22 conservative leaders challenge National Review to come clean on Romney

LETTER by 22 Conservative Activists to National Review

WorldNetDaily article on Letter and NR's response (7/12/07)

National Review Online acknowledging $10,000 in donations from Romney camp

WALTHAM, MA (July 12, 2007) -- Twenty-two conservative activist leaders have publicly released a letter challenging the conservative magazine National Review's "puff work" for presidential candidate Mitt Romney and implying that the magazine is quietly abandoning the social conservative grassroots and constitutionalism. The letter was sent to National Review on June 1, 1007. The editors refuse even to acknowledge receipt of the letter, which cites information about which they've misled their readers, most strikingly:

• Romney's stance and record after his "awakening" are not pro-life.
• The Massachusetts Constitution says the people are bound only by laws ratified by the legislature; and only the legislature can suspend or alter laws. Blaming judges who admit they cannot create laws and have no authority over the legislature or governor, Romney unconstitutionally ordered officials to act as if judges legalized homosexual “marriage.”

John Haskins of the Parents' Rights Coalition notes NR's glaring refusal to face the implications of a devastating article (May, 2004, National Review) by a leading legal scholar, illuminating why fawning, pro-establishment attorneys such as Jay Sekulow, radio lawyer Hugh Hewitt, and (an NR pro-Romney blogger) David French have facilitated Romney's unconstitutional actions:

"The deeper failure must go to the man who stood as governor, holding the levers of the executive. And if it is countdown for marriage...it is countdown also for Mitt Romney, whose political demise may be measured along the scale of moves he could have taken and the record of his receding, step by step... [I]t became clear that even conservative lawyers had come to incorporate, and accept, the premises that gave to the courts a position of supremacy in our constitutional schemes."
The Missing Governor  (National Review Online May 17, 2004)
-- Hadley Arkes, Professor of Jurisprudence, Amherst College

Haskins also noted revered conservative attorney Phyllis Schlafly's assessment:

"Massachusetts public officials ... are groveling before the four judges... (T)rying to walk a tight rope of compromise. (Romney) said: 'We obviously have to follow the law as provided by the [Court] and … decide 'what kind of statute we can fashion which is consistent with the law.' But what 'law'? There is no law that requires or even allows same-sex marriages."
It's Time To Rebuke The Judicial Oligarchy (EagleForum.org, Dec. 3, 2003)
-- Phyllis Schlafly

"A magazine that conservatives grew up with has legitimized a charlatan who trashed a constitution. As an opponent of judicial tyranny, Romney is a fraud," Haskins said. "Notwithstanding the post-constitutional nihilism of French, no legal training is needed to read English. Constitutions are not for lawyers to lock away from prying eyes, but for laymen as defense against the Frenches, Hewitts and Romneys of the world."

NR also conspicuously failed to report a detailed, provocative letter forty-four conservative leaders sent Romney disproving his claim that he "enforced the law" by imposing homosexual "marriage" when the Legislature refused to legalize it. Law professors and constitutional attorneys have affirmed the conclusions of the letter, which urged Romney to reverse his illegal orders. Signers included Paul Weyrich, an architect of the Reagan revolution; Robert Knight, a draftsman of the Defense of Marriage Act; Sandy Rios of the Culture Campaign (former president of Concerned Women for America); Phil Lawler, editor of Catholic World News; Phil Likoudis, editor of The Wanderer; and attorney Gary Kreep (United States Justice Foundation).

In contrast to NR spiking coverage of both letters, Kathryn Jean Lopez, their dedicated Romney cheerleader, trumpeted as newsworthy a pro-Romney letter from eight "conservatives" of widely varying reputations and conflicts of interest, including some who privately admit Romney failed to defend the constitution.

William Cotter of pro-life group Operation Rescue Boston noted that many pro-life leaders are deeply troubled by the spinning of Romney as "pro-life."

"Romney's pose is merely a states' rights-pro-abortion position opposing a federal amendment protecting babies in the womb," said R. T. Neary, Director of Pro-Life Massachusetts and a former president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life.

"Even Romney's sudden states' rights conversion is bogus," said "Robert Paine" (pen name of a prominent attorney and foremost expert on Romney's illegal use of the Goodridge decision). "He still hands a dictatorship to the federal judiciary and opinions like Roe and Goodridge levitate magically above constitutions. Why does NR legitimize this states' rights trick on abortion while Romney claims to back a federal amendment on marriage? If marriage is a federal issue, why not human life? The answer is: Romney's scam collapses under the Massachusetts Constitution," Paine said. "Having illegally imposed sodomy-based "marriage," he's more desperate to portray himself as defending marriage against judges than as pro-life."

See the provocative letter from 44 conservative leaders to Romney disproving his claim that he "enforced the law" by imposing homosexual "marriage" after the Legislature refused to legalize it. The letter was reported nationally by WorldNetDaily and others.

For more information contact: John Haskins, Parents’ Rights Coalition (Massachusetts), 781-890-6001, or contact MassResistance