On letting Doug Kmiec have it

Many, many people are tiring of Doug Kmiec's incessant need to argue against people while never actually responding to the substance of their counter-arguments. Kmiec also displays an incredible presumption whenever he claims to be more concerned about the lives of America's unborn than our very own bishops. (I mean - really? - what do they have to gain? Not much. What do you have to gain? Well, apparently something you find very worth it.)

Archbishop Chaput charitably responds to Doug Kmiec's open letter to him, corrects Kmiec's claim that they are friends ("[we] have had little contact in the past"), notes that there are "serious falsehoods and misdirections in Prof. Kmiec's ''prolife'' advocacy for Sen. Obama" and concludes by saying "I look forward eagerly to Prof. Kmiec's vocal advocacy against these profoundly unjust policies" in the future Obama administration.

In other words - the ball is in Kmiec's court, so he should take some time off from the lecture circuit if that's what it takes to free up his schedule to purse the reduction in abortions he has promised under an Obama presidency. Fumare, however, sees something else in Kmiec's future:

What will be Kmiec's reward from Obama's New Hope America? My guess: He will head up a new "pro-life" special commission in the Obama administration that will be charged with the task of "reducing abortions, by reducing unwanted pregnancies."

It will be the equivalent of the Faith Based Initiatives program - a program that made it seem like the Bush Administration was pro-Christian, but was intended to do nothing except keep the Evangelicals in the Bush camp. This new "Pro-Life" program will serve to do the same thing for the Obama Pro-Lifers: keep them in the Obama camp for 8 years.

Ross Douthat tries to give Kmiec the best possible read and comes up with this:

I suppose I could find a thing or three to agree with in Kmiec's longer list of ideas for how the party he abandoned could win back his vote. But frankly, I don't see the point. I understand that the pro-life position on abortion does not command majority support in the United States and that people of good will can disagree on the subject. And I have no doubt that the Republican Party can profit from greater dialogue between its pro-life and pro-choice constituents—and do a better job, as well, of addressing itself to both pro-lifers and pro-choicers who aren't already inside its tent. But I can't begin to fathom why the GOP should consider taking any advice whatsoever from a "pro-lifer" who has spent the past year serving as an increasingly embarrassing shill for the opposition party's objectively pro-abortion nominee.

"Increasingly" is the only charitably way I can describe Kmiec's latest, in which he marvels at the election of Obama in an America that used to deny that African-Americans were human persons with rights. The response is, of course, that we elected someone who thinks unborn humans don't have rights. But once again, reality seems to have little effect on Mr. Kmiec.

update: Good heavens. In response to Douthat's entirely reasonable observations, Kmiec responded with an embarrasing attempt to dodge the accusations by accusing Douthat of ... I dunno, "uncharity"?!

In response, Tucker Carlson really did have it, and really let Kmiec "have it":

Hey, Doug. Toughen up. Seriously. I've read suicide notes that were less passive-aggressive than this. Let's review what actually happened: You argued that Obama is not a pro-choice extremist. Ross disagreed. Rather than respond with a counterpoint, you got hysterical, dismissing Ross as a hater, even fretting about the future of his soul. Come on. Get some perspective. And for God's sake, stop whining.

... I understand it must have hurt when Ross accused you of shilling for Obama. On the other hand, he's right. You did shill for Obama. That's not Ross' fault. Don't blame him.

But if you are going to blame him, do it directly, like a man, without all the encounter-group talk and Pope quotes. People often attack the religious right, sometimes with justification. But as you just reminded us, there is nothing in the world more annoying than the religious left.

What Tucker doesn't point out, and I will, is that Kmiec also is guilty of substantive factual errors in his contribution ("54 percent of the Catholics in America saw exactly what I see in Barack Obama" ... sorry, 54% of those who voted may have seen this") as well as completely unintelligible lines like "[Obama's] party commitments have not let his mind free of ill-considered measures like FOCA" (what?!) and then, typically, Kmiec accuses others of what he has himself done: "It is better to be part of that honest effort than the passive, smug Republican partisan complacency that thinks of the defense of human life as just another issue to be ranked and, worse, ranked lowly" (but that's what you yourself have in fact done, Kmiec - clearly!).

I'd say more, but I have to go catch a plane. It's about time for a Kmiec-free few days.