A thought just ran across my mind like the tiniest of mice, and it once again impresses me how we fail to even use memories that are not so far back in some of our current rhetorical battles.
When the "death panel" accusations arose, why didn't anyone, start screaming that George W. & Laura Bush, in the days of Terry Schiavo, both admitted to having living wills, and Laura thought that the occasion of Ms. Schiavo's plight being dragged into the public eye, was one in which others could become attentive to this issue:
Laura Bush says she and the President, George Bush, have living wills that will guide medical decisions if either of them becomes incapacitated like Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged Florida woman.
Mrs Bush said it was a "very, very difficult time" for Mrs Schiavo's family, but she was encouraged that many people had been spurred to create living wills.
"I hear the numbers of people inquiring about living wills or writing living wills increased dramatically, and I think that is really good," she said.
"The President and I have living wills, and of course our parents do, and they wanted us always to be aware of it. I think that is important for families to have an opportunity to talk about these issues."
http://www.smh.com.au/...
Alas, now, rephrased as a "death panel" this country gets spooked away from something even the Bushes do!
I'll digress no more.
The latest fire drawing the media looky-loos is of course, (not-to-be-confused-with-Valerie-Plame's-husband) Joe Wilson's outburst at Obama's address on health care reform. After which he claimed he lost control of his emotions.
Man, pardon the pun, I thought only women did that.
I remember just about 6 months back when the right wing was worried that Sonia Sotomayor was going to menstruate all over the Constitution, and change the very course of American history under the influence of Midol, or something:
Call the wahmbulance. The right-wing moaning about Sonia Sotomayor has torn through every racist, sexist, and intertwined insult in the book so quickly that they have to go all the way back to junior high for the next round.
The Women's Media Center alerted me this morning to the most juvenile and transparent complaint yet, thanks to former Watergate scoundrel G. Gordon Liddy, a moral exemplar par excellence. He said the following:
Let’s hope that the key conferences aren’t when she’s
menstruating or something, or just before she’s going to menstruate.
That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then.
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/...
As an aside, I must say that a 55-year old woman is likely post-menopausal.It is obvious Gordon Liddy doesn't know much about a woman's body, and one can shudder to think he ever had empirical experience of one, for the sake of any woman.
Although, I have the sneakin'-ist suspicion that old Joe was just doing the most au courant attention-getting ploy--shout something in a political meeting setting that likely will be televised--if we have to take him at his word, we should insist, for the sake of this country that all hormonal levels of our elected officials be closely monitored, both estrogen & testosterone (the latter, especially when there's a vote to support a war)
CSPAN will just have to add those stats, as each member of the Congress votes.