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Wladyslaw Pleszczynski and William McGurn

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Liberal Shibboleths and Sacred Cows

By Wladyslaw Pleszczynski
Posted Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2001, at 8:19 PM ET

Dear Bill,

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It'll take more than one night for all you've just said to sink in. But anyway, thank you for saying it.

When's the last time I saw a sympathetic pro-life character on TV? Last time I saw Ben Stein playing himself. In fact, he said something remarkable in the most serious setting imaginable--the NewsHour With Jim Lehrer--last Nov. 1. Paired opposite Rob Reiner, he was asked by Margaret Warner, "If George Bush is so great, why do you think the race is so close?" Ben replied:

Well, any Republican has to run against a Democrat and against the media. He has to run against liberal shibboleths and sacred cows like a woman's right to choose. With all due respect to my learned colleague, a woman's right to choose in reality means an abortionist's right to kill an innocent child. I think it's a sign of the greatness of Mr. Bush's character that he is able and willing to stand up to this liberal sacred cow and say if he is president, he's going to be solidly pro-life, he is going to take care of the most innocent and weakest among us, the unborn and the aged. That to me is a sign of great character, but he's taking on the liberal establishment by saying it.

Don't ask me why--maybe because John Irving is the most deserving of Tom Wolfe's "Three Stooges"--but I didn't exactly rush out to see Cider House Rules. Still, I'm all for remakes of the great liberal hits. Take Twelve Angry Men. When will the next Henry Fonda convince 11 deluded holdouts that the young man they think innocent is a very bad killer?

Until tomorrow,
Wlady