Selection Of Rove For Keynote Speech At National Right To Life's Annual Convention Subject Of Opinion Piece

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 25 Jun 2008 - 9:00 PDT

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"Is it politically naive to be surprised" that former Bush administration Chief of Staff Karl Rove will be the keynote speaker at next month's annual convention of the National Right to Life Committee, New York Times reporter Peter Steinfels writes in a Times' Beliefs column. NRLC "describes itself as nonpartisan," but it has decided to make Rove -- the "embodiment of the Bush administration's politics at their most calculating and hard-hitting" -- the "star" of its election-year convention, Steinfels writes. Rove's presentation is titled "Renewing Life in America -- An Old-Fashioned Political Rally."

Although two NRLC members told Steinfels the selection of Rove was in part because of his visibility, motivational ability and political knowledge, Steinfels writes that the "core" reason for Rove's selection was "political, not personal." According to Steinfels, NRLC's "logic is unassailable" -- if "the future of limiting abortion depends on Republican victories at the polls, why not give the place of honor at the committee's convention to the man most associated with achieving those victories?"

However, a "fair reading of decades of poll data suggests" that most U.S. residents are "betwixt and between" on abortion issues, shifting their "moral judgments" based on the "circumstances or stage of a pregnancy," Steinfels writes. Although such "betwixt-and-betweeners" might agree with Rove on the "importance ... of 'Renewing Life in America,'" they might "still be doubtful" that "'An Old-Fashioned Political Rally' led by the genius of hardball politics is the best way to go about it," Steinfels concludes (Steinfels, New York Times, 6/22).

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