Quarterback Jack

Jack Kemp, a longtime pro-life advocate, Vice-Presidential hopeful, and member of the Reagan Revolution, passed away over the weekend.

Kemp was originally known as a NFL football player and parlayed his success there into a career as a New York congressman. In Washington, Kemp maintain a consistent pro-life record and served a term as housing secretary for President George H.W. Bush.

Kemp became a hero for both pro-life and economic conservatives and a large segment of the pro-life movement hoped he would become the Republican presidential standard-bearer. Eventually, he made it onto the national ticket as Bob Dole's running-mate against pro-abortion President Bill Clinton in 1992. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called Kemp "one of the nation's most distinguished public servants. Jack was a powerful voice in American politics for more than four decades." Kemp's name remains on the Kemp-Kasten amendment, an anti-coercion population control provision that prohibits funding of any groups that engage in or support forced abortion programs.

Here is the latest on Kemp's passing from "National Review":


A Democrat tells the story. Some time in the 1980s, there was a big GOP bash in D.C. The Democrat (a neighbor) watched the glittering elephants arrive, one of them being Jack Kemp, who, alone among the guests, stopped to chat up the cops on duty outside before going in. He did it with the manly bonhomie of an ex-jock and the ease of a born politician. Oh, no, thought the Democrat gloomily, another Republican with the common touch.

The other Republican the Kemp-watcher had in mind was Ronald Reagan, and the two men’s careers were intertwined. As a young congressman from the suburbs of Buffalo, Kemp was instrumental in converting Reagan to supply-side economics in the late 1970s. He backed Reagan in the 1980 election and backed his program to the hilt in the House — more strongly, sometimes, than Reagan himself. Many conservatives (including the editors of this magazine) saw him as Reagan’s heir.

Kemp was an autodidact. He focused on sports in his early life, becoming quarterback of the Buffalo Bills in the old AFL. Yet he nourished a nascent interest in politics by reading, reading, reading — WFB, Ayn Rand, economics, history. He honored ideas with the fervor of a young lover. His second passion, equal to his devotion to tax cuts, was his concern for black advancement. This was part conviction, part experience: As his friend Newt Gingrich liked to say, Jack had showered with people that most Republicans never meet. Kemp believed that the party of Lincoln had to regain its role as the champion of black America. The welfare state had not completed the civil-rights revolution; free-enterprise programs targeted at the inner city (such as enterprise zones) would do the trick instead.

Kemp never completed the touchdown drive of his career. When he sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, he was squeezed between Vice President George H.W. Bush and the Rev. Pat Robertson. Bush tapped Kemp to be his secretary of housing and urban development, where he served loyally even after Bush abandoned the tax-cutting gospel. When Bob Dole tapped Kemp to be his running mate in 1996, it came as a shock — Kemp already seemed emeritus — and indeed his campaign did the ticket no good and him little credit.

He had his flaws: a vein of pep-talk oratory that bled and bled; a tendency to pat himself on the back for his racial views (the wages of virtue can be as corrupting as the wages of sin); an indifference to the effects of 25 (and 35, and soon 45) years of unrestricted immigration, legal and illegal. But he was a bright and earnest man, and a great friend of NR — and did anyone else ever have his enthusiasm? Churchill said that being with FDR was like having a glass of champagne. Being with Jack Kemp was like chugging a can of Red Bull. How could someone so alive be gone? And yet it is so. R.I.P.


Kemp also wrote a letter to his 17 grandchildren following the election of Barack Obama:

A Letter to my Grandchildren
November 12, 2008

Dear Kemp grandchildren -- all 17 of you, spread out from the East Coast to the West Coast, and from Wheaton College in Illinois, to Wake Forest University in North Carolina:

My first thought last week upon learning that a 47-year-old African-American Democrat had won the presidency was, "Is this a great country or not?"

You may have expected your grandfather to be disappointed that his friend John McCain lost (and I was), but there's a difference between disappointment over a lost election and the historical perspective of a monumental event in the life of our nation.

Let me explain. First of all, the election was free, fair and transformational, in terms of our democracy and given the history of race relations in our nation.

What do I mean?

Just think, a little over 40 years ago, blacks in America had trouble even voting in our country, much less thinking about running for the highest office in the land.

A little over 40 years ago, in some parts of America, blacks couldn't eat, sleep or even get a drink of water using facilities available to everyone else in the public sphere.

We are celebrating, this year, the 40th anniversary of our Fair Housing Laws, which helped put an end to the blatant racism and prejudice against blacks in rental housing and homeownership opportunities.

As an old professional football quarterback, in my days there were no black coaches, no black quarterbacks, and certainly no blacks in the front offices of football and other professional sports. For the record, there were great black quarterbacks and coaches -- they just weren't given the opportunity to showcase their talent. And pro-football (and America) was the worse off for it.

I remember quarterbacking the old San Diego Chargers and playing for the AFL championship in Houston. My father sat on the 50-yard line, while my co-captain's father, who happened to be black, had to sit in a small, roped-off section of the end zone. Today, we can't imagine the NFL without the amazing contributions of blacks at every level of this great enterprise.

I could go on and on, but just imagine that in the face of all these indignities and deprivations, Dr. Martin Luther King could say 44 years ago, "I have an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in mankind." He described his vision for America, even as he and his people were being denied their God-given human rights guaranteed under our Constitution.

You see, real leadership is not just seeing the realities of what we are temporarily faced with, but seeing the possibilities and potential that can be realized by lifting up peoples' vision of what they can be.

When President-elect Obama quoted Abraham Lincoln on the night of his election, he was acknowledging the transcendent qualities of vision and leadership that are always present, but often overlooked and neglected by pettiness, partisanship and petulance. As president, I believe Barack Obama can help lift us out of a narrow view of America into the ultimate vision of an America where, if you're born to be a mezzo-soprano or a master carpenter, nothing stands in your way of realizing your God-given potential.

Both Obama in his Chicago speech, and McCain in his marvelous concession speech, rose to this historic occasion by celebrating the things that unite us irrespective of our political party, our race or our socio-economic background.

My advice for you all is to understand that unity for our nation doesn't require uniformity or unanimity; it does require putting the good of our people ahead of what's good for mere political or personal advantage.

The party of Lincoln, (i.e., the GOP), needs to rethink and revisit its historic roots as a party of emancipation, liberation, civil rights and equality of opportunity for all. On the other hand, the party of Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy and now Obama must put forth an agenda that understands that getting American growing again will require both Keynesian and classical incentive-oriented (supply-side) economic ideas. But there's time for political and economic advice in a later column (or two).

Let me end with an equally great historical irony of this election. Next year, as Obama is sworn in as our 44th president, we will celebrate the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. I'm serving, along with former Rep. Bill Gray of Pennsylvania, on the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Board to help raise funds for this historic occasion. President-elect Obama's honoring of Lincoln in many of his speeches reminds us of how vital it is to elevate these ideas and ideals to our nation's consciousness and inculcate his principles at a time of such great challenges and even greater opportunities.

In fact, we kick off the Lincoln bicentennial celebration on Wednesday, Nov. 19, in Gettysburg, Pa. The great filmmaker Ken Burns will speak at the Soldier's National Cemetery on the 145th anniversary of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. On Thursday, Nov. 20, at Gettysburg College, we will have the first of 10 town hall forums, titled "Race, Freedom and Equality of Opportunity." I have the high honor of joining Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., Professor Allen Guezlo and Norman Bristol-Colon on the panel, with Professor Charles Branham as the moderator.

President-elect Obama talks of Abraham Lincoln's view of our nation as an "unfinished work." Well, isn't that equally true of all of us? Therefore let all of us strive to help him be a successful president, so as to help make America an even greater nation.

Marriage and Civilization

From the latest edition of "National Review":

One of the great coups of the movement for same-sex marriage has been to plant the premise that it represents the inevitable future. This sense has inhibited even some who accept that marriage is by nature the union of a man and a woman. They fear that throwing themselves into the cause of opposing it is futile — worse, that it will call down the judgment of history that they were bigots.

Yet a majority of Americans continue to oppose same-sex marriage. Support for it has certainly increased over the last 15 years, but the assumption that we can predict the future in which same-sex marriage is uncontroversial by drawing a straight line from this trend is unwarranted. Even among young voters, a majority of whom support same-sex marriage, that majority is hardly overwhelming.

Our guess is that if the federal judiciary does not intervene to impose same-sex marriage on the entire country, we are not going to see it triumph from coast to coast. Rather, we will for some time have a patchwork of laws. The division will not be so much between socially liberal and socially conservative states as between those states where voters can amend their state constitutions easily and those where they cannot. Thus same-sex marriage is likely to stay the law of the land in Massachusetts, Iowa, Vermont, and Connecticut, and perhaps also in New Hampshire.

In two of those states, at least, democratic procedure is now being respected. Vermont has chosen to recognize same-sex marriages legislatively, and New Hampshire may do so. While free from the taint of lawlessness, these decisions seem to us unwise. Few social goods will come from recognizing same-sex couples as married. Some practical benefits may accrue to the couples, but most of them could easily be realized without changing marriage laws. One still sometimes hears people make the allegedly “conservative” case that same-sex marriage will reduce promiscuity and encourage commitment among homosexuals. This prospect seems improbable: Where governments have recognized same-sex marriages and civil unions, this recognition does not appear to have had any noticeable effect in this respect. In any case, the encouragement of commitment among homosexuals is simply not as important a goal as the encouragement of lasting heterosexual bonds.

Which brings us to the question of equality. Same-sex couples want their unions recognized by governments in large part as a symbolic affirmation of their equivalence, at least for public purposes, with traditional married couples. As individuals, of course, homosexuals are the equal of any other citizens in their rights to vote, own guns, speak freely, and so forth. But making them (or anyone else) feel valued is not a legitimate task of public policy; and their sexual relationships do not further the purposes for which governments should recognize marriage.

Both as a social institution and as a public policy, marriage exists to foster connections between heterosexual sex and the rearing of children within stable households. It is a non-coercive way to channel sexual desire into civilized patterns of living — and not just any sexual desire, but desire of the type that regularly produces children. State recognition of the marital relationship does not imply devaluation of any other type of relationship, whether friendship or brotherhood or even same-sex romantic attachments. Governments can rightly take all kinds of steps that enable people to form, and prosper in, any of these relationships. They can make it possible for them to go about their lives in peace, and make it easier for them to establish the contractual arrangements that help with running a household. In none of those cases, however, is it necessary for the government to recognize the friendship or sexual relationship as such.

State recognition of same-sex sexual relationships singles out one kind of non-marital relationship and treats it as though it were marital, and it does this for no good reason. No, we do not expect marriage rates to plummet and illegitimacy rates to skyrocket in these jurisdictions over the next decade. But to the extent same-sex marriage is normalized here, it will be harder for American culture and law to connect marriage and parenthood. That it has already gotten harder over the last few decades is no answer to this concern. In foisting same-sex marriage on Iowa, the state’s supreme court opined in a footnote that the idea that it is best for children to have mothers and fathers married to each other is based merely on “stereotype.”

If worse comes to worst, and the federal courts sweep aside the marriage laws that most Americans still want, then decades from now traditionalists should be ready to brandish that footnote and explain to generations yet unborn: That is why we resisted.

Good Riddance Senator Spector!

The following is an email sent by my friend Andy L. to Senator Spector following his announcement that he is finally moving to the party he has always voted for...

Senator Specter,

Your decision to jump ship has now publicly and nationally shown you forwhat Conservative Pennsylvanians always knew you to be - an opportunistic, unprincipled politician who lacks the courage to face the tough fight. You knew that you could not stand and face Congressman Pat Toomey on the issues during a primary so you chose to duck and run. Thank you for finally coming out of the closet and becoming transparent to the electorate.

You lost my vote years ago so I guess you haven't lost anything new.

Andy L.

Brandon Snyder Turns Corner for the Orioles

Nice piece of Centreville's own Brandon Snyder, who was a first-round pick in 2005 out of Westfield High. The article written by Zachary Ball of Bleacher Report:

Flashback to June 7, 2005, the First-Year Player Draft.

The Baltimore Orioles have the 13th pick in the draft. Future Major League stars Justin Upton, Alex Gordon, Ryan Zimmermann, Ryan Braun, Troy Tulowitzki, and Cameron Maybin have all been taken in the previous 12 picks.

The best remaining player on the board is debatable. Outfielder Trevor Crowe is still available. As is John Mayberry Jr. from Stanford. Speedy outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury is still on the board, as well as hard throwing right hander Matt Garza.

Most mock drafts have the Orioles taking a look at 6'7'' Chris Volstad. So many options. Who do they take?

Volstad was considered one of the top rated pitching prospects in the draft. He featured a mid to upper 90's fastball with a decent changeup and a hard breaking curve.

The wild card on the board, however, is a little known catcher from Westfield High School Virginia named Brandon Snyder. He's an athlete who played a little bit of shortstop early on, but switched to behind the plate where he showed a knack for the defensive side of the game.

On offense, he was a force. In his senior year at Wesfield, he maintained a .500 average while knocking in 29 runs. He received a full scholarship to LSU, but when the Orioles drafted him with the 13th pick, Snyder turned down LSU's offer to play pro ball.

Flash forward to April 22, 2009. Chris Volstad is 2-0 in three starts for the Florida Marlins. Matt Garza is fresh off an 11-win season in which he helped lead the Tampa Bay Rays to the World Series. Ellsbury is coming off a 50-steal season with the Red Sox.

And Brandon Snyder? Well, if you ask him, he's right where he should be. More importantly, he's where he wants to be.

After signing his first professional contract back in '05, Snyder was assigned to Bluefield, hardly a glorious stop for a player making a few million dollars more than his teammates, but a good place to start for an 18-year-old straight out of high school.

In addition to catching, Snyder spent at least one day a week testing out his range at third base. Whichever position he played, it surely didn't affect his hitting. In 44 games, he notched 39 hits, eight doubles, and eight homers, while driving in 35 runs, scoring 26 himself.

Throw in seven stolen bases and Snyder appeared to be on track to a promotion, which he got toward the end of the season.

Snyder appeared in eight games for Aberdeen, the Orioles new short-season affiliate. He was even better there, knocking 11 hits in eight games with six RBI and a .393 average.

More impressive was Snyder's knack for the strike zone. At two levels, his walk-to-strikeout ratio was a very good 30:43, more than impressive for a player months removed from high school.

The year 2006 began with much promise, with Snyder set to advance a level to Delmarva—quite an honor for such a young player.

It looks like the promotion may have come a little too soon though, as Snyder struggled to keep his average above the Mendoza line.

After suffering through 38 games in which he hit a whopping .194, showing none of the plate discipline he showed at Bluefield or Aberdeen, Snyder struck out 55 times with only 9 walks.

Something was wrong. Snyder wasn't hitting the ball with any authority and was chasing pitches way out of the zone.

The Orioles, thinking they may have rushed Snyder a bit, sent him back to Aberdeen to see if the problem was mental and allowed him to regain some confidence in his game.

Whatever the O's hoped for, they didn't get.

Snyder was even worse for the Ironbirds than he was in Delmarva. In 34 games, he hit only .228 with only 10 extra base hits, only one home run, five walks, and 43 strikeouts.

Discouraged, the Orioles sent Snyder for a check up. After much debate over what injury Snyder was suffering from, or if he was even suffering from anything at all, a diagnosis came down: Snyder had a torn labrum.

Disappointed, the O's shut Snyder down for the season.

The following season brought new hope for Snyder. In 2007, he would repeat the season at Delmarva, and the O's were hoping they would see the Snyder of old.

To take some of the pressure off of him as well as to ease the pressure on his arm, the O's moved him from behind the plate as stuck him at first base.

Snyder started the season off slowly, and many in the Orioles circle were beginning to use the "B" word, as in bust. But as the season wore on, Snyder began to heat up.

After the All-Star break, he was unstoppable.

He did suffer a few nicks and scrapes over the course of the season, but all in all, he made it through the 2007 campaign relatively healthy. He finished the season with a .283 average and knocked 11 home runs, driving in 58.

He still showed a propensity to strike out a lot more than he walked, but as the season reached it's end, he showed real progress in terms of plate discipline.

The Orioles were so thrilled with Snyder's progress that they named him their 2007 Comeback Player of the Year. Hardly the award the youngster was hoping for, but a recognition of his perseverance and hard work nonetheless.

The Orioles also rewarded Snyder with a trip to the Hawaiian Winter League, where he raked at a .378 clip, leading the league.

Building on the confidence he gained late in the season and in Hawaii, Snyder was bumped up a level to Frederick. Showing a renewed commitment and clearly enjoying playing well for the first time since 2005, Snyder had a stellar season in 2008.

He suffered through an occasional slump but, for the most part, he played very consistently. He finished the season with a .315 average and set career highs with 13 home runs, 80 RBI, 33 doubles, and 70 runs.

He also made progress in the strikeout department, cutting down from 107 to 83. In addition, he played good defense at first base, and even got some playing time at the hot corner.

Snyder showed how far he had come when the Orioles invited him to spring training. It was more of a formality to reward him for his hard work, but Snyder took the honor seriously, notching three hits in seven at-bats.

After some time at the O's minor league camp, Snyder broke camp with the O's Double-A affiliate, Bowie. The season isn't yet a month old, but Snyder has played incredibly well so far, pacing the club with a .370 average, two home runs, and eight RBI.

He makes no bones about it, that the time he spent in big league camp was invaluable telling MASNsports.com, "going to Major League camp was one of the greatest things I've ever gotten to do. You learn what it's like to carry yourself as that type of player and have, almost a little bit of swagger in that you know your ability and can trust it."

The journey hasn't been exactly what the O's or Snyder had hoped for, but one thing is sure: Brandon Snyder has got that swagger back, and he is definitely back in the Orioles' long term plans.

Hopefully, he can stay there, and make Westfield High proud.

NYT Watch: Jimmy Carter editorializes on assault weapons

Great post yesterday by Sean O'Donnell at The Examiner.com:

In today’s New York Times, former President Jimmy Carter wrote an op-ed piece calling for Congress to reenact the assault weapons ban. Sadly, his editorial supports many of the erroneous opinions and misconceptions held by many Americans concerning assault weapons.

What exactly is the definition of an “assault weapon?”

The assault weapon definition in the proposed Assault Weapons Ban and Law Enforcement Protection Act of 2007 (H.R. 1002) could be stretched to include any firearm. The bill labeled the AR-15 rifle as an assault weapon. The AR-15 shoots the same ammunition as some “civilian rifles,” for instance the Remington Model 700 and Winchester Model 70.

Many Americans incorrectly believe that civilians are able to own fully automatic weapons (machine guns) where once the trigger is pulled, rounds are expelled at a fast rate. An AR-15, for example, is the semi automatic civilian version of the U.S. military's M16 rifle. The M16 has a three round burst option but the AR15 can only shoot one round at a time.

The most ridiculous argument for the assault weapons ban is that it will make obtaining weapons harder for drug dealers and gangs. Anyone who honestly believes that gang members and coke dealers will follow the law has no common sense or intelligence. An assault weapon ban only punishes law abiding gun owners who respect the law.

In the NYT editorial, Carter warps several statistics to get his point across. He cites the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in stating that “more than 30,000 people died from firearms” in 2006, which is correct. What he doesn’t say is how many of those deaths were caused by assault weapons or how many of those deaths were suicide. In 2005, there were 30,694 deaths caused by firearms with almost 60% of those deaths from suicide.

Automobile accidents kill more people than firearms; should sports cars then be outlawed? After all, on most U.S. highways the speed limit is 65 miles per hour and sports cars are designed to go much faster than 65 mph. Similarly, drunk driving accidents kill more people than firearm homicides; should alcohol be outlawed as well?

Carter writes that former Presidents Reagan, H.W. Bush, and Clinton also supported a ban on assault weapons. If the assault weapon ban was so successful, then why was the 2005 firearms related death rate for youths lower than it was during any of those Presidents’ terms? After all, George W. Bush, President in 2005, opposed the assault weapons ban.

Carter equates anyone who wishes to own an assault weapon to those who kill policemen or commit massacres at schools:

[N]one of us wants to own an assault weapon, because we have no desire to kill policemen or go to a school or workplace to see how many victims we can accumulate before we are finally shot or take our owns lives.

With all due respect Mr. President, the overwhelming majority of gun owners with assault weapons use them for hunting and self-defense of their homes and families, not for murder.

Carter calls the National Rifle Association’s policies – “extreme.” I supposed supporting and defending the Constitution and 2nd Amendment makes them an extremist organization according to him. He also states that the NRA defends “criminals’ access to assault weapons,” which is incorrect. Criminals won’t be affected by any gun law period, that’s why they’re criminals.

Former President Carter did not have his facts straight in today’s editorial just as he didn’t possess competent leadership during his presidency. The assault weapons ban is simply an attack on the 2nd Amendment in an effort to slowly chop it away. It is only when we realize this that we learn from the plight of gun owners in Canada and the United Kingdom.