Trying to "Get" Hillary Clinton, Mona Charen Contradicts Her Statistics

Conservative writer Mona Charen tries to pull a "gotcha" on Hillary Clinton, saying that Clinton could not "defend" Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood who advocated abortion, in part, on racist grounds (i.e., it could prevent more undesirables from being born). Some conservatives believe that Sanger's bigotry delegitimizes abortion rights, apparently because: Sanger = abortion = racism. I have debunked a similar argument elsewhere: Pro-Life Race Card: Anti-Choice Activists Blow a Gasket Over Lifting of "Global Gag Rule"

Well, that's "truly ludicrious" (to borrow a phrase from Charen). By that logic, celebrating Washington's birthday should offend blacks because he owned slaves. Or perhaps I should not visit the Jefferson Memorial because he owned people too. And what self-respecting black person would live in Florida, Texas or Washington, DC, when all of these places had thriving slave industries? Neither the University of Pennsylvania, Yale Law School, nor American University's law school admitted blacks when they first opened, but I attended two of these schools and teach at the third. In short: Sanger, like Penn, Yale, and Jefferson, reflected the bigotry of her era. Move on!

Anyway. . . Charen says that Clinton first dodged a question concerning Sanger and then attacked former President George Bush:

Clinton then, in good Obamanista fashion, offered a gratuitous swipe at the Bush administration. "During my time as First Lady I helped to create the Campaign against Teenage Pregnancy ... and ... the rate of teen pregnancy went down. I'm sad to report that after an administration of eight years that undid so much of the good work, the rate of teenage pregnancy is going up."

Politicians always simplify, but this is truly ludicrous. Teen pregnancy down under the Clintons but then up under Bush? Sorry, the statistics do not reflect that. According to the Guttmacher Institute (the research arm of Planned Parenthood), teen pregnancy reached an all-time high in 1988 and 1989 and began trending down thereafter, reaching its lowest recent point in 2005 — past the midpoint of the Bush years. It has been going up since then.

Earth to Charen: Clinton took office in 1993, when according to your own statistics, teen pregnancy was trending downward. You also say teen pregnancy has been trending upward since 2005, the midpoint of Bush's two terms -- which means, teen pregnancy increased during the Bush years.

I think it would be hard to link either pattern to a president, but I'll leave that to social scientists. But since Charen thinks the statistics are meaningful, they support Clinton's statement.