(Tim, w/thanks to Mick) A post over at the web site of the New York Times gives a blow by blow of President Obama's reception of an honorary doctorate and commencement address at Notre Dame this past weekened. Here's the text of the post, with comments interspersed:
Father Ted | 4:00 p.m. Near
the end of his speech, President Obama spoke about the Civil Rights
Commission, whose resolutions were the foundation of the 1964 Civil
Rights Act.
President Obama lays a garland on the tombs of dead and dying prophets.
One of the six members (one black and five whites) was the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, then president of Notre Dame. Mr. Obama acknowledged how “Father Ted” brought the members of the commission to a retreat in Land O’Lakes, Wis., to break an impasse. Rev. Hesburgh found common ground when the men all spoke about being fishermen and took them on a twilight fishing trip.
"Father Ted" who on this day is giving no thought to the helpless little babies...
“They fished, and they talked, and they changed the course of history,” Mr. Obama said, as CNN showed Rev. Hesburgh, who turns 92 next week, in attendance. “We are all fishermen,” Mr. Obama told his audience to remember.
Agree to Disagree | 3:31 p.m. President Obama said he was not suggesting that the debate surrounding abortion go away: “No matter how much we may want to fudge it – indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory – the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.”
The "views of most Americans on (abortion) are complex and contradictory?"
No, Mr. President, only the views of Americans like you, who believe in the slaughter of defenseless and innocent babies, are complex and contradictory. The rest of us have a wholly synchronous, direct, straightforward, morally integrated, harmonious, logical, wholistic view on the matter.
Here it is in all its stark simplicity: Abortion is murder.
As to the question of avoiding caricature of our opponents' position: I understand what this would mean for the proponents of slaughter. They would begin to acknowledge that those of us opposed to the slaughter of infants tucked into their mothers' wombs are, in fact, opposed to the slaughter of infants tucked into their mothers' wombs, rather than accusing us of wanting political power, wanting to enforce a religious view on others which is unique to our own faith, being in favor of women's bodies staying in bondage to a little predator freeloading off them for nine months, being brutes who hate women, and so on.
But consider this: precisely how would those of us seeking to defend those little ones from slaughter caricature the oppressors' position? What could we say that would be unfair?
That they are heartless? Cruel? Bloodthirsty? Lacking the milk of human compassion? Oppressors of the most innocent and vulnerable of our nation's citizens? Murderers? Mass murderers? Brutal mass murderers? Brutal mass murderers whose victims outnumber any other slaughter in the history of man?
Would it be caricaturing their position to write a detailed description of how they kill these babies, minute and accurate to every particular? Or what they do with the babies' bones and cartilage and hearts and skin and skulls and tiny feet after they've sucked these remains from the body of their mother?
Surely we all see the dilemma?
It is impossible to caricature those who have built their lives and empires on the slaughter of hundreds of millions of little babies, just as it is impossible to caricature Hiroshima, Treblinka, or the Gulag. Caricaturing Obama would be as impossible as caricaturing Nero, Caligula, Pol Pot, Mao, Hitler, or Stalin.
These slaughters and the leaders carrying them out could not be made more grotesque than they are.
God bless her.
In protest of Mr. Obama, about two dozen graduating seniors gathered at an anti-abortion vigil at the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes on campus. Jon Buttaci, a graduating senior who skipped the commencement, said he recognized that his political views were a distinct minority here.
A Roman Catholic institution of higher education, mind you. And his views are "a distinct minority." So much for the greatly-vaunted unity of the Roman trollop. So much for higher education, too.
An Interruption | 3:08 p.m. A lone protester shouted, and then a chant erupted to follow soon after Mr. Obama began speaking.
As police officers took the protester away, much of the stadium cheered his removal. A few moments later, another single protester began shouting “Abortion is murder.” The crowd erupted with loud boos directed at the heckler and then broke into loud chanting of Mr. Obama’s campaign slogan, “Yes, we can.”
"Yes we can?"
Yes we can what?
Yes we can murder babies, of course. What a meta-narrative.
“We’re fine, everybody,” President Obama said, calming the students, some of whom had stood up.
"We're fine, everybody?" What's this "we," black man? Are the unborn children being slaughtered "fine?"
He continued to ad-lib based on the theme of his speech, saying: “We’re not going to shy away from things that are uncomfortable.”
No, sirree. Suck that womb dry. Flush the blood and guts down the drain. Seize the day. Face it squarely. Push the button. Take courage--it's only a baby.
Mick comments:
And God says: "And I will avenge their blood which I have not avenged, For the LORD dwells in Zion."
May that day come swiftly.
