Admitting when you are right

In the political world beyond the health care debate, there is a minor kerfuffle in the Virginia governors race. The Republican candidate, Bob McDonnell, is being attacked based on a thesis he wrote 20 years ago when a law student at Regent University, known for its connection to founder Pat Robertson. This thesis is just chock full of juicy tidbit being used by the Democrat candidate governor, Creigh Deeds, to paint McDonnell as a frothing at the mouth right winger who wants men to club their wives and drag them back to the cave.

What are these horrific positions that Bob McDonnell holds?

He argued for covenant marriage, a legally distinct type of marriage intended to make it more difficult to obtain a divorce. He advocated character education programs in public schools to teach "traditional Judeo-Christian values" and other principles that he thought many youths were not learning in their homes. He called for less government encroachment on parental authority, for example, redefining child abuse to "exclude parental spanking." He lamented the "purging of religious influence" from public schools. And he criticized federal tax credits for child care expenditures because they encouraged women to enter the workforce.

"Further expenditures would be used to subsidize a dynamic new trend of working women and feminists that is ultimately detrimental to the family by entrenching status-quo of nonparental primary nurture of children," he wrote.

He went on to say feminism is among the "real enemies of the traditional family."

Horror! Traditional families are good! Less government intrusion is good! How backwards, what a Neanderthal!

Actually, I read that and said: right on!

I wish Bob McDonnell would come out and say what he should say: that many of those positions were right when he wrote them and they are right now. The tax system which incentives women to abandon their kids into day care has been a negative for America, culturally and economically. Divorce is too easy in America and maybe it would be good if couples were encouraged to stay together. Not much of what Bob McDonnell wrote is offensive to me and was the majority report in America until recently. Instead of standing up and defending what he clearly believed, he is running as fast as he can. I am no sure which is more troubling, that he refuses to stand up for what he believes or that he is willing to say what he thinks he needed to in college and willing to say something different to advance his own political agenda.

Ever since the Robert Bork hearings, the real political legacy of Ted Kennedy, politicians of all stripes are hiding from taking real stands. I wish we could have a real conversation about this stuff. We live in a world where no one is allowed to have a strongly held opinion and we are left with soundbytes and gotcha politics. Political discourse has suffered for it and as a country we are worse off fot not having real conversations about real issues.