Over at Real Clear Politics, Tom Coburn responds to Michael Gerson’s “contemptuous and factually loose” Washington Post column that smears the “Coburn seven” for not caring about AIDS victims enough:
In a review of Gerson’s book, Matthew Continetti thoroughly diagnosed the problem with Gersonism:
What makes Gerson’s attacks all the more infuriating is that he has a double standard for fiscal conservatives and social liberals. See, for example, this Gerson column criticizing Obama’s position on abortion. Gerson cites Obama’s support for partial-birth abortion and opposition to a bill that would protect “born-alive” infants who survive attempted abortions. He calls Obama’s position “extreme” but never attacks Obama’s motivations. In fact, Obama can redeem himself by spending taxpayer money on programs to support adoption, contraception, etc. (Never mind that Obama favors taxpayer funding of abortion, which would increase the abortion rate far beyond what these programs could do to lower it.) Like the bizarre allegation of “libertarian indifference to the poor,” Gerson accuses Coburn of being “indifferent to human suffering.” Surely he isn’t, and it doesn’t strengthen public debate to suggest as much.
