Undiplomatic Kmiec

Ambassador Douglas Kmiec—the Catholic law professor who parlayed his campaign book in support of Obama into an ambassadorship to Malta—has signed a statement of “Christian Leaders” in support of the abortion provisions in the Senate’s health-care bill.

Of this, Ed Whelan writes , “One very experienced former U.S. ambassador tells me that he ‘doesn’t know of any political or career ambassador who has ever signed a statement like Kmiec’s.’”

Even shipping the man off to Malta won’t keep him quiet. And why is it that Kmiec—so widely self-proclaimed as “pro-life”—always somehow has his pro-life declarations break in the opposite direction of the majority of other pro-lifers? It’s like the old line about French waiters: Sure, they make a lot of errors in the arithmetic of the bills they put on the table, but the errors always run in their favor.

Next
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Notes on Anosmia

John Wilson

One morning several years ago, as my wife, Wendy, and I were having breakfast together, I had…

Empire of Unreality

Algis Valiunas

Shiva Naipaul (1945–1985) was the author of three novels and two books of mordant dispatches from places…

The Dreadful Christ of Pär Lagerkvist

Peter J. Leithart

It’s dangerous to meet a god,” says the disgraced Pythia in Pär Lagerkvist’s The Sibyl. Her observation…