Jane Chastain : Politically Direct

Fred Thompson tripped over the abortion issue in his debut as a presidential candidate on “Meet the Press.”

Host Tim Russert read Thompson the Pro Life Plank from the 2004 Republican Party Platform, which has remained unchanged since the days of Ronald Reagan:

We say the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution. We endorse legislation to make it clear that the Fourteenth amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. Our purpose is to have legislative and judicial protection of that right against those who perform abortions.

Russert then asked Thompson,

Could you run as a candidate on that platform, promising a human life amendment banning all abortions?

Read the rest of this entry »

Fire! It’s one of the most dreaded words in drought-stricken, wind-prone California.Eleven days ago, this word echoed through the small Bible study that had gathered at my home. That Sunday morning, the Santa Ana winds had arrived, as predicted. As night fell, the force of these winds was unusually strong and black smoke rose from a nearby hill.

Phone calls were placed to neighbors whose homes were located high enough to pinpoint the location of the unwelcome intruder.

In the days that followed, more than 500,000 acres would burn – an area more than twice the size of New York City. Three hundred thousand people would flee their homes with little more than the clothes on their backs. Some 3,000 structures would burn to the ground. Seven people would die, and several hundred would be injured. Lives would be abruptly altered, many changed forever. Read the rest of this entry »

What could be wrong with a treaty governing the oceans championed by President George W. Bush, the secretary of the Navy and the overwhelming majority of the members of both political parties who make up the Senate Foreign Relations Committee?Everything!

Just as the president was leading us down the wrong path on immigration, he is leading us down the wrong path by asking the Senate to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (better known as the Law of the Sea Treaty, or LOST).

LOST was signed by his predecessor, Bill Clinton, but despised by Ronald Reagan. That, alone, should tell you something! Read the rest of this entry »

I awoke in a cold sweat to the familiar surroundings of my bedroom. The chain that had restrained me was a sheet wound tightly around my body. It was a bad dream.I had seen an imposing figure in a long blue robe rise from the ocean, bearing a striking resemblance to Karl Marx. Neptune, the sea god, looked down on the subjects who were pleading with him to release our country from his grasp.

Among those poor souls groveling at his feet were George Bush, Harry Reid and Richard Lugar – the very men who gave Neptune the power to control us. Now, they were on the receiving end of the prongs of his trident bearing the U.N. logo.

It was morning and I realized this dream was about to become real. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever wondered why some of the most permissive countries in Europe like Holland, Denmark and France have such low teen pregnancy and abortion rates?In April, I wrote a column that provoked this e-mail:

Does abstinence education really work so well? I wondered because Holland, which does not promote abstinence education, and instead teaches fully and frankly about contraception, has only 12 teenage pregnancies per 1,000 pregnancies, while the U.S. has more than 80 per 1000. … I would be pleased if you could offer me some instances where abstinence has lowered teen pregnancy rates.

These are good questions and they deserve honest answers. However, the research was much harder than I expected because of the bias that exists in the media for abortion and the anything-goes-as-long-as-it-goes-with-a-condom (”safe sex” or “comprehensive”) brand of sex education that is so common in our schools. Read the rest of this entry »