Now that Carly Fiorina is waving the bloody video clip in lieu of actually taking a position on abortion, I’m tempted to go back 48 years to the time in 1967 when Ronald Reagan, governor’s of the nation’s largest state, signed the nation’s most permissive abortion law. Two years ago, Reagan biographer Lou Cannon, who covered Ronnie from the get-go, recalled what the National Review lugubriously calls “Ronald Reagan’s darkest hour.”
In his bio of Reagan’s days as governor of California, Cannon tartly faulted Reagan for claiming that he “didn’t understand” the abortion law when he signed it (when cornered, Reagan invariably claimed ignorance, figuring, rightly, it seems to me, that most people believed he was ignorant), but in his recent write-up for “Real Clear Politics,” Cannon seems anxious to make excuses for Ronnie, claiming that Reagan “was poorly served by his staff,” which apparently means that they failed to convince him to veto it. The bill was introduced by a Democratic state senator, and passed the California Senate by the bare minimum required. Reagan was under no compulsion to sign it at all. It is most likely that he signed it as a favor to the ultimate country club Republican, Nancy Reagan. And the Republicans have been lying about it ever since.
