything else?

 

The suspension of Placa's priestly duties has now reached the five-year point, far beyond the norm in such cases. Will Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre remove Placa's priestly faculties during the presidential campaign? That would be both an embarrassment for Giuliani and an implicit admission by the diocese that the case against the monsignor was serious. Of course, given Giuliani's legendary influence in the New York metropolitan area, Placa's faculties are not likely to be removed before the election.

 

If Giuliani becomes the Republican nominee, his pro-abortion view is not likely to be the only issue troubling to Catholic voters. Catholics in the United States have just passed through the most tumultuous period in their history since the public school riots of the mid-19th century. Catholics want to put the sex abuse crisis behind them -- and a Giuliani nomination will keep the name of Msgr. Alan J. Placa in the headlines. It will become widely known that Placa stands accused of abuse, but perhaps more importantly, he stands accused of preventing and delaying "the discovery of criminal abuse by priests."

 

This hardly comports with Giuliani's law-and-order image, and it will not help him to convince Catholics to trust his judgment as the future leader of our nation.

 

Catholic Compassion

Marjorie Campbell, marjorie@marjoriecampbell.com

"That's the problem with groundless compassion, it can be used for anything, including euthanasia and genocide."   

But, of course, Deal, a Catholic compassion is never groundless and can never be separated from how we consider the suffering of others.  Our faith, rooted in Christ's own love and Passion, moves us to compassion as a primary concern.  As you have wisely observed "[An] insistence on compartmentalizing faith restricts our compassion and concern to our immediate family.  A religion with “love thy neighbor” as its central tenet cannot remain restricted to one's family." -How to Vote Catholic by Deal W. Hudson.

Presidential candidates who lack compassion for any suffering person, who claim "it's not my business", have no appeal to me.   I'm sure you agree that misuse of compassion, or compassion blindly expressed by money-based solutions alone, does not excuse us from this fundamental calling of faith.  We can differ on "how effective a policy will be in implementing" a particular principle of our faith but we would not differ that, fundamentally, our motivation and concern arise from concern and compassion for others, right?  This is a Christian spirit that Mrs. Clinton has tapped, however strategically, even manipulatively.

The Compassion Check-List

Marjorie,  yes, the Democrats have a long and detailed check-list of how the government is going to spend money solving the nation's problems.  Some Republicans have one too, though not as long. The appeal of Ron Paul is that he doesn't have a list at all, preferring that the government stay out of the compassion business. 

It's hard to trust anyone, including Democrats, who espouse compassion with acknowledging the fundamental basis of compassion, respect for life.  I believe they have compassion, but I don't trust what they are going to do with it.

I will never forget the ethics class I taught my very first year as a college professor. A young mother told me that she had aborted her first two babies because "she loved them."  I asked her how abortion was an act of love. She replied, "because I did not want them, it was loving not to bring them into the world."

That's the problem with groundless compassion, it can be used for anything, including euthanasia and genocide.

Remember Compassion?

Marjorie Campbell, marjorie@marjoriecampbell.com

Deal, I agree that the GOP is handing out excuses, like Santa tossing candy canes,  for Catholic, independent voters like me to go Democrat in the 2008 Presidential election.  Perhaps it the draw of Mrs. Clinton's steady social justice message (I've received two more "Dear Marjorie" emails since my last post), but, for me, it's the centrifugal force off the Republican's loss of compassion. 

Remember compassionate conservatism - a sound bite that grabbed and caught my attention - in 2000 and again in 2004, making the Republicans a humane option for the first time?  Now, after anything but compassionate rhetoric over medical insurance for children, stability and fair treatment of immigrants and abandoning rights for the unborn, the phrase seems more like an endearing trinket up on my mementos shelf.

If I make my "compassion checklist" - reviewing which sub-groups can expect help, understanding and fair audience under each candidate - the Democrats appear, well, gentler all the time ... but for their total disregard for the rights, pains and injustices so cruelly dealt the unborn.