You can’t hate Bart Stupak
National politicians, like successful athletes and serial daters, attract many haters. Their personalities and character call into question their whole worldview. Think of Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, Bill Clinton, Tom DeLay, George W. Bush, Trent Lott, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi. Most are loathed for their verbal tics or gaffes. Yet even mild-mannered, unprovocative types like Tom Daschle, Barack Obama, and Harry Reid have been detested.
Bart Stupak is an exception to this rule. Hating the Michigan Democrat is all but impossible. Scan the blogosphere and media about Stupak, and you find that nobody has come up with a real criticism of the man.
Oh sure, hating everything other than his personality and character is possible. His anti-abortion amendment is hated. His power is hated. His religion is hated. His political choice to fight this pro-life battle instead of others is hated — well, disliked. But he is not hated.
What’s to hate? He’s straightforward. He’s principled. He’s not vainglorious. His life story, that of a cop turned politician, is admirable and sympathetic. He’s what key members of Congress were before the advent of the Internet: He isn’t the issue; his legislation is.
Those who have denigrated Stupak have only made themselves look immature juvenile and vindictive. Ezra Klein made fun of his surname. Rachel Maddow said that Stupak made an anti-gay comment about ex-Rep. Mark Foley and lived in a Christian house on Capitol Hill, charges which suggest that Maddow never spent time with Foley and misunderstands the First Amendment.
Stupak’s critics should admit the obvious: He’s a man of charm and good character. His virtues don’t make him a charismatic leader, policy genius, or adroit bureaucratic infighter. He’s not the next Wilbur Mills or Henry Waxman. He’s more like Harry Truman, Hubert Humphrey, or Jack Kemp. His personal virtues insulate him from the politics of personal destruction. If he were unlikable or had a moral defect, his power and influence would likely erode. Instead, he is the man who may cause the Democrats’ latest health-care reform effort to go down in flames.
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I don’t think Harry Truman wanted to kill 40,000 people a year in order to… well, it’s not clear what the Stupak Amendment would do, but preventing even a single abortion isn’t it. I don’t think that’s a “personal virtue”.
“Maddow never spent time with Foley”
Why on Earth would Rachael Maddow have ever in her life spend any time at all with Mark Foley? This post is just an astounding amount of fail.
The Stupak amendment would prevent the federal government from paying for health plans that cover abortion. How would that not prevent a single abortion?
Mark Foley was known for wearing a feather boa in Capitol Hill bars. This behavior would not raise eyebrows in many neighborhood cities. But it did on Capitol Hill. If Maddow had done actual reporting, she would have known this.
Jason Wolfe makes a fair point about hating a man for his principles, though this does not apply to the man’s character and personality but rather his judgment.
However, his pro-choice argument appeals to nothing more than subjective opinion. Why should the life or death of another person depend on another person’s subjective state?
Also, judging Stupak’s position on abortion based on his gender strikes me as misguided. His position is right or wrong based on its merits not his accidental characteristics. We wouldn’t say that Frederick Douglass’ position on slavery was correct because he was black.
In response to another comment. See in context »The Stupak amendment would prevent the federal government from paying for health plans that cover abortion. How would that not prevent a single abortion?
There are precisely zero abortions now being covered by health plans paid for by the Federal government. You can’t have less than zero, genius.
Mark Foley was known for wearing a feather boa in Capitol Hill bars.
I’m having trouble understanding what on Earth this sentence could possibly mean. It’s like – these are English words, but it’s like you just turned to me and said “popcorn styrofoam, wobble wobble wobble.” You’ve really stopped making any kind of sense at all.
In response to another comment. See in context »We wouldn’t say that Frederick Douglass’ position on slavery was correct because he was black.
You know, neglecting to mention that Frederick Douglass was born into slavery (assuming you even knew that) kind makes this hard to buy.
Douglass, as a black American during slavery in the United States, was acutely aware of all of the reasons slavery was an abomination – because he had lived through them himself, he was able to make many, many informed and articulate arguments against slavery.
As far as I can tell, Mr. Stupak has never, will never and can never carry a fetus to full-term, and as such, is considerably less-informed on the matter than the majority of American women.
By the way; if you’re white and middle-class, using a slavery argument is pretty nasty in any circumstances not actually involving slavery. It’s like bringing up the Holocaust or the Nazis in an argument that doesn’t involve the Holocaust or the Nazis – you lose by default.
In response to another comment. See in context »You can hate a man for his principles. The opinions a man holds are great grounds on which to judge the man. A man is uniquely able to decide what opinions he holds. Stupak wasn’t born with his opinions, he chose them. Thus I may judge him as a man by the opinions he holds.
Stupak’s opinions show that he has no empathy for the pregnant woman who doesn’t want to be pregnant. His opinion that women who don’t want to be pregnant should be forced to carry the baby to term because he is pro-life disgusts me. He isn’t a pregnant woman who doesn’t want to be pregnant, he is a man who wants to decide what that women does with her womb. He has no right to use the health care bill as a club to batter women who don’t want to be pregnant.
I loathe him for his principles, not because he is principled.
Great. Now I have a boner. By the way, Maddow didn’t “say,” like you’re saying. She played the audio. As to Rachel not understanding the first amendment and not hanging out with Stupak, I read that hyper-intellectual lesbians are persona non grata at Family compounds. Besides, guys like Bart are obviously free to worship the fetus and pray to their Gods- this is America for Christ’s sake. You just can’t be part of a secretive evangelical/political cabal and then pretend to be a reasonable person- in the same way that Mitt can’t be prez because most of us don’t trust the decoder rings Mormons use to read the magic Smith plates.
EAT A QUEER FETUS FOR JESUS!
I’m having a hard time understanding something.
Does Congressman Stupak believe that his amendment, regardless of his faith or his beliefs, will COMPLETELY stop abortions for good in America, forever?
If that is what he’s trying to do, well, I don’t see it as entirely likely. Abortions WILL happen, either done in a safe hospital with medical professionals, or by other unseemly means.
Don’t you just love it, the right to lifers are willing to sink health care and allow 40,000 – 50,000 people to die because they do not have access to health care. We already have the Hyde amendment to cover abortion. Moreover, they allow the purchase of “abortion coverage” if financed privately. Of course, I am not surprised since killing doctors who perform abortion seem to be OK in their book. These “people” have a long history of torture and murder of non-believers. Finally, who in their right mind is going to purchase an abortion policy ahead of time?
I hate him for being either stupid or disingenuous The pro-life Nelson compromise doesn’t let any government money go to abortion. If anything, the Senate bill would result in *less* government money going to abortion compared to the status quo, because it would make a viable individual market as an alternative to the tax-subsidized employer-driven insurance market, in which government money DOES subsidize abortion.
And if he would just admit the truth, that his amendment would be a major step forward for the pro-life movement and basically eliminate abortion coverage in the individual market, then he and his Catholic allies might actually be able to get (more than one) Republican legislator to cross over and support the bill (with his amendment).
Stupak isn’t driven by principle. He’s driven by a lust for attention and spite.
[...] The first story I wrote for Crisis opened with a scene, not a very good one, in Rep. Bart Stupak’s congressional office. So Stupak has always been in the back of my mind. But others must wonder how it could be that this backbencher could bring down the Democrats’ latest health-care reform effort. Some of his success surely is due to the moral power of his cause. But some of it surely is due to his charm and strength of character. Over at TrueSlant, I make the latter case. [...]