This thing about women just won't go away. It really isn't going to go away. No amount of denial or rationalizing is going to make it go away. This contraception thing is a big deal. A very big deal. This law that repeals equal pay in Wisconsin isn't a little thing - it's a big deal.
Really, the War on Women and all it's permutations is not going to leave the news cycle.
There's an excellent diary on the Rec list that clearly details the reality of the War on Women and here's an article on Mediaite that doesn't get it. There's no comparison of these two posts. cc clearly points out the GOP agenda. Noah Rothman over at Mediaite obfuscates it with a dose of denial followed up with a dollop of distraction. He tries to give the War on Woman the clarity of fog...maybe he's just blowing smoke to obscure the issues.
Noah Rothman was focused on Alex Wagner's Friday's panel that was discussing Reince Priebus equating the idea of War on Women with a war on caterpillars nonsense among other things. I saw the segment and found it to be very different than what MSNBC usually airs as this panel was 4 women and 1 man of differing political views. The panel's irritation was clear, but what was striking was the fact that the entire panel seemed to be in agreement that the attacks on women are a GOP problem. Although Martin Bashir was clearly uncomfortable, he agreed that dismissing women will not be a winning strategy for the GOP.
The panel's composition gave Rothman his title, MSNBC Panel Displays Stunning Lack Of Self-Awareness In Analysis Of The ‘War On Women’, which got me to give it a read. The title didn't seem to have anything to do with the content. The women were very aware of what they were discussing and the implications of what could happen to their quality of life if the GOP's anti-woman agenda came to fruition. That part of the discussion apparently went over Rothman's head.
Did Rothman focus on the content of what the panel said? Oh, no, he got caught up in his supposed snub to Republican women everywhere. Rothman focused on Wagner's panel dismissing the possibility of Romney choosing a woman as a Veep running mate as a given. Rothman then wrote his defense of Republican women that skirts the issue of why Romney won't select a woman as a running mate. Romney is stuck needing to pander to the righter side of the right wing of his party which precludes a woman running mate. (If Romney does win the nomination and does select a woman running mate; I'll come back to this diary and post a comment mea culpa, but I don't think that will happen.)
Romney won't pick a woman running mate; but not because there isn't a Republican woman for him to choose (please note I didn't put in any qualifiers in this statement). He won't choose a woman because he is still in a primary race that requires him to continue his skid to the right. He can't select a woman running mate and still be able to court the ultra right wingers he needs to win the primary. Romney has appointed women as governor, but that was then and this is now. He's not going to select a woman running mate and Rothman blithely ignores the political reality the Wagner panel didn't bother to talk about.
Rothman concluded the panel didn't think there was a qualified Republican woman veep candidate, but they didn't say that. That segment (and it may be it was because I am a woman) was all about the annoyance in the panel's voices. I could relate and Rothman didn't. I don't need some guy to defend the idea of a woman veep candidate, most of the panel agreed with that idea (literal interpretations not withstanding). However, I do need his vote to put an end to this GOP War on Women that is being won in our state legislatures. Unfortunately, the comment thread of Rothman's post is all, Hell Yeah with few and far between progressives trying to stem the tide. Yep, the obtuse definitely obfuscated the obtuse.
You know the GOP has run off the rails when progressives and newscasters searching for parity invoke the likes of Lisa Murkowski and Olympia Snowe as voices of reason. Even they are balking at some of this GOP nonsense.
Rothman isn't likely to see the War on Woman until it inconveniences him. Maybe, he'll have a clear picture of what the War on Women is all about by then.