The Sacred Ground Rules of Reverend Mother Pelosi
George Bernard Shaw was fond of saying ‘that no question is so difficult to answer, as that to which the answer is obvious.’
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was asked one of those questions by the Weekly Standard’s John McCormack at a press conference last week,
“What is the moral difference between what Dr. Gosnell did to a baby born alive at 23 weeks and aborting her moments before birth?” Pelosi, is a seasoned politician, who has mastered the art of euphemistic deflection and sarcastic avoidance. The two minute exchange with McCormack aptly displayed her tactics and her ground rules of delusion, distortion, and distraction. The Pelosi Rules of Orders muzzle debate, intimidate dissenters and obfuscate the truth.
Rule #1-Poke fun at the question. Pelosi responded to McCormack chillingly, “You’re probably enjoying that question a lot. I can see you savoring it.” Her sarcasm prompted laughter from other reporters in the room. Pelosi cleverly tried to muzzle the question by deriding and ridiculing the questioner.
McCormack wasn’t intimidated, and asked further, “What’s the moral difference, then, between 26 weeks elective abortion and killing that same infant born alive?” The press rarely asks moral difference questions of politicians. Watch out for morality questions, especially ones about abortion, they make Pelosi very uncomfortable.
Rule #2-Malign the motives of the questioner. Pelosi went on to say, “I’m not going to have this conversation with you because you obviously have an agenda. You are not interested in having an answer,” pointing her finger and sounding more like the haughty queen rather than an elected public official. In other words, Pelosi was really saying, I am not going to answer that question because I don’t have answer. Pelosi would have been better off invoking Yogi Berra, “I wish I had an answer to that because I’m tired of answering that question.”
Rule #3 Play the Mother Card-Then, as she saw she was losing the argument, Pelosi invoked her favorite abortion shield, her children. “As a mother of 5 children, the oldest of whom was 6 years old when I brought home the youngest.” Pelosi brazenly argues that her many children and her motherhood give her license to support abortion. She updated the Mother Goose nursery rhyme about the little old woman who had so many children she didn’t know what to do, so she supported abortion.
Rule #4-Play the Catholic card–
This is the most bizarre rule of them all. Pelosi cites her Catholicism as justification for her pro-abortion beliefs. Pelosi incredibly states, “as a practicing and respectful catholic, this (late term abortion) is sacred ground for me.” By invoking not only her faith, which has doctrinally opposed abortion for 2000+ years, and by cloaking abortion in religious terms as “sacred ground,” Pelosi’s argument is not only bizarre but blasphemous. Why does Pelosi take cover behind her children and her religion, especially when both are the antithesis of abortion? The illogical and irrational always mask guilt.
Rule #5-Never answer a moral question
Pelosi finally refused to answer the question and said to McCormack, “and that’s where you are taking it and I’m not going there,” An elected official who refuses to answer a perfectly legitimate question either has something to hide or values her political ambitions more than the public’s right to know. Abortion in the United States has flourished because the public has not had the benefit of an open debate on the moral issues surrounding abortion. Pelosi continues to shut down the debate.
Rule #6-Change the question
“I don’t think it (abortion) should have anything to do with politics.” Pelosi mischaracterizes the question as a political one, and despite being a politician, refuses to answer a political question. Incredibly, Pelosi dares to state that abortion has nothing to do with politics, despite the fact that she has co-sponsored and championed countless abortion expansion and public funding bills.
Not surprisingly, Pelosi ultimately declined McCormack’s invitation to engage in a moral conversation about abortion. Their exchange offers a fascinating and revealing insight into the left’s rulebook of abortion doublespeak.
To defend a lie, one must lie.
To defend immorality, one must invoke religion and the language of spirituality, (her catholicism and sacred ground).
Pelosi repeatedly opposes any legislation which restricts public funding of abortion or restricts late term abortion. She excoriates these bills as causing “women to die on the floor.” This is another version of her ‘sacred ground’ argument. The late term abortion practiced by Kermit Gosnell is ‘sacred ground’ to Pelosi. This “sacred ground” which she venerates caused the murder of 3 babies and a woman to die on the floor of Gosnell’s abortion clinic.
No wonder she has such a tough time answering McCormack’s question.