Is how Ed Morrissey describes Alan Keyes' CLC speech from Saturday night:

....He made an intriguing claim that the preamble of the Constitution forbids abortion in its mandate to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity". In this, Keyes claims to have found the language forbidding abortion that Justice Blackmun insisted he sought during Roe, because "posterity" refers to those yet to come -- which would include unborn children necessarily. Websters defines "posterity" as "the offspring of one progenitor to the furthest generation" and "all future generations," and Keyes says the framers understood exactly what they meant when they wrote that passage.

With that understanding, Keyes engaged in some jaw-dropping demagoguery. He claimed that Giuliani's pro-choice standing put him in the "pro-slavery position". That's ridiculous on its face. First, the language of the preamble did not forbid slavery; it took the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to accomplish that. Second, in no way could anyone accuse Giuliani of being "pro-slavery". It's as though Keyes read the Constitution and decided that one has to go all the way to Z as a consequence of moving from A to B. It's absurd.

After that, he talked about Mitt Romney being "the devil with the mask on," and Rudy as "the devil with the mask off." Fred Thompson wears masks, too, because he made a living as an actor. Don't talk about Reagan being an actor, though, because Keyes says that Reagan had "character" while Thompson does not. How he makes this distinction, Keyes didn't elaborate, but it seems somewhat daft considering Reagan was an actor by training, while Fred's acting career was a lark that paid off.

Devils and traitors populate Keyes' world to a degree not known by most rational people....

There's nothing new about Keyes' "slavery" argument. I've addressed it before, and it doesn't just arise in the context of abortion. Homosexuality is often analogized to slavery (in fact a persistent commenter argues that allowing consensual sex is like allowing slavery). Regarding homosexuality, Keyes goes even further than slavery; he calls it "the thermonuclear device--that is aimed at the soul of America," and "a direct repudiation of our most important principles." (Pretty strong stuff, but the man really and truly believes that opposition to homosexuality lies at the foundation not only of America, but of all morality.)

I'll say this for Keyes; by sticking to the slavery analogy, at least he didn't accuse Giuliani and Romney of committing nuclear genocide against our founding principles.

Nor, significantly, did he accuse his fellow Republicans of being like Hitler. Or Himmler....

(Maybe the invocation of slavery is "Godwin Lite....")

AFTERTHOUGHT: Does my advocacy of tolerance for the Keyesians violate the rule against tolerating intolerance? Any thoughts?

(Maybe I should worry over whether the top of the Empire State building should be lit up in green despite the fact that there probably won't be reciprocal Christmas lights in Mecca.)