Guilt by Association

As long as we’re talking about the presidential contenders’ ties to terrorists:

PFAW points out:

Senator John McCain has been making a lot of baseless accusations lately, but he is the one with the troubling past. McCain and Marylin Shannon — a 2008 McCain delegate and former vice chair of the Oregon Republican Party — both appeared at an August, 1993 fundraiser for the far right Oregon Citizens Alliance. McCain appeared against the advice of Mark Hatfield, a GOP senator from Oregon, who feared that the group’s extremist views would taint McCain.

Shannon, who attended this year’s Republican National Convention as a McCain delegate, spoke immediately before McCain and “praised the Grants Pass woman accused of shooting an abortion doctor in Wichita” earlier in the month, referring to her as a “fine lady.” When McCain spoke next, he said nothing about Shannon’s vile comments and delivered his speech as prepared.

Just a few months later, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to approve a crucial anti-domestic terrorism bill, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. McCain opposed the bill.

Between 1977 and 1993 there were “36 bombings, 81 arsons, 131 death threats, 84 assaults, 2 kidnappings, 327 clinic invasions, 71 chemical attacks, more than 6,000 blockades and related disruptions” against reproductive health clinics. Congress was finally spurred into action by the killing of Dr. David Gunn outside a Florida clinic in March of 1993. In August, Dr. George Tiller was shot and wounded in Wichita.

“When anti-choice extremists were terrorizing American women and their doctors, John McCain had multiple opportunities to make what should have been an easy choice,” said Kathryn Kolbert, President of People For the American Way, and a longtime women’s rights advocate who successfully argued a crucial abortion rights case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1992. “But he chose political expediency over law and order. He didn’t say a word when Marylin Shannon sympathized with an attempted killer. He voted against the clinic access bill even as everyday Americans were being assaulted and besieged by domestic terrorists. As someone who faced repeated threats for work on behalf of reproductive rights, I am deeply disturbed by John McCain’s willingness to stand with and side with sympathizers and enablers of domestic terrorism.”

Whatever you think about Obama’s limited contact with Bill Ayers, there hasn’t been any evidence that Ayers ever condoned or promoted terrorism in Obama’s presence. There hasn’t been any evidence that Obama ever met with Ayers during his presidential campaign, or that Obama is still willing to lend Ayers a sympathetic ear.

That isn’t the case for John McCain, who was meeting with militant anti-choice activist and Operation Rescue supporter Paul Schenck as recently as last week.

There isn’t any evidence that Obama’s limited interactions with Ayers were for the purpose of gaining voter support; there’s no evidence that Obama’s board membership with Ayers or any of their subsequent contacts were for the purpose of creating policy or demonstrating sympathy for Ayers’ cause.

But that’s exactly why John McCain is courting hate groups and anti-choice activists: To show that he’s sympathetic to their causes, and that he’ll be their advocate in the White House.

There also isn’t any evidence that Obama has been soft on domestic terrorism, or that he has ever sought protection for people like Ayers. There’s no evidence that Obama ever tried to make life easier for domestic terrorists like Ayers by opposing legislation that would have brought him to justice. McCain, on the other hand, opposed domestic anti-terrorism measures — twice — in order to protect the “rights” of pro-lifers to bomb clinics, stalk clinic employees and kill doctors.

Let’s say that again: John McCain opposed a clinic bombings ban. Even staunchly anti-choice senators supported the ban, because it’s good common sense that anti-choice violence wasn’t stopping at state lines, and state law was inadequate in prosecuting it. John McCain opposed a Federal law prohibiting acts of violence against abortion clinics and doctors. Where’s the news story on that?

Here’s a description of the bill he opposed (from the New York Times):

The Senate voted overwhelmingly today for a Federal law to prohibit bombings, arson and blockades at abortion clinics, and shootings and threats of violence against doctors and nurses who perform abortions..

The vote was 69 to 30. Twenty-eight senators who voted against Federal financing of abortions six weeks ago supported the measure, seeing it as a law-and-order matter rather than as an abortion issue.
…
“This legislation seeks to silence the entire pro-life movement,” contended Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina. … But Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts insisted that Federal legislation was necessary because “anti-abortion violence and blockades have been occurring across the nation as part of a coordinated, systematic campaign to intimidate abortion providers and patients, and state and local authorities have been unable to control it.”
…
The legislation was spurred by two events last winter, a Supreme Court decision prohibiting the use of a Reconstruction Era statute against Operation Rescue’s efforts to blockade abortion clinics and the killing of Dr. David Gunn, who performed abortions in Pensacola, Fla., and had been pictured in “wanted” posters by abortion foes.
…

Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, an abortion rights supporter who helped Mr. Kennedy manage the bill, said: “This year we have witnessed a growing, nationwide campaign of violence directed at reproductive health care clinics. What were once peaceful protests have escalated to acts of force and terror.” Doctors Offices as ‘War Zones’

She said that because of the anti-abortion movement, American women “have seen their doctors’ offices transformed from safety zones into war zones.”

Mr. Kennedy said that over the last 15 years, “more than 1,000 acts of violence against abortion providers have been documented in the United States. Over 100 clinics have been bombed or burned to the ground.”

He said the problem was getting worse, citing a recent survey by the Feminist Majority Foundation, which showed that half of 281 abortion clinics that responded to a survey it conducted this summer reported violence against them in the first seven months of the year.

After the bill was passed, Mr. Kennedy told reporters, “This is a resounding victory for law and order, a clear message to those who have been terrorizing doctors and women and nurses all across the country.”

The senators who opposed the bill did so because it would “silence” pro-lifers — apparently disallowing them from assaulting patients, bombing clinics and shooting, harassing, and stalking doctors amounts to “silencing.” Anti-choicers were still permitted to protest, pray, sing, sidewalk-counsel, and do pretty much the whole range of assembly and activism. They were just being told that they had to stop short of violence. John McCain apparently didn’t think they should have to.

And here’s the Times op/ed on the issue:

Federal help may soon be on the way for women who seek abortions at clinics threatened by Operation Rescue and other anti-choice fanatics. The Senate is committed to take up immediately the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act and to vote tomorrow after only limited debate. A similar bill will reach the House floor on Thursday.

Congress is moving swiftly to fill a void created in January when the Supreme Court refused to read existing civil rights laws broadly enough to protect women from marauding extremists. Attorney General Janet Reno has given hearty support and President Clinton is happy to sign the bill.

The law is needed because violent factions of the right-to-life movement don’t stop at state lines with their nationwide campaigns of blockades, scare tactics and physical violence, even the murder of a clinic doctor in Florida.

The bill would set criminal penalties for the use of force or threat of force, or physical obstruction aimed at preventing women from obtaining a clinic’s service. Penalties would range from up to a year in prison for a first offense to life imprisonment for clinic violence that causes death. The bill also provides for civil lawsuits and, perhaps most effectively, for Federal court injunctions to regulate demonstrations and keep them peaceful.

Opponents of abortion — and the bill — argue that they are being singled out for Federal persecution because of their ideas. That’s nonsense. Those who deeply believe that abortion is murder are free to believe and speak and peaceably protest.

If protesters cross the line between dissenting speech and illegal action — if they trespass, block entrances and chain themselves to doorways — then they must pay the criminal or civil penalty, just as civil rights demonstrators have always done if they invaded the rights of others. Operation Rescue and other radical groups invite this Federal response by the very act of overwhelming state and local peace forces.

Some of the bill’s opponents are preparing amendments designed to weaken or complicate it; lawmakers should resist them. By holding to the basic bill, Congress can rise to its duty of safeguarding the constitutional rights of women who choose to have abortions and the safety of those who provide them.

Anti-choice terrorism is unfortunately not relegated to the fringes of society. It’s mainstreamed in anti-choice groups, and right into the GOP.
So let’s keep in mind who and what even mainstream “pro-life” groups are advocating. Let’s keep in mind who their allies are. And if we’re going to talk about domestic terrorism and the candidates’ ties to terrorists, let’s not leave some of the largest perpetrators of domestic terrorism out of the picture just because they have the ear of the Republican party or because they call themselves “pro-life.”

Thanks to Josh for the links.

Tagged as: Barack Obama, John McCain