Carol Marin and the Woman’s Vote

If you’re a lefty and covering abortion, you learn quickly to assume and refer to “the woman’s vote” as liberal, never mind that the polls gathered by Karlyn Bowman at the American Enterprise Institute (she’s a Chicagoan, by the way) in Washington show that women have moved to at least 50-50 on the practice and decidedly favoring restrictions. When you total the numbers, more women favor ending abortion or restricting it than women favoring the entire practice. Carol Marin adheres to the comfortable old lefty practice of not allowing bias to be diluted. Following good Sun-Times column-ing practice of “it’s all about me,” Marin begins: “Women. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.” What is it, Carol?

What follows is boilerplate style-less Planned Parenthood jargon about “a woman’s right to choose.” She agrees with Planned Parenthood and Personal Pac, the two most vehement pro-abort lobbies, that the media has not made sufficient clarity about Judy Baah Topinka’s voting record—which is, although Marin doesn’t tell us, that in the General Assembly Baah Topinka voted with pro-aborts on one amendment, then voted against the final bill. On one bill, she voted with Planned Parenthood on one amendment, voted pro-life on another and for final passage voted “present.” That’s been Baah Topinka’s mode all through life, which is why I can’t believe anything she says.

(Intriguingly, a reader bulletins me: if you can’t believe anything she says, why do you believe she’s a liberal? There’s a metaphysics lesson there. Why since she is unable to tell the truth do I say she believes thus and so? Because relativism is a liberal practice and has been since the Enlightenment—a view that Aristotle answered 3,000 years ago when confronted by a student who declared “there is no certainty.” He responded: “Are you sure?” The guy said yes and then lapsed into befuddlement spurred by the contradiction. To Baah Topinka there is no certainty and she hasn’t figured it out yet—give her time.)

Back to Marin: I wonder why Marin didn’t use her column to tell us how Baah Topinka has voted? The news conference by Personal Pac and Planned Parenthood gave chapter and verse but Marin doesn’t reproduce it. Why not? Possibly as not to damage Baah Topinka too much. After all, she’s a sister feminist and it gives Baah Topinka time to pronounce firmly for abortion so that Marin and her sisters can thrill to a governorship race where two strident pro-aborts are running against each other. That’s what I call partisan journalism, back to the old days as practiced by George Taage and Arthur Sears Henning. I love it.