VP BIDEN: And this guy talking about women, these guys talking about women? This guy had -- these guys had the social policy on contraception that takes you back to the ‘50s. They have a policy toward -- I mean, when asked the question, do you think this legislation passed mandating that your son and daughter doing the same work will have to get the exact same pay, the Lilly Ledbetter law, they couldn’t answer (inaudible).
ED SCHULTZ: So the war on women is real?
BIDEN: Oh, I think the war on women is real. And look I tell you where it’s going to intensify. The next President of the United States is going to get to name one and possibly two or more members of the Supreme Court.
Now, given Dave Weigel's
premature report of the death of "the war on women" as a Democratic talking point, I suspect some in the beltway might be surprised by Biden's comments. They shouldn't be. The war on women isn't something that Democrats dreamt up as a cynical ploy to win an election: it is, as Biden says, a real thing, and it's being waged by Republicans. As long as Democrats are wiling to fight, the only way it's going to end is if Republicans finally accept that women have a fundamental right to control their own lives and their own bodies. And if the Romney campaign's Hilary Rosen fauxtrage is an indication, of anything, it's that Republicans aren't planning to stand down anytime soon.
By the way, it's not like Joe Biden's alone on this. There's a reason that that there's a 19-point gender gap between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama: it's that there's a lot of women out there who know their freedom is under attack by right-wing radicals. They know the war on women is real. And they don't like it.