The intraparty battles among Democrats, Omaha edition

These two pieces present useful perspectives on the intra-party Democratic feud over the candidacy of Heath Mello for Mayor of Omaha, Nebraska.

UltraViolet, Women are Watching, Bernie. Don’t Let Us Down Huffpost 04/25/2017

D.D. Guttenplan, Why Was Heath Mello Thrown Under the Bus? The Nation 04/24/2017

Despite the implication of the headline on the first, the Ultraviolet editorial is actually arguing for both of the two major Democratic Party factions today to take the right to abortion as a basic principle, a litmus test in punditspeak.

Guttenplan also notes the evidence suggesting that the corporate Dems played the progressive wing on this one:

Instead, on April 19, The Wall Street Journal ran a story noting that Mello, a practicing Catholic, is pro-life. The story also falsely claimed that Mello had co-sponsored a bill “requiring women to look at an ultrasound image of their fetus before receiving an abortion.” A similar error was made by The Washington Post, which claimed that Mello had “previously backed a bill requiring ultrasounds for women considering abortions,” and then again the following day by David Nir, political director of Daily Kos, who announced the site was withdrawing its endorsement of Mello — a move applauded by Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, who’d launched a 12-part Twitter storm linking to the WSJ article and accusing Sanders and Perez of kicking off their tour with the message “shame women; we’ll support u anyway.”

Here’s the truth about Mello’s record: Back in 2009, he co-sponsored a bill requiring a physician performing an abortion to tell a woman that an ultrasound is available (as most already did). It neither mandated that the ultrasound be performed nor, if performed, that it actually be viewed by the woman — although it did require abortion providers to position the screen in such a way that the ultrasound was easily viewable. Daily Kos member Nova Land — a Tennessean who had never heard of Mello before the controversy—posted a comprehensive, well-sourced correction to this effect the same day. That didn’t lead Nir to reconsider. Nor did it stop Perez from issuing a statement announcing that he “fundamentally disagree[s] with Heath Mello’s personal beliefs about women’s reproductive health,” which was worded in a way that appeared to cast doubt on the sincerity of Mello’s pledge that he “would never do anything to restrict access to reproductive health care.”

The Nova Land post of 04/19/2017 with an update the following day is at Daily Kos here, Heath Mello, abortion, ultrasound -- and Bernie Sanders. It's clear that Mello's policy position on abortion has evolved over time toward a more pro-choice position.

To be clear, it was the DLC position of the "New Democrats" that Democratic needed to blunt their stands on "social issues" like abortion rights. That gave us Democrats discretely bragging about the anti-abortion postures of politicians like Tim Kaine and using formulas like Hillary Clinton's longtime stance that abortion should be "safe, legal and rare." The safe, poll-tested position for Democratic candidates was, "I'm personally opposed to abortion but I support women's right to choose."

As I said in the earlier post linked at the beginning of this one, if the Democratic Party is now at a place where Mugwumping on abortion rights is no longer acceptable, I'm glad to see it.

At the same time, my initial reaction to Guttenplan's article was:

Would corporate Dems rather lose than win with a progressive? Sometimes it looks like that. https://t.co/QOFPqqpsqG

— Bruce Miller (@brucemillerca) April 26, 2017

Because it was the Wall Street Journal that initially put the mayoral race in Omaha front-and-center in the intra-party contest between the corporate Dems and the prolabor progressives.

Here is a recent report from The Real News on that struggle. First, a short teaser, Temporary Truce in a Democratic Party Civil War 04/24/2017:

And the full 16-minute discussion, Temporary Truce in a Democratic Party Civil War: The Sanders & Perez Unity Tour 04/23/2017:

The "Hobby Lobby" Roberts Court travesty

The Supreme Court, the Radical Republican Roberts Court, delivered two blows to labor on Monday in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Harris v. Quinn, the first directed in particular toward female employees. Harris put some limited restrictions on state laws requiring workers in union-represented groups of workers to pay union dues. Both are bad and could serve as precedents to worse, which the Roberts Court likely intends in both cases.

Hobby Lobby is the more dramatic and consequential one, allowing the for-profit corporations Hobby Lobby, Mardel (owned by the Green family that owns Hobby Lobby) and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corporation to be exempted from the federal requirement to provide health insurance to its employees that includes birth control, more particularly birth control their owners claim to find religiously objectionable.

A number of people far more competent than I to speak to the legal issues are writing about it, and I cite some below.

But let's start with one of the people cheering the Hobby Lobby decision: Pastor Brandon Cox, Why Do Christians See the Hobby Lobby Case as a Big Win? Christian Post 06/30/2014 and is part of the evangelical empire of one-time alleged moderate Rick Warren. The Christian Post tries to provide a clean-shaven version of fundamentalist Christianity. So the articles and columns contain a lot of mealy-mouthing and hedging, which makes for boring and often confusing reading. Cox gives an it's-all-good take on Hobby Lobby:

I believe the Court's decision in the Hobby Lobby case is a big win for religious freedom because it respects the foundational principle underlying the First Amendment itself. The church should not step into the role of the government, but citizens by all means may serve as the government's informal conscience and speak their convictions in the public square. Our constitution upholds the freedom of all people to live by the government of their own conscience, regardless of what their religion is, so long as their conscience does not directly conflict with the stated purposes of government.

... Religious liberty matters, for all people, of all faiths, Christian and otherwise.

You have the freedom to work where you want, shop where you want, and use legal prescription medications as your physician prescribes them. And the Green family may abstain from paying for insurance coverage for contraceptive methods they deem unethical.

But the act often slips with fundis, as it does with Cox, who writes, "you should know that I'm a Baptist who identifies strongly with ancient Anabaptists on issues of religious liberty."

The Anabaptists were a product of the 16th century Protestant Reformation, so I'm not sure that qualifies as ancient. Their most famous splash was the hardcore theocracy they ran in the German city of Münster from February 1534 to June 1535. Their leader Jan van Leiden (1509-1536) had 16 wives. Here is a painting of him beheading one of them, Elisabeth Wantscherer, because she criticized him.

So Anabaptist separation of church and state: none at all.

Anabaptist religious liberty: the dames do what they're told.

Yep, that's a Hobby Lobby supporter!

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dissent starting on p. 60 of the decision linked above emphasizes that the decision is based not on the First Amendment, but on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993. RFRA actually had wide backing from liberals including Ted Kennedy. Its purpose was meant to give a higher priority to protecting the individual religious freedom of employees, and not to give corporations the right to make medical decisions for their employees.

Ginsburg: "Given the Act's moderate purpose, it is hardly surprising that RFRA’s enactment in 1993 provoked little controversy."

But, as Charlie Pierce notes in The Supreme Court Has A Favorite Religion, And That's A Big Problem Esquire Politics Blog 06/30/2014, the RFRA "has become a Trojan Horse, sliding the country toward a de facto kind of established religion, which today's ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby makes eminently clear."

Ginsburg in her dissent explains how the Court's ruling in Hobby Lobby basically takes the plain meaning and legislative history of that act and reads it in an almost opposite way.

Since the ruling is based on a law, Congress in theory could change it by amending it to exclude that reading. The Republicans wouldn't let it go through in the current Congress. But the Democrats could make a stink by demanding a change and force the Republicans to take and stand over and over in public against against the "sluts and prostitutes" who want this - Rush Limbaugh's description of women like Sandra Fluke who wanted birth control coverage. It would be a good test to see how many Reps would embrace sacred Bipartisanship to overturn Alito's decision. (My best guess: none.)

Also, since the Reps are clearly setting up for an impeachment of Obama, this would be a great time for Democrats to push for hearings on the judicial ethics of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Another good pushback, one the Dems probably won't even consider, would be to propose a law defining just how a corporation and its top executives and shareholders would be required to demonstrate their sincere religious beliefs. Like for conscientious objectors to the draft. I would say that if the CEO and all his/her direct reports and the top five stockholders of the corporation should be required to demonstrate regular attendance at worship services at a church that clearly opposes birth control. And that they demonstrate they are consistent in adhering to their church's teachings. Let the Republicans object that the religious freedom of CEOs has to be protected from such prying while the consciences of their employees - especially female ones - don't matter.

One thing the Dems could do as pushback would be to advocate a law that shareholders would require the senior officers and top stockholders of a for-profit corporation claiming the Hobby Lobby exemption to demonstrate their sincere religious beliefs in at least as rigorous a way as required for conscientious objectors to military service. That would require the Reps to defend the religious rights of corporations against the religious rights of employees.

Like the Roberts Court's decision allowing the radical ruling for the vulture funds against Argentina made by the Nixon-appointed zombie Judge Thomas Griesa stand, Hobby Lobby is a radical decision. Rightwing judicial activism on steroids.

It's radicalism is in giving a for-profit corporation the ability to claim religious beliefs. Apart from being anti-woman and anti-labor and a terrible misinterpretation of religious freedom, there's this in the "Be careful what you pray for/You just might get it" category. That's a quote from this Paul Kelly song:

Bloomberg Businessweek did a background piece on the Hobby Lobby case and the company in April, Hobby Lobby Case: Does God Hate Obamacare? by Susan Berfield 04/03/2014:

No big public company has come out in support of Hobby Lobby. Nor has the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or any other business group that doesn’t have a religious affiliation. That’s most likely because the case aims to "pierce the corporate veil," or look behind the corporation's legal identity and base a ruling on the interests of its owners. Companies have rights: to own property, enter into contracts, sue in court. But a company is also separate from its owners. If there are legal claims, they fall on the company, not its investors. A ruling that blurs the distinction between the two could erode the legal protection owners and investors have.

As Ginsburg puts it at the end of her dissent, "The Court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield."

Jed Lewinson reminds us in Now it's clear exactly what Bobby Jindal means when he says 'religious liberty' Daily Kos 06/30/2014 how the Christian Right Republicans are trying to make "religious libery" not only a codeword but a legal stalking horse for their theocratic, reactionary agenda across the board.

Dahli Lithwick, For a hands-off court, this one sure is hands-on. Slate 06/30/2014"Yes, corporations win big today. And women lose, huge, again."

The Balkinization blog has been following the Hobby Lobby case for a while, and has many posts on the subject. Including this 06/30/2014 one by Marty Lederman, Hobby Lobby Part XVII -- Upshot of the decision: A possible win-win solution (and now all eyes turn to Notre Dame).

The SCOTUSblog 06/30/2014 provides a set of links to posts on the decision.

Tags: hobby lobby, women's rights

Christian fundamentalism, women's sexuality and rape

Amanda Marcotte has a good essay on how Christian fundamentalist views of women is based on a model of female submissiveness and the problems that can cause women in that environment when it comes to sexual assault (How the Christian Right's Bizarre Sex Obsessions Let Rapists Off the Hook AlterNet 02/20/2014):

Fundamentalist Christianity is positively obsessed with the idea that female sexuality is the source most of the nation’s woes, and that the world is going to hell because women dress immodestly and have sex for their own reasons instead of just for baby-making and husband-placating. When you see sex as the problem, it becomes hard to see rape as anything but another sexual sin. If you see women as the controllers of sex and the people who have the responsibility of enforcing chastity, then the natural conclusion is that rape is caused by women, and that it’s as much, if not more, a woman’s fault for tempting a man to rape her as it is the man’s for violently assaulting a woman.

... From Ross Douthat in the New York Times arguing that women have the power to convert men from cads to good guys merely through the power of not having sex with them, to all the endless sermons about modesty and not causing men to "stumble," the message in the Christian right is clear: Men’s choices, especially men’s sexual choices, are the responsibility of women. So if a man chooses to rape you, it’s understood not as him asserting dominance over you, but as the man taking the liberties you must have extended to him. ...

Built into the very core of the religious right is the idea that female autonomy is a threat to be stomped out, and not just in its attacks on women who choose abortion or premarital sex or, gasp, to live as lesbians. The entire model of proper female behavior for the Christian right is built on submission. It’s evident in the adherence to the belief that husbands are the head of their wives. Recently, Christian right icons Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar explained their belief that wives are obliged to have sex with their husbands whenever they want and on their terms. Fundamentalist Christians deeply distrust and are hostile to the idea that the proper owner of a woman's body is the woman. If rape is a violation of female autonomy, but you believe female autonomy is sinful, then it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to take rape seriously as a crime. [my emphasis]

Tags: christian fundamentalism, women's rights

Todd Akin and rape: Obama's cautious politics are showing again

President Obama's has been surprisingly aggressive the last few weeks against the Romney campaign. But the last few days we've also seen some discouraging signs of his cautious politics, which are still confounding in someone who certainly showed personal boldness in becoming the first African-American President.

But personal boldness in Obama has always been melded with his relentlessly centrist approach to politics. The National Review Online quoted Romney on Monday as saying this about Todd Akins ugly comment about how rape supposedly rarely produces a pregnancy (Robert Costa, Romney: Akin's Comment 'Inexcusable' 08/20/2012): "Congressman’s Akin comments on rape are insulting, inexcusable, and, frankly, wrong. Like millions of other Americans, we found them to be offensive. I have an entirely different view. What he said is entirely without merit and he should correct it." (my emphasis)

Several hours later, Obama had the following to say (Remarks by the President to the White House Press Corps 08/20/2012):

Q[uestion:] Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for being here. You’re no doubt aware of the comments that the Missouri Senate candidate, Republican Todd Akin, made on rape and abortion. I wondered if you think those views represent the views of the Republican Party in general. They've been denounced by your own rival and other Republicans. Are they an outlier or are they representative?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, let me, first of all, say the views expressed were offensive. Rape is rape. And the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of rape we're talking about doesn’t make sense to the American people and certainly doesn't make sense to me.

So what I think these comments do underscore is why we shouldn't have a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are men, making health care decisions on behalf of women.

And so, although these particular comments have led Governor Romney and other Republicans to distance themselves, I think the underlying notion that we should be making decisions on behalf of women for their health care decisions -- or qualifying forcible rape versus non-forcible rape -- I think those are broader issues, and that is a significant difference in approach between me and the other party.

But I don’t think that they would agree with the Senator from Missouri in terms of his statement, which was way out there.

Q[uestion:] Should he drop out of the race?

THE PRESIDENT: He was nominated by the Republicans in Missouri. I'll let them sort that out. [my emphasis]

Now, in terms of the "horse-race", Obama did take good advantage of the opportunity. But Mitt Romney's statement was a more clear repudiation of Todd Akin's statement. And I don't think Taylor Marsh is parsing words too closely when she says the following:

That Pres. Obama joined [the anti-abortion Republicans'] language yesterday by invoking it in his press conference wasn’t picked up by any outlet or new media site anywhere. To remind, after saying "rape is rape," he said: "... or qualifying forcible rape versus non-forcible rape, I think those are broader issues ..." It was likely said to find common ground and since Republicans are so extreme no one is going to pick gnat crap out of pepper. In fact, to my knowledge, I was the only one to even question its outrageous utterance. Readers around here didn’t even find it very shocking, because compared to what Republicans are intending for women at least Pres. Obama has put the largest expansion of power in U.S. history in women’s hands by making contraception free, as well as a host of other reproductive health care options. The forgotten detail is he also chose politics over science on Plan B. These are inconvenient facts that are ignored when looking at Romney-Ryan in the White House. But it’s part of why women continue on this tread mill of individual freedoms.

Until a strong Republican pro women’s freedom and self-determination coalition develops inside that party our country will remain unable to solve the larger issues facing us.

Until Democrats refuse to compromise and coddle their own religious conservatives on matters of women’s fundamental rights of freedoms we’ll keep talking about this subject election after election. [bolding and italics in original]

Marsh's complaint is justified. Even though it's a horse-race plus for Obama, both he and Romney treated Akin's comment, which expressed the ugly viewpoint of the anti-abortion House Republicans on rape that Paul Ryan shares, as a gaffe that was "offensive." But Obama didn't use the opportunity to highlight the kind of examples that Marsh lists of what his Administration has actually contributed to "women for their health care decisions". He didn't tie it to the House measure that would have redefined rape in order to restrict access to abortion for rape victims, which Ryan supported. He didn't highlight anything about the crackpot radicalism and medical misinformation being promoted by the anti-abortion movement. The word "abortion" didn't even appear in his statement. Nor did he make it a point about women's rights, but rather about the bad manners of "a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are men, making health care decisions on behalf of women".

(Update 04/10/2013: Taylor Marsh's quote is from Top Story: What’s the Matter with Todd Akin? 08/21/2012 and she amended it to modify her comments about Obama that is at the first of the section quoted here.)

Classic Obama minimalism, in other words. Even in the transcript, his careful choosing of words is evident, and more so in the video. As Marsh points out, his garbled reference to the House Republicans attempt to redefine rape ("qualifying forcible rape versus non-forcible rape") steps on his "rape is rape" comment. And, rather than try to hang that albatross on the Republicans' necks, he basically gives the Republicans a waiver by saying, "But I don’t think that they would agree with the Senator from Missouri in terms of his statement, which was way out there." He pepper-sprays his own message within a couple of sentences, in other words.

But this isn't just a matter of style. Obama has shown, especially in the health care debate, that he is willing to easily concede to the Blue Dogs when it comes to restricting abortion rights. His statement quoted above gives female voters a quotable quote, "rape is rape". But it says nothing about his commitment to abortion rights. He's leaving an opening for more "bipartisan" compromises on women's right to abortion.

It reminded me a lot of his response to the mass gun shooting in which Congresswoman Gaby Giffords was almost assassinated. That gave Obama a great opportunity to highlight some popular measure to promote some specific proposal to limit gun violence, or to highlight the way irresponsible, lying rightwingers are creating a climate of hatred and violence. He did neither. Instead, he offered up general pablum about civility, and established the bad precedent of the President treating mass gun murder murder events as occasions to play Pastor-in-Chief and invite the country to join in a sentimental moment of national unity in mourning.

Obama wants to be the great conciliator, the man who achieves postpartisan harmony with a Republican Party that is in a continuing process of radicalization. His response to Todd Akin's rape comment shows him very much in his Postpartisan Conciliator mode. It appears that Obama will try to use just enough partisanship to get re-elected and no more. He's not interested in building a mandate for Democratic policies.

Tags: 2012 election, abortion, barack obama, todd akin, women's rights

Todd Akin and the Republican cycle of fanaticism

My Twitter feed has had a lot of people making Twitter-length snarky comments about the absurd statement by Todd Akin, Missouri Republican Congressman and Republican candidate for US Senate, that pregnancies due to rape are "really rare" because, "If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." (Legitimate rape' comment by GOP's Todd Akin shakes up Missouri Senate race by Linda Feldmann Christian Science Monitor 08/20/2012)

But I'm inclined to agree with Ilyse Hogue (The Danger of Laughing at Todd Akin The Nation 08/20/2012) who suggests that snarky humor isn't the best way to respond to his statement:

The short-term consequences of such an incendiary remark are predictable: Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill will trumpet the remark to her own political advantage, donations will spike to her campaign and the party committees will offer the remark as one more proof point of the GOP’s war on women. But the impact of Akin’s effort to redefine the terms of this debate reaches beyond this one race. In the multidimensional chess that shapes public opinion, the game is less about individual elections and more about a sustained effort to mainstream radical ideas. In the case of denying women control over their lives, there’s evidence that the bad guys may be winning the long-game.

She uses this as an example of how crackpot extremist ideas get mainstreamed.

And it's part of a larger Republican push, stemming from the fanaticism of the anti-abortion movement, to at least partially de-criminalize rape. (See Nick Baumann's The House GOP's Plan to Redefine Rape Mother Jones 01/28/2011) Is de-criminalizing rape too harsh a description for what they are tying to do? I don't think so, even though it's emerging as part of efforts to ban abortion, including pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.

Because it's also what could be called a desublimation or making explicit the hostility to women's rights and, often enough, outright hatred of women that are at the core of the real existing anti-abortion movement.

It's theoretically possible to be anti-abortion and not embrace the notion that "abortion is murdering a human being" that is so common among anti-abortion activists. But in practice, the only ones expressing opposition to abortion without framing it that way are pro-choice elected officials! The lazy Democratic standard position on abortion is for a candidate to say that they are personally opposed to it but favor pro-choice laws. For elected officials, the pro-choice position has really been a moderate anti-abortion position. Hillary Clinton in campaigning for President in 2008 stated her pro-choice position as being that abortions should be safe, legal and rare. This official Democratic response to Akin's pro-rape comment, reported in the Linda Feldmann piece cited above, is telling:

"Now, Akin's choice of words isn't the real issue here," Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz wrote in an e-mail to supporters overnight. "The real issue is a Republican Party – led by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan – whose policies on women and their health are dangerously wrong."

Yes, Akin's choice of words and the anti-abortion politics behind them should be real issues. Framing this as a gaffe and trying to basically change the subject to a vague question of "policies on women and their health" is all-too-typical of today's Democratic Party.

As on so many other issues, the Democrats have been willing to cede the framing of the abortion issue to the anti-abortion Republicans. The problem is that it didn't cement a pro-choice consensus and make the issue go away. Because the anti-abortion movement since the 1970s has been in a cycle of fanaticism that is getting progressively more radical. Individuals may burn out and drop out, but the anti-abortion movement is more potent and more radical than ever.

The anti-abortion movement was a major source of the "Patriot Militia" movement of the 1990s. Randall Terry, once head of Operation Rescue, was a big player in starting up the Militia movement. So was Ron "Papa Doc" Paul, who is also hardline anti-abortion, two of numerous reasons why I've never found much to admire in Papa Doc, even when I happened to agree with him on some particular foreign policy issue. (And even then my reason for taking the position tends to be very different from his.)

And unless the anti-abortion movement can find a different way to frame their cause than the current "abortion is murdering a human being" version, they will continue to promote the worst kind of fanaticism and violence.

Akin's comment is a warning that the anti-abortion movement's hostility to women's rights is a large package, not one restricted to abortion.

The Ultraviolet group has an online petition calling on Akin to resign from Congress.

Tags: todd akin, women's rights

When did Democrats decide that "cringe and grovel" is a winning political strategy?

I'm referring, of course, to the latest ginned-up Republican hissy-fit about mean Hilary Rosen criticizing Ann Romney's defense of her husband Willard's anti-woman, anti-worker policies. Rosen is a Democratic commentator for CNN.

Rosen's comments came on Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees on 04/11/2012. The dialogue here was among Cooper, Rosen, and hardcore rightwinger Eric Erickson of Redstate.com:

COOPER: Hilary, to the Romney campaign's point though, they're focusing on the economy and that's what women overwhelming say they really care about right now in poll after poll.

Whether it's a typical pattern or not, women are seeing jobs come back much more slowly than men are. Is there anything really wrong then with reaching out to women on an issue that they care about, on the economy?

HILARY ROSEN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, first, can we just get rid of this word war on women. The Obama campaign does not use it. President Obama does not use it. This is something that the Republicans are accusing people of using, but they're actually the one spreading it.

With respect to economic issues, I think actually that Mitt Romney is right, that ultimately women care more about the economic well-being of their families and the like. But there's -- but he doesn't connect on that issue either.

What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country saying, well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues. And when I listen to my wife, that's what I'm hearing.

Guess what, his wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She's never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school and how do we -- why do we worry about their future?

So I think it's -- yes, it's about these positions and, yes, I think there will be a war of words about the positions, but there's something much more fundamental about Mitt Romney. He seems so old- fashioned when it comes to women.

And I think that comes across and I think that that's going to hurt him over the long term. He just doesn't really see us as equal.

COOPER: Erick, I want you to be able to respond to that.

ERICKSON: Well, I'm still hung up on the Democrats haven't been using the war on women because I've been playing clips of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Nancy Pelosi and others using the phrase war on women. I'm pretty sure.

ROSEN: No, no, no.

ERICKSON: I think it's a Democratic talking point. I think the Democrats have used it. I think their political mouthpieces from MSNBC to think progress and elsewhere have used it. It's clear that's what the Democrats want to talk about, this war on women.

I do think Mitt Romney is going to have problems relating to women. He is going to have problems relating to men, but those problems are going to be about him being able to relate to people in general.

Frankly, if the economy goes down, I don't really think it's going to matter. More and more we're seeing small businesses say they don't even want to hire headed into next year, but that's a problem not for Mitt Romney, but for Barack Obama. [my emphasis]

Now, I think Rosen's performance here is pretty feckless. Democratic commentators have been talking about the Republicans' "war on women" and with good reason. One Republican talking point on it is, oh, no, the Democrats are being really naughty to use the phrase "war on women". Here she's making a silly attempt to duck it rather than emphasize that, yes, the Republicans are waging a political war on women and giving examples of it.

Her comment that the Republicans pulled out that Ann Romney "has actually never worked a day in her life" was clearly in the context of the Romneys being out of touch with the needs of ordinary people and with women's real economic situation in particular. It's notable that a rigid partisan like Erickson didn't pick up on the comment as "offensive", or zero in on it at all. Not that Erickson's reaction means all that much; he was just repeating variations of his talking point about how naughty it was for the Dems to be saying "war on women".

Rosen's comment was clutzy, just like her silly comma-dancing over the "war on women" phrase was clutzy. I know I'm normally careful to specify women working outside the home, or women in the work force, when I'm talking about that subject. If we say someone is "unemployed", no one except maybe some mad comma-dancer at FOX News takes that as meaning that the person no longer has any family responsibilities or things to take care of in their lives. It means they are not in the work force as defined by the Labor Department's employment statistics. Ann Romney has never had to work under the kind of economic pressures that ordinary wives and mothers have to or something along those lines would have been preferable.

But Democrats up to and including President Obama falling for the Republican hissy-fit over it and rushing to denounce her comment is just sad. This is one aspect of Democratic behavior that I find it difficult to even imagine how it's anything other than a strange psychological habit they somehow got into over the years. It's an example of George Lakoff's "don't think of an elephant" point about framing: if you tell someone, "don't think of an elephant", they have to think of an elephant to process your sentence. His point for Democrats is that they shouldn't accept Republican framing when responding to Republican attacks.

But they do it all the time. Here the seemingly obvious thing for Dems to have said when confronted with Rosen's quote would be to say something like, "Well, you'll have to ask Hilary Rosen what she meant. But there is a Republican war on women because of ... (opposition to equal pay laws, denying women health coverage and birth control, cutbacks on education and childcare and other programs for children, etc.)" Instead, by explicitly distancing themselves from her comment, they reinforce the idea that she somehow speaks for them and that Democrats have something to apologize for when it comes to women's issues.

This all takes place in the context of a Republican "culture war" trope going back to the rise to prominence of the women's movement in the late 1960s and especially the 1970s. Anti-feminists adopted a whiny-white-people position of saying that all these feminists looking down on working mothers in "traditional families". In reality, the Christian Right advocates of the so-called "traditional family" explicitly and implicitly encourage the attitude that there is something wrong with women who are not full-time mothers and homemakers, although politicians who actually want to get female votes generally tip-toe around the issue. By their panicky reaction to this hissy fit is a huge reminder of how vulnerable President Obama could be around election time. They are chronic suckers for this kind of thing. I really don't get it.

Joan Walsh, who I worry sometimes is a bit skittish when it comes to "culture war" issues, didn't seem the least bit skittish in Ann Romney should apologize! Salon 04/12/2012, criticizing the Democrats for being such suckers for a Republican attack like this. Noting that if the Democrats played the hissy-fit game like the Republicans, they would be demanding that Ann Romney apologize to Rosen for responding to Rosen's comment!

No, Ann Romney doesn't need to apologize – but in a grown-up world, Hilary Rosen wouldn’t have had to either. The point Rosen was making was, and is, valid: Mitt Romney repeatedly refers to his wife, Ann, in lordly terms, "reporting" to him what matters to women. Reporting to him, like she’s an employee, or maybe a translator. It’s valid to suggest that he ought to talk about what women believe from his own experiences, or what he learns from women colleagues, co-workers, campaign staff. He should stop referring to his wife'’s “reports” about women’s issues, sounding like Thurston Howell III.

And the fact is, Ann Romney’s experiences are not the average woman’s. She is a woman of great privilege. Most mothers don’t have the "choice" to stay home full time with their kids; they need a paycheck. Meanwhile, her husband supports the Paul Ryan budget, which cuts nutrition programs for pregnant women and new moms and their kids. It cuts Medicaid for poor women and children. It slashes food stamp funding, when women and children make up two-thirds of the people who get food stamps. He wants to get rid of Planned Parenthood, which provides not just contraception but breast cancer and cervical cancer screenings for millions of low-income women.

In blasting the Obama campaign for the remarks of a Democrat unrelated to his campaign, Concerned Women for America called motherhood "the most important job there is." Except when poor women do it, that is. Republicans crusaded to kill Aid to Families With Dependent Children (supported eventually by Bill Clinton and other Democrats) to make sure that poor women joined the workforce. Motherhood is "the most important job there is" unless your children are poor. What a bunch of hypocrites. [my emphasis]

Tags: 2012 election, women's rights

Small government conservatism and the war on women's rights

Linda Campbell of the Austin Star-Telegram adresses one of the anti-choice bills debated in the Texas state legislature in Would Jesus mandate sonograms but cut pre-K? 02/23/2011:

Sen. Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio got carried away during debate on the sonogram bill, saying (according to Texas Tribune live blogging), "It is our responsibility to protect that child once that child's born, too. When we start debating a budget, let's make sure we don't cut 100,000 vaccines. Let's make sure we've got health insurance. We seem to worship what we cannot see, but as soon as that baby's born, oh no, we don't want to be intrusive. Texas is going to shrink government until it fits in a woman's uterus." [my emphasis]

Thompson also says, "It's worth remembering that Jesus was prescribing a path to salvation, not a menu of public policy options."

Meanwhile, the chief ideologist of the Republican Party, junkie bigot Rush Limbaugh, calls the National Organization of Women (NOW) "whores to liberalism." The Republican drive to Talibanize women's status in America continues. It ain't pretty.

Tags: christian right, republican party, women's rights

Republican war on reproductive freedom

Digby has it right on the current Republican drive not only against abortion but against birth control in Laying out The Case Against Birth Control Hullabaloo 02/27/2011:

This is what it's all about kids, whether anyone wants to admit it or not. The war on women (in this case being waged by a woman) is about the fear of female sexuality. This is powerful, primal stuff -- eve and apples and all that -- and it should be taken seriously. Just because it sounds patently absurd today doesn't mean that it can't be a serious "debate" tomorrow. Happens all the time.

Tags: abortion, birth control, women's rights