THIS WEEK IN POLITICAL NEWS -- 2/23/12

THE LAST HURRAH: Last night, the four remaining GOP candidates gathered in Arizona for what was, in all likelihood, the last debate of the primary season. I’m not sure why I was so excited for this one, or why I thought it would somehow be any less soul-crushing. The point is, I was wrong. The candidates stayed true to form, unanimous in their denunciations of a president that I have certainly never met whom they claim is the most dangerous man in America and that American lives, property, and paychecks rest in existential peril each moment he remains in the White House. Who is this President Obama they’re always talking about? Apparently, he’s some guy who’s both so nefarious as to deliberately aid America’s enemies, even while being so incompetent as to need a teleprompter wherever he goes; who bows to dictators and kills babies; who is just like Hitler; who loves to give billions of dollars to union stooges and who has begun a massive war on the Catholic Church/all religion/the idea of religious tolerance (but who is, of course, secretly a Muslim, or at least operates under a “different theology”). It would be crazy if we had a president like that!
The most enraging part of the debate, as always, were the lies, the insane, made-up, on-their-face lies that they all told, but none with more comfort and alacrity than Mitt Romney. Lying is so hard, and yet he does it so easily. A good example came during the 10 minute discussion of contraception. (What’s that? You’re not particularly interested in hearing four old white men discussing whether women should have access to contraception and abortions? That makes 150 million of us!) Here’s Romney:

I don't think we've seen in the history of this country the kind of attack on religious conscience, religious freedom, religious tolerance that we've seen under Barack Obama. Most recently, of course -- most recently requiring the Catholic Church to provide for its employees and its various enterprises health care insurance that would include birth control, sterilization and the morning-after pill. Unbelievable.

This is a lie. Period. At no point, even before Obama’s compromise, did the Administration consider including churches in its contraception coverage mandate. Never. Rather, the entire debate was over church-affiliated organizations that serve mostly lay people, like universities and hospitals. And then Romney had the audacity to follow up that lie with a flat-out assertion that he had never imposed a similar rule while governor: “There was no requirement in Massachusetts for the Catholic Church to provide morning-after pills to rape victims.” This is simply false. There was indeed such a requirement, and it was quite controversial. During the debate, Romney even lied about the number of pages the health reform bill took up. The fact that all of these falsehoods are so easily fact-checked makes Romney’s instinctive mendacity all the more incredible.

WE CAN WIN WHEN WE FIGHT: Yesterday, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell displayed a “sudden change of position” when he rescinded his support of the transvaginal ultrasound law that was working its way through the state legislature. In a statement released yesterday afternoon, he asked the state House to amend the law so that “no woman in Virginia will have to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound involuntarily.” “Mandating an invasive procedure in order to give informed consent is not a proper role for the state,” McDonnell said. An amended version of the bill, which still requires an abdominal ultrasound, passed the House 63-32. The state senator who introduced the bill originally is none too pleased with the amendments, and has declared her intention to withdraw her entire bill from the senate rather than accept this watered down version. Even bigger, the Virginia senate today voted 24-14 to kill the “personhood” bill that would have endowed a fertilized egg with all the rights of a person, not only banning all abortions but likely banning many forms of hormonal birth control.

The point of this story is that we can only win these battles if we choose to fight them. In just the past month, the women’s movement has shown over and over that when the Right goes after our basic rights and tries to legislate a theological view of womanhood that essentially confines them to the kitchen and birthing room, we will marshal our forces to fight back, persuade the public -- and win. In Virginia, both online mobilization and visible, dramatic silent protests outside the capital brought the harsh glow of media attention to the legislature, and forced them to kill one bill completely and delay a final vote on the other bill -- which gave the governor time to change his position and rewrite the bill. We won’t win every battle, but we will certainly lose every one we don’t fight.

BUT DON’T THINK MCDONNEL IS A REASONABLE MAN: Just in case the last story made you wonder whether the Virginia governor -- who is determined to get a spot on the presidential ticket this fall -- is somewhat reasonable, check out Rachel Maddow’s summary of his positions and what he has done in office. It’s breathtakingly radical.

GOOD NEWS -- Federal Judge Says DOMA is Unconstitutional: A federal judge in California -- appointed by George W. Bush -- the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional yesterday. He held that the law violates the Equal Protection Clause because it prohibits the federal government from extending the same health care benefits to spouses of gay federal employees that it gives to spouses of straight employees. The judge also ruled that classifications based on sexual orientation should be subject to heightened judicial scrutiny, akin to classifications based on gender.

MORE GOOD NEWS -- Maryland Effectively Legalizes Gay Marriage: Right on the heels of Washington, Maryland is one governor’s signature away from legalizing gay marriage. The state senate passed the bill today, 25-22, and Democratic Governor Martin O’Malley has promised to sign it.

Must Read of the Week: Jonathan Chait defends the Obama Recovery.
Fun Videos of the Week: We’ve got four, count ‘em FOUR, super fun videos this week. First, check out SNL’s take on the current debate over contraception (featuring Amy Poehler!). Next, head over to the Daily Show to see Jon Stewart’s amazing, hypocrisy-revealing run-down of the same issue (featuring points and flip-flops and clips I have not seen anywhere else). Then check out this hilarious mash-up of Romney’s latest earthquake-level pandering with “Anchorman” (h/t Yoni Cohen). And finally, sit back and enjoy the latest vocal stylings from President Obama.