Meet McCain's attorney general

Rudman Decries 'Repugnant' Agenda of 'Movement' Conservatives

. John McCain has indicated that, if he is elected President, he may name former Sen. Warren Rudman (R.N.H.) as his attorney general.

The pro-abortion Rudman, one of the most liberal Republicans to serve in the Senate (1980-92) in recent decades, is McCain's campaign chairman. As attorney general, Rudman would become the top advisor to President McCain for picking Supreme Court justices. When he was a senator in the 1980s, he took credit for persuading President George Bush to nominate fellow New Hampshireman David Souter to the court, and Souter quickly became the crucial fifth vote needed to maintain the court's pro-abortion majority.

Appearing. on CNN's "Evans, Novak, Hunt and Shields" on January 15, McCain was asked what he would do as President to keep six-year-old Cuban Elian Gonzalez in the United States. He converted the question into an opportunity to float Rudman as his attorney general nominee. Said McCain: "If I had an attorney general, I'm sure that that attorney general would-maybe even Warren Rudman-would find away."

After conservatives expressed horror and the National Right to Life Committee ran television ads blasting McCain for suggesting a liberal pro-abortion attorney generaL Rudman told Fox News he "probably" would not accept the appointment if McCain gave it to him. But he did not rule it out.

When it was reported during the South Carolina primary that Rudman had referred to Christian conservatives as "bigots," he not only refused to retract the charge, but he also reiterated it, sending to the Manchester Union Leader the appropriate pages from his now out-of-print book in which he had made the charge. Here, along with that passage, are other choice statements from Warren Rudman's Combat. Twelve Years in the U.S. Senate.

Christian Homophobes and Bigots

"Politically speaking, the Republican Party is making a terrible mistake if it appears to ally itself with the Christian right. There are some fine, sincere people in its ranks, but there are enough anti abortion zealots, would be censors, homophobes, bigots and latter-day Elmer Gantrys to discredit any party that is unwise enough to embrace such a

--Page 270

Jesse Helms and Backwoods Preachers

"Why had abortion, a common medical procedure that the Supreme Court had ruled legal 17 years earlier, come to dominate our politics?

"The answer lies in the rise of the evangelicals. There have always been backwoods preachers in America denouncing the wicked ways of city dwellers and the rich. But something had changed by the 1980s. One milestone may have been Nixon's skill in rallying his Silent Majority against opponents of the war in Vietnam. The war passed, but not before such figures as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Jesse Helms had seen the possibilities of using television to rally religious conservatives who felt threatened by a fastchanging society."

-Page 165

Colin Powell's Dissenters

"In early November of 1995, in a remarkable display of political obtuseness, a group of far-right leaders called reporters in and denounced [Colin] Powell and his possible candidacy. They included Paul Weyrich, head of the Free Congress Foundation; Gary Bauer, head of the Family Research Council; David Keene, president of the American Conservative Union; Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform; Chris Ardizzone, legislative director of Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum; and former Defense Department official Frank Gaffney. Ralph Reed, director of the Christian Coalition, sent a letter of support. Not only did these political pipsqueaks question Powell's views on such issues as abortion and gun control, but they challenged his character and military record. This from people who not only have never heard a shot fired in anger, but have never even dropped by a PX for an ice-cream cone. It was an amazing display not only of arrogance but of fear, because these people know that Cohn Powell embodies the very opposite of the ignorance and bigotry that they represent."

-Pages 272-3

Social Issues

"The New Right's so-called social issues-opposition to abortion, gay rights, flag-burning and funding for the arts, along with support for prayer in schools-- were increasingly on the Senate agenda in my first term. A reporter once asked me my views on this 'social agenda.' 'Do you have 15 seconds?' I asked. 'That's all it will take. I'm deeply committed to the right to choose, to the separation of church and state and to personal liberty. The conservative social agenda threatens them all."'

-Page 44

David Souter

"My guess was that he probably thought, as I did, that Roe had been wrongly decided, as a matter of constitutional law. The court had based the legality of abortion on a 'right of privacy' that many of us could not locate in the Constitution. Intellectually, that right of privacy was a very big leap. The court had, I thought, made the right decision for the wrong reason. I suspected that David shared this view, but that because of his belief in stare decisis (the Latin term for judicial respect for precedent) he would never vote to overturn the decision."