https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/b...resting-times/
Thereis an old Chinese curse the English translation of which is “May you live ininteresting times.” The implication ofthe curse, of course, is that it is better to live in seemingly dull andtranquil times, times in which little occurs that would threaten to upset thepeaceful daily rhythm of the accursed’s life. Let us set aside for now the coincidence that it is a Chinese proverbthat so aptly describes the state of our union in 2019; the not-so-drowsydragon in the east that American trade policy has awakened is shaking off hiscommunist slumber yet. Let us insteadexamine the latest example of the interesting times in which we Americans andothers on these shores live, namely, l’affaireNortham, which unfolded last week.Virginia Governor Ralph Northam began the week fending off charges that he supports legalized infanticide. In a radio interview that also was captured on camera, Governor Northam, a pediatric neurologist in his former life, appeared to defend the ancient Carthaginian practice while attempting to explain away testimony by Virginia Delegate Kathy Tran (D-Fairfax County) in support of her proposed bill that would allow abortion up to the moment of birth in some instances: “So in this particular example, if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mothers.”Facingmuch justified criticism from the political Right and other sentient humanbeings, the medical doctor-cum-governor elaborated further in the days thatfollowed. In response to the questionwhether he regretted either the substance or the form of his explanation ofMrs. Tran’s testimony regarding the proposed bill, the man charged by themodern form of the Hippocratic Oath not to “play at God” doubled down: “No Idon’t. I’m a physician. I’m also the governor. But when I’m asked questions a lot of thetimes it is put in the context of being a physician, again realizing how weapproach, how we manage patients, how we offer advice and counseling, so no Idon’t have any regrets.” Doctor-GovernorDeath went on to say that he regrets only “that those comments have beenmischaracterized.”Ishall leave it to the discerning reader to judge whether his comments were, infact, “mischaracterized.” For our purposes here it will suffice only toobserve that not a single Democrat politician of note challenged GovernorNortham’s explanation of Mrs. Tran’s proposed bill, while no one, Republican orDemocrat, called for his resignation.Unfortunatelyfor the beleaguered governor, his interesting week was not finished. On Friday, photos from Governor Northam’smedical school yearbook in 1984 surfaced appearing to show the future governoreither in blackface or wearing the notorious garb of the Ku Klux Klan. The backlash from the political Right wasswift and overwhelming, and calls for his immediate resignation resounded. Some of these calls came from variousnotables in his own party. 2020presidential hopeful Senator Kamala Harris (D-California) tweeted “Leaders arecalled to a higher standard, and the stain of racism should have no place inthe halls of government. The Governor ofVirginia should step aside so the public can heal and move forward together.” Another would-be president, Senator ElizabethWarren (D-Massachusetts), tweeted “These racist images are deeplydisturbing. Hatred and discriminationhave no place in our country and must not be tolerated, especially from ourleaders — Republican or Democrat. Northam must resign.” Julian Castro, former Housing and UrbanDevelopment Secretary under President Obama who is considering a run at thepresidency, tweeted “It doesn’t matter if he is a Republican or a Democrat.This behavior was racist and unconscionable. Governor Northam should resign.” Other politicos and members of the chattering classes, Left and Right,piled on.Whatis most indicative of these interesting times in which we live are theresponses these two incidents called forth. In the first, involving Governor Northam’s defense of legalizedinfanticide, only politicians and pundits on the Right offered resistance tosuch a ghoulish practice – which resistance, it must be noted, did not includecalls for the governor’s resignation. Inthe second, involving a yearbook photograph from thirty-five years agodepicting the governor wearing either blackface or a Klan outfit at a party ofsome kind, politicians and pundits on the Right and Left immediately joinedhands in denouncing the governor and calling for his resignation. Many on the Right commented, correctly, onthe rank hypocrisy of a man who would don such offensive costumes repeatedlydenouncing his political opponent as a “racist”, as Governor Northamshamelessly did in Virginia’s gubernatorial campaign just last fall. Coming,however, as l’affaire Northam does,on the heels of a year involving outrageous trumped-up charges of sexualmisconduct against now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh – charges which were based, inpart, upon divining the meaning of commentary found in Justice Kavanaugh’s highschool yearbook – it is clear where our ruling class’s priorities lie. In 2019 America, legalized infanticide simplydoes not move the needle, as it were, among our ruling elite in both parties nearlyas much as what forms of crimethink they might discover in decades oldyearbooks. And that fact is, to say theleast, interesting.