Lakhota
Diamond Member
By Evan McMorris-Santoro
Very neatly, and on three separate fronts, conservatives in America turned the clock back to the 1950s with their rhetoric about womens rights Thursday, according to women in politics on both sides of the aisle. This could be a big problem for the GOP when the calendar reaches November.
Lets take a look at Thursday, February 16, 2012, the day Washington fell into a time-warp.
On Capitol Hill, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) held hearings on contraception and religious freedom that produced the now-famous picture of a table full of men called to weigh in on access to contraceptives. Democrats wanted a woman a Georgetown law student with a friend who lost an ovary because the university doesnt cover birth control to say her piece at the hearing, but Issa wouldnt let her on the panel. He said she wasnt appropriate or qualified to discuss the topic at hand.
Jaws dropped in the womens rights community.
She didnt have the right credentials? NOW President Terry ONeill scoffed. Im thinking to myself, Buddy, you and your little panel over there dont have the right anatomy to talk about birth control.
Politico published a story about a right wing firestorm that had been burning for days: Did the young women who attended this years CPAC wear skirts that were too short? The days following the massive conservative conference, which closed Saturday, were filled with tweets and blog posts weighing in on what conservative pundit Melissa Clouthier called outfits that made the college-age women at CPAC look either frumpish or like two-bit whores. CPAC needs these women to survive 55% of attendees at the 2011 conference were under 25 but apparently conservatives want to make sure they dont show too much of their legs lest they detract from the solemnity of the proceedings. The general agreement among conservatives after days of debate: a CPAC dress code would go too far but ladies, please.
Foster Friess, the billionaire backer of Rick Santorums campaign, became an instant celebrity when he went on Andrea Mitchells MSNBC show and said, Back in my day, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasnt that costly. Heres what that looked like:
More: How The GOP Went Back To The 1950s In Just One Day | TPM2012