So here’s the scene.
Our Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Warren Rudman at a train station on the day that the Supreme Court upheld Roe V. Wade in Casey V Planned Parenthood.
Here’s the gist of it from a column by Paul Kengor via Insight Scoop:
Rudman had pushed the Souter nomination. He ensured liberal colleagues that Souter was their guy. Rudman, a pro-choice Republican, had been Souter’s boss at the New Hampshire office of attorney general. He privately concluded that Souter would not vote against Roe. Rudman’s reasons, which he acknowledged only after he left the Senate, ranged from the legal to humanitarian: Given that Souter was “a compassionate human being,” averred Rudman, he would naturally support continued legalization of abortion—which has produced the deaths of over 40 million unborn babies since 1973.
But Rudman’s allies on the Democratic side weren’t so sure. And Rudman had to walk a fine line, since his pro-life president wanted a pro-life justice. So, Rudman quietly sought to assuage liberals. He urged them to trust him.
That silent trust was critical, since Souter’s position on abortion had to be dealt with stealthily. In fact, it was handled so delicately that the nominee’s true thinking was apparently unknown even to the White House.
Alas, with Casey v. Planned Parenthood, America had its answer, as Souter authorized the sanctity of Roe v. Wade.
As fate would have it, on that same day Senator Rudman and Senator Joe Biden bumped into each other at the train station, not in Washington, DC but in Wilmington, Delaware.
“At first, I didn’t see Joe; then I spotted him waving at me from far down the platform,” Rudman later recorded in his memoirs, Combat: Twelve Years in the U.S. Senate. “Joe had agonized over his vote for David, and I knew how thrilled he must be. We started running through the crowd toward each other, and when we met, we embraced, laughing and crying.”
An ecstatic Biden wept tears of joy, telling Rudman over and over: “You were right about him [Souter]! … You were right!”
The two men were so jubilant, so giddy—practically dancing—that Rudman said onlookers thought they were crazy: “[B]ut we just kept laughing and yelling and hugging each other because sometimes, there are happy endings.”
It was sheer bliss: Roe v. Wade had been saved; it was alive. The two senators, liberal Democrat and liberal Republican, were so overcome that they sobbed. It was the most joyous moment.
Thanks to David Souter, Rudman celebrated: “The combined efforts of the Reagan and Bush administrations and the religious right to overthrow Roe had been defeated, probably for good.”
I couldn’t imagine a more macabre scene than that. Catholic Senator Joe Biden jumping up and down because abortion would remain the law of the land.
Can we now discard the lie that Democrats are pro-choice and not pro-abortion? The man was excited because abortion was legal. And he’s in the White House right now. Sadly, he’s there because his boss convinced enough Catholics to vote for him.
Biden has said in the past that he personally accepts Catholic teaching that human life begins at conception. Can we all agree that’s a lie now? (As if we couldn’t before) No sane person who believes that life begins at conception would be excited at the prospect of abortion being made legal.
Read Kengor’s entire piece to be even more sickened.
May 5, 2009 at 4:33 pm
I hope he doesn’t believe that life starts at conception, because to know that it does and support abortion anyway makes the sin that much graver.
~cmpt
May 5, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Is Biden allowed to received communion in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.? Has Archbishop Wuerl made any proclamation?
May 5, 2009 at 5:04 pm
That’s just really sick. Really disgusting.
May 5, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Rick,
Archbishop Wuerl says he will uphold whatever each individual’s bishops has ruled. As no politician is directly in his diocese he doesn’t have the authority that thier own bishops do.
At first his decision really made me angry but after truly thinking about it, I get his decision. He’s in a really unfortunate position.
May 5, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Matthew – this isn’t a post on abortion or Biden; rather an early Christmas present for you http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2009/05/04/sot.obama.cinco.de.mayo.cnn
In case you don’t understand Latin languages, “cinco de Mayo” means “fifth of may”, so “cinco de cuatro” means “fifth of four” (he should have said “cuatro de mayo”). Now, if Bush had said this you would have heard it lambasted in the press and lampooned by liberals for weeks afterwards. But since Obama said it, apparently it’s just as cute as a baby’s first vomiting. The irony here is Bush actually speaks and understand Spanish passibly and wouldn’t have made this mistake.
Anyway, feel free to delete this post and use the link to put your own spin on it if you think it newsworthy.
May 5, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Debval: Thanks. Do you know how he upholds it? Were priests or EMs instructed to withhold communion in case Biden presents himself at St. Stephens? Because I have not heard or seen any directions from St. Elizabeths.
May 5, 2009 at 7:35 pm
-Roe v. Wade had been saved; it was alive.-
That sentence really struck me. There is irony in there, though I am not sharp enough right now to describe it.
May 5, 2009 at 11:07 pm
You don’t really think that Bush didn’t know that Souter wasn’t pro-life, do you? Republicans are well aware that if Row v. Wade were ever over-turned that there would be an electoral tidal wave of support for “pro-choice” candidates and that many “pro-business” Republicans would vote Democratic to see abortion rights restored. Appointing Souter and then acting as if he had been betrayed was just about the most cynical manipulation of pro-life voters that I could imagine.
May 6, 2009 at 8:06 am
I remember the day the Casey case was decided. I was in law school at the time and well remember the sick disappointment in the pit of my stomach. To imagine this scene of dancing and tears of joy that was going on at the same time is bringing it back.
May 6, 2009 at 6:39 pm
“You don’t really think that Bush didn’t know that Souter wasn’t pro-life, do you?”Why is it that any time someone points out the anti-life agenda of Obama and Biden, their sycophants have to always bring it back to a Bush (either H.W. or W.)?
Was Bush’s nomination of Souter a cynical ploy to keep abortion legal all the while pretending that Souter betrayed him? Maybe, but that requires conjecture.
What does NOT require conjecture, however, is that the CATHOLIC who now is a mere heartbeat away from the Presidency celebrated the continuation of legalized abortion on demand like some lovesick schoolgirl who has just received a valentine from her beloved.
Defend Biden, if you must, or condemn him; but quit trying to change the subject via tu quoque arguments every time it becomes clear that the “pro-choice” politicians you elected are, in fact, hardened pro-aborts who celebrate the death of the unborn by jumping for joy on a train platform.
May 6, 2009 at 9:51 pm
I’m not going to defend Joe Biden’s position on abortion. He’s a pro-abort and that’s despicable. It disgusts me that he calls himself Catholic. I’m all in favor of his being denied communion. We would expect him to be pleased that Souter is a pro-abort, where’s the surprise in that?
The real scandal of this story is that Souter was misrepresented to the American people before his confirmation. That this represents yet another Republican betrayal of the pro-life cause. That this is just one more example, of which there are many, of the Republicans pretending to be the party of life, when they are just the party of the rich.
The simple fact of the matter is, with a 2/3 majority of Americans in favor of keeping abortion legal, there is no genuine pro-life party!