Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 23, 1995 TAG: 9510240018
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family, denounced Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition, and former Secretary of Education William Bennett for suggesting that they might back Powell. Dobson, in a five-page letter, warned that both were in danger of selling out Christian conservatives who played a crucial role in Republican victories.
The dispute revealed not only how a Powell candidacy might split the conservative wing of the GOP, but also the increasingly heated battle over strategies to fight abortion.
In the Oct. 9 letter - addressed to Reed with copies to Bennett and four other conservatives - Dobson voiced deep concern that Powell favors abortion rights and said that he was disturbed by a joint television appearance by Reed and Bennett:
``Most distressing was the fact that you sat passively while Bill Bennett spoke of rewriting the pro-life plank in the Republican platform. You uttered not a peep of protest. ... We've come to expect our politicians to jettison their principles and compromise their ethics when the chips are down, but I was extremely disappointed to see you go along with it. ...
``Is power the motivator of the great crusade? If so, it will sour and turn to bile in your mouth. The Lord has called us to defend the voiceless unborn child. ...
Dobson warned that he and Gary Bauer, president of the Family Research Council, ``have discussed your recent statements and considered the need to distance ourselves from you and the Christian Coalition. ... Some of the politicians with whom you have made common cause (which now sadly appears to include my friend Bill Bennett) would seal the fate of these infants [threatened by abortion] and sacrifice millions more in years to come.''
On Oct. 12, Bennett wrote Dobson: ``I am just astonished at how quickly you turned your animus against me. We have tactical differences on how to deal with the issue of abortion. But you insist on turning this into a fundamental disagreement and imply that I have sold out. Because of my good words for Colin Powell (which did not include an endorsement), you are ready to run me out of the `movement.'
``As you know, I have been in a lot of battles over the years, for causes we both care deeply about. ... There is a right way and a wrong way to register [your] disagreement - forcefully but respectfully and most important of all, directly, not by carbon copy."
Bennett, who has been similarly criticized by Paul Weyrich, head of the Free Congress Foundation, wrote both men that continued insistence on keeping a call for a human life constitutional amendment in the Republican platform ``will do nothing to unseal that fate'' of the 1.5 million fetuses aborted annually.
Bennett said that ``if Colin Powell used the bully pulpit to talk about, say, teen abstinence, adoption, crisis pregnancy centers, individual responsibility and the importance of a civilization's moral code ... he could do more to lower the number of abortions than a presidential candidate who claims to be pro-life, who supports a constitutional amendment to ban abortions, but who does nothing more than pay lip service to the pro-life constituency.''
by CNB