After their fawning endorsement of their donor, Mitt Romney, we sent this note to the National Review Online editors (for whom we had emails):
You have a whole blog dedicated to judicial activism … yet your magazine just endorsed Mitt Romney, who is guilty of causing the worst incidence of judicial activism since Roe v Wade to be treated as “law”. Professor Hadley Arkes even wrote an important piece in NATIONAL REVIEW highly critical of Romney on the day the “homosexual marriages” began in Massachusetts (thanks to Romney’s orders): "The Missing Governor" by Hadley Arkes (May 17, 2004). Arkes asked: "Have Republican leaders lost their confidence on moral matters?"
Does no one remember that prominent conservatives pleaded with Romney in 2003-4 to uphold the Mass. Constitution, and defy the illegitimate Court ruling on homosexual "marriage"? Phyllis Schlafly, Pat Buchanan, Mat Staver (Liberty Counsel), and even HUGH HEWITT (Weekly Standard, 11-20-03) told Romney to stand up against judicial tyranny. But Romney ignored them and singlehandedly began homosexual "marriage" in Mass. (The Legislature still has not changed our statutes to allow it, as ordered by the Court...which didn't even tell Romney to do anything!)
Why did Romney issue orders to his executive branch officials to change the marriage licenses and perform the marriages? There was no new LAW to enforce! If we couldn't trust Romney with the Mass. Constitution, how can we trust him with the U.S. Constitution? See our report: http://massresistance.org/docs/marriage/romney/
Only one of the 19 editors contacted, Jim Geraghty of their "Campaign Spot" blog, has responded: "Mass e-mailing editors who had nothing to do with the endorsement just pisses them off."
We answered: "I would love to know how NR arrived at a decision to endorse, if the editors weren't involved? Seriously, what was the process? (P.S. I don't appreciate language like "p off" – lots of us regular people still don't talk like that.)"
He then said: "I think I don't appreciate mass e-mails berating me for a decision I had no role in about as much as you don't appreciate the term 'pisses them off.' " (He just had to repeat that.) And then he sent us to his earlier post:
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
MIKE HUCKABEE, MITT ROMNEY
Another Thought On The Endorsement [by Jim Geraghty, on NRO's Campaign Spot]
Last night Rich [Lowry, editor-in-chief] explained a bit about NR's endorsement process to Hugh Hewitt:
HH: Take me inside first the process by which National Review arrived at its endorsement.
RL: (laughing) I don’t know, Hugh. It’s a really tightly held process here. It’s like selecting the Pope. We can’t reveal too much, but…
HH: How many people got a say in this?
RL: Well, it’s our senior editors, our publisher, our president and our Washington editor and myself. And we’ve been talking about it the last two weeks or so, just because this is our, through the quirks of our publication schedule, this is our last issue before people vote in Iowa and New Hampshire.
[Geraghty continues:]
So complaining to anybody else at NR or NRO is not really going to do any good. In fact, complaining won't do any good, period. If the magazine endorsed somebody besides your guy, you say, "I disagree," you hope it does Romney as much good as it did Phil Gramm, and then life goes on....
In other words, no feedback, no discussion welcome. The court has ruled, and that's that. (And he even continues with silly putdowns of Ron Paul's and Mike Huckabee's campaigns.) But these people rarely answer the substance of the question. Maybe Geraghty could do a little research on this all-important fact in Romney's record as Governor, then get back to us with a little more thoughtful response. He is the editor of NR's Campaign blog, after all.
