Not Only Ignorant, But Destructive

It's not just that Sarah Palin can't name another Supreme Court case besides Roe v. Wade - wait, OK, it is that. But there's something more here, something that will offend the intelligence of more than merely all rational Americans. She believes in the Constitutional right to privacy.

Couric Why, in your view, is Roe v. Wade a bad decision?

Sarah Palin: I think it should be a states' issue not a federal government-mandated, mandating yes or no on such an important issue. I'm, in that sense, a federalist, where I believe that states should have more say in the laws of their lands and individual areas. Now, foundationally, also, though, it's no secret that I'm pro-life that I believe in a culture of life is very important for this country. Personally that's what I would like to see, um, further embraced by America.

Couric: Do you think there's an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution?

Palin: I do. Yeah, I do.

Couric: The cornerstone of Roe v. Wade.

Palin: I do. And I believe that individual states can best handle what the people within the different constituencies in the 50 states would like to see their will ushered in an issue like that.

I don't know if she believes in the right to privacy or if she believes in the words "right" and "privacy" and saw them together and took a stab at it. But this is a major, MAJOR no-no for the fundies and the wingnuts. She undermined the entire intellectual argument against Roe without even recognizing it. Taking her logic (if it can be called that), if there's a Constitutional right to privacy then there's a right to keep medical decisions confidential, not a state's right but a fundamental Constitutional right.

This is about 35 years' worth of arguments crashing down right now. If any backlash could cost her the nomination it would be over this. This reaches into Harriet Miers territory.

On a couple other notes:

1) Given that Palin is now personally responsible for saving Katie Couric's job, is there any kickback scheme in the offing?

2) Given that the gobbledy-gook answers that randomly generate at InterviewPalin.com are actually starting to be less surreal than what comes out of her mouth, have we reached a subject that is invulnerable to parody?

3) Do we really know whether or not Sarah Palin is Sacha Baron Cohen's greatest role?

Babysitter

So Sarah Palin had a "do-over" with Katie Couric last night, but Unca McCain was by her side, stepping in anytime Couric got all uppity by asking a question beyond the preferred scope of name, rank and serial number. According to this clip, questions on the campaign trail from voters are off-limits:



It sucks when ordinary people asking questions engage in gotcha journalism. I can't stand it when somebody asks me what time it is, trying to trip me up and all.

I think the last straw was that she couldn't name another Supreme Court case beyond Roe v. Wade. She's not allowed to ask questions without adult supervision anymore.

Will each candidate in the VP debate be required to have a "buddy"?

Women For Obama

We're going to have to wade through a whole ocean of Village conventional wisdom this primary season, so it's hard to know where to begin. But the opening set of nonsense seems to be that because Barack Obama defeated a woman in the Democratic primary, he'll have some impossible task reaching Democratic women voters in the general election. This is actually demeaning to women voters, this suggestion that they are so emotionally attached and not rational thinkers with respect to electoral politics that they would vote against their own committed beliefs and interests. It's a big country and "women" voters represents about 60-70 million Americans, so there are going to be exceptions, but by and large Democratic women aren't fools and won't be running toward John McCain and his policies which hurt women who care about issues like public health, equal pay and a women's right to choose her own medical care.

Marilyn Authenreith, a mother of two in North Carolina, felt strongly about supporting Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary.

But once the former first lady quit the race, Authenreith switched allegiance to Barack Obama, mainly because she thinks that he -- unlike Republican John McCain -- will push for universal healthcare.

"I can't understand the thinking of how someone would jump from Hillary to McCain," she said. "It doesn't make any sense."

Now that the Democratic marathon is over, Clinton supporters like Authenreith are siding heavily with Obama over McCain, polls show. And Obama has taken a wide lead among female voters, belying months of political chatter and polls of primary voters suggesting that disappointment over Clinton's defeat might block the Illinois senator from enjoying his party's historic edge among women.

This was just made up by seven people at the major cable news nets, who just decided to uncritically parrot GOP talking points that women were fed up with Obama because he beat their gal. None of it had any basis in reality.

And for what it's worth, Obama himself is attentive to the issue.

Sen. Barack Obama hit back at Sen. John McCain's recent attempts to court women voters who flocked to Sen. Hillary Clinton's failed presidential bid in droves.

. "On almost every single issue that's important to women, he's been on the wrong side," the presumptive Democratic nominee told ABC News in an interview in Flint, Mich. Monday.

"You know, he is in favor of judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade. He has opposed equal pay. He has opposed the CHIP [Children's Health Insurance] program, that would make children insured," Obama said.

In particular, choice could be a powerful and winning issue in the general election. Many moderates have no idea how radical McCain's position is on Roe. You will see crossover support for Obama as long as there's enough education around the issue.

Despite the fact that the national focus seems to be on the economy, among pro-choice Independent women, pro-choice Republican women, and liberal to moderate Republican women, the issue of abortion produces a larger advantage for Democrats than the economy, the war in Iraq, or health care. Moreover, among these three groups critiques on McCain’s anti-choice position are the strongest attacks against him, trumping attacks on the economy, the war, and special interests.

There are plenty more examples of this conventional wisdom taking hold without basis in reality. More infuriating than the fact that pundits focus almost entirely on horse-race politics is that they frequently get the horse race completely wrong.

Nearing The End of Roe

Let me revise and extend my remarks about the Supreme Court upholding the so-called "partial-birth abortion" ban, in case they weren't clear. I called the procedure imaginary, and what I meant was that the phraseology "partial-birth abortion" is imaginary. The procedure of dilation and extraction is very real, and as there's no exception for the woman's health in the upheld law, this will mean that this procedure which can save lives will be outlawed. Here's a very powerful example of that in action.

As a young child -- I guess I was about 3 years old, given that my youngest sister is two years younger than me -- my mother had a late-term abortion. Now, to be fair, I don't know if she had a D&E or some other procedure -- it's a very painful memory for her, understandably, and I'm not going to ask her about it. But the circumstances were as follow:

The baby was sick. I don't know exactly what was wrong, but the doctors told my parents that there was only about a 50/50 chance the baby would survive to term. They also said the chances my mother would survive childbirth -- I'm one of four kids, and apparently the only one whose labor was relatively easy -- were only infinitesimally better than the probability of finding the missing WMD in Iraq. Even if my parents didn't have four children aged five or younger at the time, the decision to have an abortion would have been a no-brainer -- as painful a decision as it was, my mother's life and health were, are, and forever will be far more important than the potential for the life and health of another human being not even born yet.

And so my mother had a late-term abortion that saved her life.

Abortion foes like to deflect this criticism by saying that it doesn't happen very often. One mother who has to die needlessly because a bunch of male judges say that she has to is one too many. And that's the reality of what was done today. Let there be no abstraction in this debate; there's a real cost in lives. I don't like abortion; nobody does. I want to see less of them. But to deny medical treatment to women who will surely die is unnecessarily cruel. And every one of these sitting Democratic senators who voted for the original bill cannot think about their vote in abstract terms. There's a human cost.

Lincoln
Pryor
Biden
Carper
Bayh
Landrieu
Conrad
Dorgan
Nelson
Reid
Johnson
Leahy
Byrd

One of these Senators is running for President. Another is the Majority Leader. On certain issues I like all of them. But this is really shameful.

This is the beginning of the end of Roe v. Wade as we know it, as many states will now continue to chip away bit by bit until the law has no meaning. "Elections have consequences" is a headline I've seen all over the blogosphere today. How true that is.

UPDATE: I should mention that all of the top-tier Democratic Presidential candidates are lambasting this decision. Obama:

I strongly disagree with today’s Supreme Court ruling, which dramatically departs from previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women. As Justice Ginsburg emphasized in her dissenting opinion, this ruling signals an alarming willingness on the part of the conservative majority to disregard its prior rulings respecting a woman’s medical concerns and the very personal decisions between a doctor and patient. I am extremely concerned that this ruling will embolden state legislatures to enact further measures to restrict a woman's right to choose, and that the conservative Supreme Court justices will look for other opportunities to erode Roe v. Wade, which is established federal law and a matter of equal rights for women.

Clinton:

"This decision marks a dramatic departure from four decades of Supreme Court rulings that upheld a woman's right to choose and recognized the importance of women's health. Today's decision blatantly defies the Court's recent decision in 2000 striking down a state partial-birth abortion law because of its failure to provide an exception for the health of the mother. As the Supreme Court recognized in Roe v. Wade in 1973, this issue is complex and highly personal; the rights and lives of women must be taken into account. It is precisely this erosion of our constitutional rights that I warned against when I opposed the nominations of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito."

Edwards:

"I could not disagree more strongly with today's Supreme Court decision. The ban upheld by the Court is an ill-considered and sweeping prohibition that does not even take account for serious threats to the health of individual women. This hard right turn is a stark reminder of why Democrats cannot afford to lose the 2008 election. Too much is at stake -- starting with, as the Court made all too clear today, a woman's right to choose."