Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

“It was as though in those last minutes he was summing up the lesson that this long course in human wickedness had taught us -- the lesson of the fearsome word-and-thought-defying banality of evil.” ― Hannah Arendt,  Eichmann in Jerusalem : A Report on the Banality of Evil The relationship between U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal and Connecticut’s left of center media during his twenty years and more as the state’s Attorney General has been a cordial one. There are reasons for this. A consumer protection Attorney General, Mr. Blumenthal found it easy to press all the right buttons, and journalistic experience he had acquired at Harvard – he was an active journalist for the Harvard Crimson – put him in good odor with newspaper editors. A sampling of Mr. Blumenthal’s news reporting is preserved even today in the news morgue of the Harvard Crimson.

The picture shows former State House Speaker Chris Donovan smiling broadly and sporting new hair on his face, a white trimmed beard and moustache. He is chatting with Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman, who is smiling and appears to be sharing a humorous confidence with Mr. Donovan. Could she be remarking on his spiffy new look? Or perhaps she is congratulating the recipient of NARAL’s (National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws) attentions at having escaped the prosecutorial noose that hanged his campaign finance director and other staff members who worked on Mr. Donovan’s failed U.S. House bid in Connecticut’s 5th District.

Andrew Roraback is a “fiscal conservative,” which is to say he is not a “social conservative,” which is to say he is pro-abortion but not sufficiently enthusiastic concerning abortion to merit the approval of NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut, a pro-abortion group that will admit no exceptions to abortion on demand. The very term “social conservative” is highly misleading. There are no congressional bills or judicial decisions that have no social ramifications. Everything politicians say and do and think is said and done and thought with a view towards enforcing or changing the society affected by human action. Even budgets – the last real budget was passed by the U.S. Congress in1997   before Barack Obama was elected president in November 2008 -- profoundly affect the social sphere. The science of economics, dismal though it may be, is a science of human action.