A fundamental clash of values and worldview
by digby
The mildly derisive tone of this piece gives away Politico’s disgust with the Democrats’ combativeness on women’s issues. The GOP may have done this for decades, but that’s their role. The Dems are supposed to be squishes so we can all get along:
Here’s a guide to what the list of speakers reveals about the Democratic Party:
Uncompromising support for abortion rights
The party platform and the list of convention speakers – which includes NARAL Pro-choice America’s Nancy Keenan, Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s Cecile Richards, birth control activist Sandra Fluke and some of the strongest abortion rights supporters in Congress – makes clear the Democratic Party is now as uncompromising as the GOP on the issue of abortion rights.
It’s not just the heavy presence of abortion rights supporters and the absence of abortion opponents on stage that proves it. Just look at the evolution of the party platform over the past three conventions. The language respecting “the individual conscience of each American on this difficult issue” and that “we welcome all our members to participate at every level of our party” vanished in 2004. The language about making abortions “rare” disappeared in 2008.
The Democratic Party now, in its 2012 platform, “strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy” and will “oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.”
The bastards!
If this is actually the case, I say Huzzah! Being willing to “compromise” with people who refuse is the biggest suckers game in town. And abortion rights was the earliest battlefield for the GOP scorched earth strategy. At the time everyone felt that it was just a bunch of whiny beeyotches complaining about the icky and that in order to win we needed to find “common ground.” It was one big Sistahood Soljah.
If they’ve finally learned that this is a very real, fundamental clash of values and worldview, by God it’s about time.
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