No one should be surprised by MoveOn’s latest stunt. Using MoveOn’s own words, Republicans are engaging in a WAR ON WOMAN. Oh no, so scary!!
This is nothing new. Liberals often resort to random name calling and hyperbolic speech to scare voters. I remember back in 2004 when actress Cameron Diaz was on the Oprah Winfrey Show talking about the election (I know, I’m embarrassed I tuned in) and she basically said rape would be legalized under the Bush administration:
We have a voice now, and we’re not using it, and women have so much to lose. I mean, we could lose the right to our bodies…if you think that rape should be legal, then don’t vote. But if you think that you have a right to your body, and you have a right to say what happens to you and fight off that danger of losing that, then you should vote…
Yawn….
MoveOn isn’t above using similar language to scare women. In a widely circulated blog post, MoveOn is warning that the Republicans are pursuing an anti-woman agenda citing a series of state and federal bills aimed at limiting abortion, reducing funding for head-start, employment services, meals and housing for senior citizens.
What MoveOn doesn’t seem to understand is that State legislators are permitted under our form of government to introduce whatever legislation they see fit (even bills they find unsavory). If the voters disagree, they can throw the member out of office. Governors and the President can veto legislation. Laws can be overturned. This is the beauty of our system.
Instead of challenging those specific bills, MoveOn is charging that these bills are part of a larger, coordinated effort on the part of Republican Leader Boehner and the National Republican Party. After all, the blog’s headline says it is the “GOP’s War on Women.”
The aim here is to further scare women away from the Republican Party by painting its members as Neanderthal men bent on keeping women subservient. In fact, when discussing a Maryland proposal to defund a preschool program for low-income children, MoveOn explains that it’s because Republicans think “women should really be home with the kids, not out working.” There source for this quote is, of course, another liberal website.
But the Commissioner who voted to cut county funding for the program didn’t say women should be home at all. He said that his wife stayed home at considerable sacrifice to be there for the children during those critical first years. He further stated that he understands not all families are able to make that sacrifice. I wish the Commissioner had cited the strong evidence that these programs are wasteful and do nothing to help the children they are supposed to support (for more information on that, see Sabrina’s piece here). That would have been a far more convincing argument in these belt-tightening times.
MoveOn is free to use hysterical language but these lies shouldn’t go unchallenged.