It was only on Thursday when former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee uttered these words at the Republican National Committee's winter meeting:
“I think it’s time Republicans no longer accept listening to the Democrats talk about a 'war on women. The fact is the Republicans don’t have a war on women, they have a war for women, to empower them to be something other than victims of their gender.
"If the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it," Huckabee said. "Let's take that discussion all across America."
Well, America, meet Mike Huckabee: 'Uncle Sugar."
Over at the Campaign for America's Future the story unfolds ...
Funny story: in 2005, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee signed a law mandating Arkansas insurance plans provide contraception coverage, including church-affiliated organizations such as hospitals and universities.
Sweet!
So what changed to make Uncle Sugar all sour?
Nine years ago, Huckabee thought that the government should ensure that everyone had access to contraception. In fact, as the Los Angeles Times detailed in 2012, all sorts of Republicans were happily embracing contraception coverage mandates in the days of Bush and Clinton.
Then Barack Obama became President.
There is manufactured consent and manufactured outrage.
LA Times, 2/15/2012
Twenty-two states have laws or regulations that resemble, at least in part, the Obama administration's original rule. More than a third had some Republican support, a review of state records shows.
In six states, including Arkansas, those contraceptive mandates were signed by GOP governors.
In Massachusetts in 2006, then-Gov. Mitt Romney signed a healthcare overhaul that kept in place a contraceptive mandate signed by his Republican predecessor. Now the GOP presidential candidate is calling the Obama rule an "assault on religion."
Proceed, Governor Huckabee.