Much Ado About Nothing

My able editorial confrere Christopher Blosser aptly characterizes the National Catholic Distorter's "revelation" that Karl Keating, the man behind Catholic Answers' Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics did not vote for President Bush as "Joe Feuerherd's Hollow Victory."

The resulting brouhaha is simply more of the same much ado about nothing.

The only revelation that would have been an genuine news scoop, after all, would have been if Mr. Keating had somehow voted for CINO Kerry.

As I affirmed repeatedly before the 2004 election and reaffirm today, Catholic voters, as other pro-life and pro-family voters, had three morally licit choices when it came to voting for the top office:

• Voting to reelect President Bush.
• Voting for a candidate with a better stand on the nonnegotiable issues.
• Not voting for that office.
  

While I heartily concur with Karl that his selection among those options is a private matter, in presidential elections to date, I have exercised each of these options—though not in the same election.

At the same time, I do not believe that simply casting a vote for the reelection of President Bush, reluctantly or not, under the circumstances Chris outlines below renders ones moral convictions suspect as a mere exercise in partisan politics. That is the big lie parroted by the secular humanists who march under the Red banner of separation of church and state.

Besides, while as a voter whose sole political allegiance is to the Catholic counter-revolution, I stand for "Principle Before Party," when I cast my ballot on that precise basis for those offices for which I do vote, the candidates all seem to come with party affiliations. It seems to be the nature of the beast.