You Won’t Believe This One

David Gittrich is trying to get the Wichita City Council to prevent an abortion clinic from re-opening because he claims that the protests it will draw will be a nuisance.

Mr. Gittrich is Director of Development at Kansans for Life, so he will be organizing and attending those protests, thus creating the very nuisance he is complaining about.

The abortion clinic in question is the one that was run by Dr. George Tiller until a pro-lifer murdered him while he was attending church.  Murderers for Life!

Pro-Life Murder

Like many all over the world, I am saddened and outraged by the death of Savita Halappanavar, who was killed in a Dublin hospital because of a refusal to treat her miscarriage, dooming her to die of blood poisoning.

In addition to anger at her death, I am angry at how it is being framed, as the denial of an abortion.  She arrived at the hospital with her fetus miscarrying.  There was no way to save this fetus, either inside her body or outside.  The fetus was doomed.  The issue was providing proper care for her miscarriage, so that she would not die as well.

If we start thinking and talking about basic, established medical care for miscarriages as “abortions,” simply by using this terminology, we are caving to the crazies.

In Ireland, they just unnecessarily murdered a young woman under the sick and twisted guise of being pro-life.  If it were up to Paul Ryan and others in the GOP who share his extremist views, the same thing would happen to American women.

There He Goes Again

This time it’s abortion.

Mitt told the Des Moines Register today: “There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda.”

And one, and two, and three, and his campaign told the National Review:  “Governor Romney would of course support legislation aimed at providing greater protections for life.”

Of course.

Hey, Mitt, you can be moderate for the next four weeks within limits.  I know you don’t get the concept of limits, I’m sure there isn’t one on your black AmEx card.  But you just ran headlong into an enormous cement limit with neon lights and blaring sirens.  Ixnay on anything that might rile up the pro-life folks.

 

 

The Toto of 2012

From “Do You Get It?,” Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo:

“The intensity of the desire to banish Akin from the 2012 cycle is exactly in proportion to Republicans’ perceived vulnerability on what the Democrats term the ‘War on Women.’  And that means they feel pretty damned vulnerable. Akin is particularly ignorant and offensive. But his basic points are actually pretty similar to what a large swath of the Congressional GOP believes. Holding that up to bright light scrutiny just as the bulk of the public is tuning into the national political debate is perilous in the extreme.”

The truth is that they want Akin out not because he’s some outlier with bizarre views, but because he showed a little too much leg about what the pro-life movement and the GOP really believe.  He pulled back a curtain they wanted to keep drawn.  He’s the Toto of 2012.

White suburban women, the soccer moms of 2000 and security moms of 2004 who went for Bush, but then went for Obama in 2008, will decide this election.  Akin makes them flee from Romney and his Akin-clone Ryan.

Palin Still Doesn’t Know Anything

For someone who pushes the need for “Constitutional Conservatives” in our government, Sarah Palin herself seems ignorant of what the Constitution actually provides.

Palin says that Condi Rice would be fine for Mitt’s veep, despite being pro-choice, because “We need to remember, though, that it’s not the vice president that would legislate abortion, and that would be Congress’s role.”

Except, of course, that the vice president is president of the Senate and casts a vote in case of a tie.

Palin’s position is not what we’re hearing from pro-life groups, who have been going nuts about the Rice possibility, which isn’t going to happen.

It Can’t Be Condi

There are lots of noises that Mitt should/will pick Condi Rice for his Veep.

But he can’t.  She’s pro-choice, and that automatically disqualifies her.

Mitt is already mistrusted by the base for his flip-flops on abortion.  Sure, she could flip too and say she’s no longer pro-choice, but I don’t think that would fly with an already queasy and suspicious base.

Mitt’s trying to get credit for considering a woman who also happens to be African-American, without the grief he’d get from actually choosing her.  Typical Mitt, looking for benefits with no costs.

Senator Rubbers

With all the controversy about Planned Parenthood heading into the election, it’s worth recalling that Prescott Bush, Bush 41’s father and Bush 43’s grandfather, chaired Planned Parenthood’s first national fundraising drive in 1947.

When he became a Republican senator from Connecticut, his nickname was Senator Rubbers.  It wasn’t because of his footwear.

Like Mitt, Bush 41 was pro-choice before he ran for president.  His wife Barbara was and is pro-choice, as is Laura Bush.

Rick Santorum Is a Cafeteria Catholic

Rick Savonarola Santorum is the sort of Catholic who likes to chide other Catholics who use birth control or are pro-choice as “Cafeteria Catholics,” who pick what they like from Catholic doctrine and ignore the rest.

But he too is a Cafeteria Catholic.  The Catholic Church rejects the doctrine of pre-emptive war, but Santorum is pushing for us to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities.  That’s a place where he and I agree, and where we both differ with our Church.

He’s saying that, unlike President Kennedy, he would follow the Vatican’s orders if he were president.  So Rick, that means you would let Iran get a nuclear weapon.

Was Sarah Palin Pro-Choice?

In the latest dump of Sarah Palin’s emails from when she was governor, there’s one dated May 12, 2008, from her top aide Frank Bailey, saying that they had gotten a pro-choice Alaska group to remove a photo of Palin at one of their events in 2007.  The photo had appeared at http://www.alaskaprochoice.org.

I guess they knew she was being considered for Veep, and that photo wouldn’t have endeared her to the McCain campaign, so they were busy scrubbing.

H/T Immoral Minority.

Let’s Learn from the People of Massachusetts

From “Romney’s Path on Abortion,” by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, NYT:

“By 2005, with Mr. Romney eyeing a possible presidential bid, he began to distance himself from his abortion rights platform. ‘My political philosophy is pro-life,’ he told National Review….  That same article quoted his top strategist at the time, Mike Murphy, as saying Mr. Romney has been ‘a pro-life Mormon faking it as a pro-choice friendly.‘”  Emphasis added.

Mitt lied on social issues to run for senator and governor.  His “severely conservative” views on social issues represent the real Mitt, views he knew would never get him elected in the Bay State.

Mitt displays the same ruthlessness in politics and in business.  It’s all about his “bottom line” of winning and making money.

So what’s he lying about now?  He’s lying about his concern for the middle class because he knows that is a requirement for winning nationally, just as concern for abortion rights was a requirement for winning in Massachusetts.  To paraphrase Mike Murphy, Mitt is a “pro-rich Mormon faking it as a pro-middle class friendly.”

While our states are laboratories for democracy, they can also be laboratories for demagoguery.  Let’s learn from the laboratory of Massachusetts that Mitt is a failed experiment.