I’ve noticed a certain pattern to some of my posts this week. Which is to say, they’re mostly about the same thing — John McCain doing or saying something offensive. I’d like to write about plenty of other things — really, I would — and I keep thinking, “Just as soon as the McCain campaign goes an afternoon without offending me, I’ll tackle some other subjects.” But that afternoon just doesn’t seem to happen.
Take today, for example, when John McCain hosted an event in Wisconsin where he touted his support for women’s rights.
“We haven’t done enough,” McCain said. “We have not done enough. And I’m committed to making sure that there’s equal pay for equal work. That there is equal opportunity in every aspect of our society. And that is my record and you can count on it.”
This is just madness. If we look at this record — the one women can “count on” — we see the exact opposite of what McCain vowed.
Adam Jentleson explained, “In April, McCain opposed a major Senate bill seeking equal pay for women…. In 2000, McCain opposed an amendment that aimed to ‘provide more effective remedies to victims of discrimination in the payment of wages on the basis of sex.’ In 1985, McCain voted against a study to investigate pay differences among federal employees, and determine whether they were the result of discrimination.”
Indeed, after the ridiculous Supreme Court ruling in Ledbetter, McCain “dismissed the importance of equal pay, saying that women simply need ‘education and training.'”
In other words, McCain was campaigning today on women’s issues, hoping desperately that voters don’t know anything about his record of women’s issues. Once again, McCain is counting on public ignorance to get him through the campaign.
What’s more, in going after Obama, McCain has apparently abandoned honesty altogether.
The presumptive GOP nominee uses a midday town hall meeting with women in Hudson, Wisconsin, to hit his opponent on taxes, health care and the economy.
Says Obama will “make it harder on women” by raising taxes and harming businesses. “I’m not going to let that happen.”
Says affordable health care “is especially important to women in the work force.”
What? Obama wants to cut taxes for Americans who make less than $250,000 a year — in fact, he wants to do more to cut taxes on the middle class than McCain does. As health care, McCain’s policy is a joke that wouldn’t cover the uninsured, leaves people with pre-existing conditions behind, and actually encourages employers to drop coverage.
Do you suppose that might “make it harder on women”?
With each passing day, McCain’s entire campaign gets more farcical, but today’s pitch on women’s issues was especially unnerving.
For what it’s worth, here’s the Obama campaign’s response to McCain comments:
“Senator Obama understands that the challenges facing women and families in the 21st century are very different than the challenges of the past, but John McCain seems stuck in an outdated view of American families. Senator Obama believes every woman deserves equal pay for equal work. He has a plan to help working women by guaranteeing seven paid sick days to the 22 million who currently have none, and by providing child tax credits, additional after-school programs, and a tax cut for 71 million working women and eliminating capital gains taxes for 8.7 million women who own small businesses or start-ups. Senator McCain thinks the Supreme Court was right to make it harder for women to challenge pay discrimination at work, and he opposed legislation that Obama co-sponsored to reverse that decision. Senator McCain has suggested that the reason women don’t have equal pay isn’t discrimination on the job — it’s because they need more education and training. Senator Obama couldn’t disagree more,” said Obama campaign senior advisor Anita Dunn.”