THE MOST IMPORTANT LIBERAL VICTORIES ARE THE ONES CONSERVATIVES NEVER SAW HAPPENING | 2003-08-16
Decades ago, conservatives never blamed liberals for being openly pro-criminal. The liberal media wanted to talk about gun control, so conservatives who became media spokesmen talked about two things: 1) gun control and 2) what nice people the liberals were.
But somebody did use the crime issue the right way. Someone did attack politicians for being pro-criminal. Guess who?
The left, of course.
Criminals never had a greater friend in public life than New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug. She fought as hard to get as many repeat felons back on the streets as any other liberal ever did.
One day in the early 1970s Bella Abzug and some other leftist women decided they would become The Women's Movement. So they held a press conference and declared they represented Women's Rights. One thing they denounced was all the rapes that were being committed by repeat rapists who were being putting back on the streets. They said, and I am not joking here, that repeat rapists were on the streets because men were to blame.
One day Bella Abzug was fighting to get every repeat felon back on the streets and the next day she was screaming about all these repeat rapists who were on the streets. So did conservatives make a laughing stock of that?
Of course not. Not a single conservative spokesman even mentioned it. Abzug was a leftist and she wanted to talk about an Equal Rights Amendment, so what conservatives, ALL the conservatives, talked about was the Equal Rights Amendment. Abzug's pro-criminal record never came up.
Early in the Viet-Nam War, Bella Abzug had gone down to Cuba to worship Castro. While she was there the Cubans showed films of American planes being shot down over North Viet Nam. Abzug and her fellow Patriotic Liberals cheered and clapped loudly.
National Review mentioned that Bella had worshipped Castro and cheered at the death of America pilots, but it stopped there. Every conservative spokesman will tell you that Bella may have made some honest mistakes, but she was a True Patriot, like all liberals.
Respectable conservatives gave the crime issue to the liberals from the word go. They surrendered the whole battle before the argument started.