Birth Control = MURDER!1!!!

With Sen. McCain seeking to appease a base (which still hates him) by pledging to "appoint judges in the mold of conservatives John Roberts, Samuel Alito and former Chief Justice William Rehnquist if he were elected in November," you-know-what will once again be a big issue as the general election heats up.

As it should be. Republicans love to beat this issue every election cycle-- though gay marriage and immigration are gaining strong as the new wedges-- to rile up the "pro-life" crowd (pro-life only on this issue, not on matters of war, the death penalty, poverty eradication, environmental conservation, etc) and the religious right, but have never made any real efforts to get Roe v. Wade and similar rulings reversed despite having now packed the federal bench with conservative after conservative, as they know that a) the backlash will be devastating for them, and b) it will rob them of this culture-war bludgeon for the next election. Democrats need to remind voters to see this demagoguery for what it is.

The people that the Republicans want to woo with this are groups like the American Life League... which is holding protests next month to demonstrate on the anniversary of "Griswold v. Connecticut case, [which] set a legal precedent for claiming that the Constitution grants women the right to privacy in matters of sexual practice. This meant that Connecticut and the rest of the United States could not stop a married woman from obtaining birth control pills." Horrors! And after that, they'll march through all the local pharmacies, poking little holes in all of the condoms. If God wanted you to have freedom over your sexual and reproductive decisions, he wouldn't have invented shame!

There are many new battles at stake this year-- the economy, the war, etc-- but the GOP still intends to make us fight the old ones.

I do respect, though, that is a complicated issue for some. And on that note, I end this topic by re-posting this 2006 Daily Show interview with author Ramesh Ponnuru (of the cartoonish National Review magazine) who, like his coworker Jonah 'Liberal Fascism' Goldberg, wrote a book so ridiculous he spent most of his book tour denying the title of the book in any way reflected his premise.



[McCain More Conservative Than His Image (AP)]