Demagogue

The GOP's nominee for the U.S. Senate in Maryland appeared Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." He is Lt. Gov. Michael Steele (at right). Steele was asked this question by host Tim Russert:

RUSSERT: Mr. Steele, if you’re (a) United States Senator, would you vote for a constitutional amendment to outlaw abortion?

STEELE: I don’t — vote for a constitutional amendment to outlaw abortion? I think we’d have to have that get to the Supreme Court, wouldn’t we? I haven’t seen that bill proposed. I don’t think ...

RUSSERT: That’s been introduced in the Senate.

STEELE: I don’t think anyone’s going to propose that this day.

RUSSERT: So you wouldn’t do that?

STEELE: No.

RUSSERT: Would, would you encourage — would you hope the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe vs. Wade?

STEELE: I think that that’s a matter that’s going to rightly belong to the courts to decide ultimately whether or not that, that issue should be addressed.

I strongly suspect that Steele was deliberately playing dumb when he was asked about a federal constitutional amendment to ban abortions.

He expects us to believe that someone who has been Maryland's lieutenant governor for three years and who delivered a speech at the '04 Republican National Convention was unaware that the party's '04 platform (p. 84) stated:

... the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution ....

This proposed "human life amendment" language has been written into every GOP platform since 1976. The Republican National Coalition for Life's 2006 candidate questionnaire specifically asks for candidates' views on the "human life amendment to the Constitution."

So it's one or the other. Either Steele is trying to deceive us about his knowledge of a proposed constitutional amendment to ban abortion or he's being honest -- in which case, he's demonstrating a shocking level of ignorance.

Steele has been endorsed by the Maryland Right to Life's PAC. I'm sure they asked him specifically what he thought about overturning Roe v. Wade. I seriously doubt he sounded this ambivalent:

"... that’s a matter that’s going to rightly belong to the courts to decide ..."

If you really believe that abortion is the taking of a human life, that it's tantamount to murder, then how could you respond in such a bland and equivocal manner?