Strong Endorsement

Jeffrey Hart, former Nixon and Reagan speechwriter and Senior Editor of The National Review, has endorsed Obama, in what cable news now calls a "full-throated" endorsement, calling Obama "The True Conservative." 

It's interesting, because he examines the candidates' philosophies against the traditional definition of "conservative." The labels of liberal and conservative aren't clear any longer, as the so-called conservative party has no interest in conserving individual liberty, the environment, many free-market principals (subsidies for major corporations, and contempt for competition), respecting sovereignty, and puts nation-building ahead of its own nation's welfare.

Hart supports Obama as a Burkean conservative.  I'm also happy to see a conservative finally acknowledge that privatizing Social Security is a horrendous idea, just barely safer than putting your savings on the craps table. He also addressed abortion and stem-cell research in a way that the wackos who have hijacked the Republican party need to hear.

Ever since Roe vs. Wade, abortion has been a salient controversy in our politics. But the availability of abortion is linked to the long advancement of women's equality. Again, we are dealing with social change, and this requires understanding social change, a Burkean imperative that Obama understands.

On my Dartmouth campus, half the undergraduates are women. They do not want to have their plans derailed by an unwanted pregnancy. In Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, the Court ruled that the availability of abortion "enables women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the country."

Though there is a tragic aspect to abortion, as Obama recognizes, women's equality means that women have control of their reproductive capability. Men don't worry about that. The fact is that 83 percent of elective abortions occur during the first trimester, and decline rapidly after that.

Both Obama and McCain support federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research, Obama more urgently. The conservative movement publications, following Bush, have been fiercely opposed. Such opposition required a belief that a cluster of cells (the embryo) the size of the period at the end of this sentence is as important (more important?) than a seriously ill human being.

I myself cannot fathom such a mentality.

In fact, embryonic stem cell research is being energetically pursued in the following nations: Israel, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, China cooperating with the EU. Privately funded and state funded laboratories are moving ahead vigorously.

Recently, Harvard announced a program that will be part of a multi-billion dollar science center to be established south of the Charles River, and will be able to supply sem cells to other laboratories. I call that Pro-Life.