Complete with a magnificent cover illustration shown on all three of the following linked pages, the splendidly anti-war and anti-Wall Street American Conservative explains that Giuliani would declare war for ever, is temperamentally unsuited to be President, and would destroy traditional morality as a force in American politics:
By demonstrating how unimportant social conservatives had become to the GOP, Giuliani’s nomination could well transform American politics. Millions of Americans vote Republican in spite of the party’s economic views, not because of them. There is no doubt a Giuliani candidacy would alienate many of these voters, pushing some to their ancestral Democratic home, some to a possible pro-life third party, and some to stay home on election day. Those who remain in the GOP would be part of a party that viewed the war on terror as the premier social issue, as Jonah Goldberg has argued it now is. Quite a descent from 1980.
As dispiriting as it is to contemplate a Giuliani presidency as a social conservative, it is even more depressing to consider it as a Catholic. The last Catholic nominated by the GOP for national office was Barry Goldwater’s running mate, William Miller, a dutiful Catholic and public servant untouched by scandal, who returned to practice law in his hometown of Lockport, New York after the 1964 election, successfully resisting the temptation to cash in on public service by starting a high-priced consulting firm employing dubious associates and serving questionable clients. The only Catholic to be elected president, John F. Kennedy, did have a personal life as scandalous as Giuliani’s, but at least avoided public conflict with Church teaching and had enough wit, grace, and charisma to remain a popular figure decades after his death. Giuliani lacks Miller’s decency and Kennedy’s charm. His election as president would be an embarrassment to American Catholics who agree with what the Church teaches and a disaster for all Americans who believe in traditional morality and the sanctity of innocent human life.
I would go further: President Giuliani would be a dissident global alternative to the Pope, leading Catholics and others away from the traditional morality of which opposition to the "free" market and to its never-ending wars is an integral part. He must be stopped.
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How right you are. But if Giuliani wins, will the Catholic neocons lay into him the way they laid into John Kerry, whom many paleocons, including the editor of The American Conservative (Scott McConnell), supported?
ReplyDeleteThe Catholic neocons can no longer het away, as they used to, with lionising Papal teaching on bioethics and sexual morality while simply ignoring it on justice and peace. President Giuliani's alternative Papacy would be their dream come true.
ReplyDeleteI'd go further than that. The Catholic neocons have been blubbing ever since JPII went (down) to his reward. If Giuliai becomes President expect Vatican III and Muslim-hugging before the end of the next decade (or at any rate as soon as Papa Ratzinger is dead and buried).
ReplyDeleteThey consistently ignored everything that JPII said if they didn't like it. And that was rather a lot.
ReplyDeleteActually, I think that President Giuliani might well get himself excommunicated, promoting the schism of the liberal wing of the American Church in support of a neocon politician.
And good riddance, if it happened. But that's still not a good enough reason to want Giuliani in the White Hosue.