McCain tripped up (again) on abortion-rights inconsistencies

May 10, 2008

Shortly before the Republican South Carolina primary in 2000, John McCain and George W. Bush got into a rather heated exchange at a debate over abortion and the GOP platform. McCain caught Bush in an uncomfortable contradiction — the then-Texas governor opposed abortion rights, supported an exception for rape, incest, and a woman’s health, but embraced a Republican platform that made no exceptions.

2000 McCain hammered Bush for running on a platform he didn’t agree with. 2008 McCain seems to have found himself in the exact same predicament.

As recently as last year, McCain reiterated his long-held position that the Republican platform should be altered to make exceptions to a national ban on abortion. This year, under pressure from far-right activists, McCain is prepared to give up on his commitment.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., faces enormous pressure from social conservatives to ignore his repeated commitment to change the GOP’s platform on abortion.

“If he were to change the party platform,” to account for exceptions such as rape, incest or risk to the mother’s life, “I think that would be political suicide,” said Tony Perkins, the president of the conservative Family Research Council, to ABC News. “I think he would be aborting his own campaign because that is such a critical issue to so many Republican voters and the Republican brand is already in trouble.”

A senior Republican close to McCain told ABC News that building a more inclusive GOP is a top priority for the Arizona senator. But this adviser does not see changing the party platform to include exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother as necessary for achieving that vision.

In other words, he’s doing exactly what he excoriated Bush for doing eight years ago.

While McCain has not addressed the abortion platform since becoming the presumed Republican nominee, he reaffirmed his desire to change the GOP’s official abortion stance following a multicandidate forum that took place in Des Moines, Iowa, April 14, 2007. […]

While leaving the platform untouched would please many in the GOP’s socially conservative base, it could alienate some of the more moderate voters that McCain hopes to woo.

“If he doesn’t change the platform, then he’s being the same kind of hypocrite that he accused Bush of being in 2000,” said Jennifer Blei Stockman, the co-chairwoman of Republican Majority for Choice. “To not accept abortion in cases of rape and incest, give me a break. That’s sick. That’s inhumane.”

“And the life of the mother?” she added. “These are things that we can’t even put our arms around because they are so inhumane.”

McCain agrees. Or, at a minimum, he used to, before the religious right told him he to change his mind and do exactly what he criticized Bush for doing.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) defended McCain, saying, “I don’t know how you can accuse John McCain of being a flip-flop on a topic where the party rank and file that will be at the convention will support that plank even if his views differ slightly.”

That doesn’t make any sense. In fact, this isn’t complicated — McCain said he wanted to change the GOP platform to make it more humane, and now McCain has said he doesn’t want to make the change. If you take a position, and then take the opposite position for political convenience and expediency, it’s a flip-flop.

Jennifer Blei Stockman added, “Many people think of [McCain] as a moderate. But when it comes out that he doesn’t want to change this extreme, right-wing Republican platform, the word ‘moderate’ is going to disappear from any description of McCain.”

Well, at least it should.

And the Oblivious Rethuglican Du Jour award goes to Tony Perkins:

“I think he would be aborting his own campaign because that is such a critical issue to so many Republican voters and the Republican brand is already in trouble.”

Excuse me while I laugh and slap my knee.

Gee Tony, you don’t think your brand might be in trouble because people are sick of you guys’ bedroom patrol do ya?

It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that it is now patently obvious to everyone with an IQ higher than the number of wetsuits you own that you’re a bunch of hypocrites who are just in it for the power.

No one could have possibly foreseen that when yet another Family Focused Fetus Fetishist gets caught sticking his dick in a guy who isn’t his wife that people might start to wonder if you all need to pay attention to the plank in your eyes before you worry about other people’s motes.

I for one hope McCain continues to pander to these fucks. It’s the only way the GOP and the TalEvan will get the political bitch slapping they deserve.

  • Obama and McCain will provide quite the contrast in November. Obama holds true to his his ideals and philosophies, and when he changes his views, you get the sense that it’s something he does out of thought, information, and soul-searching. He doesn’t seem to say things (or drink things *cough*Hillary/boilermakers*cough*) solely to get elected. He speaks his truth regardless of how popular it’s going to be. He doesn’t pretend to have all the answers.

    McCain, on the other hand, changes with the wind and says whatever he thinks will get elected. No substance there.

  • I’m with tAiO – except for his wrongheaded support of an awful telecoms company o’course – Nail McCain with this one, it’s one that most swing voters simply cannot swallow.

  • change his mind and do exactly what he criticized Bush for doing.

    mclame is insane – perfect tool for the criminal cabal that fraudulently hoisted an AWOL alcoholic/cocaine addict into the White House as a “war president.”

    You don’t understand – mclame has no mind of his own, no critical thinking skills. He just panders and does what suits what he perceives is best for himself.

    Because he is 110% “sold-out” to the interests behind dur chimpfurher, he sees his best interests as linked to his overlords.

    There really isn’t any “mind” to change.

  • …another Family Focused Fetus Fetishist gets caught sticking his dick in a guy who isn’t his wife…

    So THIS is why they oppose gay marriage!?!?!?!?!?!

  • OT Hey CB thanks for all the great material today, but it IS Saturday. Better make sure Mrs. CB isn’t tapping her foot, emitting exasperated sighs, or giving you irritated sideglances as you work. 🙂

  • The Answer is Orange said:
    yet another Family Focused Fetus Fetishist gets caught sticking his dick in a guy who isn’t his wife

    In most states you can’t stick your dick in a guy who IS your wife until the marriage laws change.

  • I can see the campaign brochures now:

    Hello, friend. My name’s John McCain. I want you to be your next President—and I don’t care how many women have to die to get me there.

    I will rest easy tonight, knowing that the silly little dwarf just cost himself the women’s vote.

  • Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., faces enormous pressure from social conservatives to ignore his repeated commitment
    John McCain has a commitment to something?

  • McCain’s antipathy for women extends beyond flip flops on abortion rights. He voted against letting women pursuing cases like Lilly Ledbetter’s — challenging unequal pay for equal work — saying they needed more training and education (because they are too inept to do the equal jobs for which they earn unequal pay?). He reportedly: urged friends to fire female assistants who’d disagreed with him on fact or policy; used the worst possible epithet for women in the English language on his wife, whose money launched his political career and in whose tax returns he hides his own fungible worth, in front of three reporters; took up with this second, younger wife while still living with his disabled, first wife, the one who held his home and family together during his war captivity. In other words: a bully and a user who seems not to regard women as equally human. See Cliff Schecter’s book, The Real McCain.

  • Most republicans don’t want that plank in their platform anymore but John is pandering for the wingnuts vote and money. There is a growing majority of evangelicals refusing to let themselves be swayed by these sick neocon preachers who claim they represent the religious right of the Republican party. There are many important issues at stake of which abortion is only one. (Let’s see; abortion vs peace, hmmm) Just like Sunni and Shiites and Kurds (oh my) McBush just can’t keep them straight and needs several Lieberman clones with him at every moment to know what to say before he says something like “I thought catholics were the great whores and they’re against abortions”. Like winning a beauty contest by being the least ugly, McBush just turned out to be the least embarrassing candidate willing to run for the republicans. There is no compromise with these thugs and McSame will say or do anything to be president…it has nothing to do with caring about Americans…my friends…it’s about doubling my 8 domestic mansions and being king. Privatize, deregulate, and dominate the world.

  • McCain’s antipathy for women extends beyond flip flops on abortion rights.

    But, geeeee, don’t mclame and the repugs show respect and concern for women when they use prostitutes? I mean – they are paying the, paying them well, then?

    Gotta admit, though, it is “inconvenient” when someone MURDERS the woman that oversaw their harem (D.C. Madam).

    Republicans may not support mothers, women’s civil & economic rights, and health needs including reproduction, but damn – they sure like to pass out the dough to them when they want sex.

    That must count as some type of support, right?

  • Can we STOP treating Tony Perkins as a ‘respectable’ extremist? His reputation may have survived the connection with David Duke, but he forfeited all claims to respectability at the “Reclaiming America for Christ” conference in March 2007 when the following occurred — according to Adele Stam of Americans United:

    “I am not here to call the church to partisan action,” Perkins explained. “I am not here advocating for a political party. I am here advocating for Christian citizenship.”

    Lest any of the assembled miss the point, Perkins offered up the story of Phineas, grandson of Moses’ brother Aaron, from Numbers 25. Phineas was rewarded by God with an “everlasting priesthood” for killing an Israelite and his Midian lover because God had forbidden the mixing of the men of Israel with the women of that tribe.

    This is not merely an obscure (but ugly) biblical reference — though I am sure that it went as much over the heads of the majority of his audience as it did over the heads of the media. It was code, and code recognizable to the most dangerous of his audience. The story of Phineas (or Phinehas) was first used by the racist extremist Richard Kelly Hoskins in his book, VIGILANTES OF CHRISTENDOM. To quote the report of the ADL on Hoskins:

    The book traces the supposed history of the “Phineas Priesthood,” vigilantes who, throughout history, have punished “race traitors” with violent reprisals.

    The Phineas concept derives from a passage in the Book of Numbers in which an Israelite named Phineas kills a kinsman who has had sexual relations with a non-Israelite woman (brazenly violating God’s law and communal ties). For this act, God blesses Phineas and his descendants with everlasting favor – a covenant that marks the start of the Priesthood, according to Hoskins. He writes approvingly of murderers of homosexuals and interracial couples, and asserts that followers of the Phineas credo include John Wilkes Booth, the Waffen SS, the Ku Klux Klan and the 1980s terrorist group The Order. Vigilantes also devotes a section to “proving” that the Holocaust was a hoax perpetrated by the Jews to destroy the German nation.

    While mostly comprised of Hoskins’s account of world history from a Phineas perspective, the book’s true influence was in the conceptualization of the Phineas Priesthood, a clergy to which any white supremacist was ordained merely by seeking to destroy God’s enemies, including race-mixers, homosexuals, abortionists and Jews. In the years following its publication, a number of white supremacists (including Beckwith) adopted the Priesthood concept ex post facto to justify crimes they had already committed, while others used it as the inspiration for acts they intended to commit. The symbol of the Priesthood – the letter P with a horizontal line through it – began to appear in extremist logos and jewelry as the Phineas idea came to represent the ultimate white supremacist commitment.

    Nor is this a minor reference to a disgusting book. (Sorry for the number of quotes here, but on something this serious I don’t like to paraphrase.) There are Phineas Priests — self-described — and they include many of the most successful of our home-grown terrorists. A final quote, this time from Wikipedia:

    The Phineas Priesthood (aka Phineas Priests) is a Christian Identity movement that opposes interracial intercourse, mixing of races, homosexuality, and abortion. It is also marked by its anti-Semitism, anti-multiculturalism, and opposition to taxation. It is not considered an organization, because it is not led by a governing body, there are no gatherings, and there is no membership process. One becomes a Phineas Priest by simply adopting the beliefs of the Priesthood, and acting upon those beliefs. Women are not generally permitted to become members. Members of the Priesthood are often considered terrorists for, among other things, planning to blow up FBI buildings, abortion clinic bombings, and bank robberies.

    For further research, look at the premier blogger on the study of the dangerous fringe right, Dave Neiwert of Orcinus. Search under “Phineas.”

  • Grampy will do anything to win. His desperation smells like panther sweat, noticeable at a distance of several miles if you’re unfortunate enough to be downwind.

  • I guess we’re lucky that Bush went awol. He would have been an even worse fighter pilot than McCain.

  • McCain’s anti-woman beliefs go waaaaaaaaay back, back to what he learned from his forebears that they had learned at Annapolis (an institution that – 30 years after women were allowed to become midshipmen – still deals with rampant mysogynism. This was then multiplied during his career as a Nasal Radiator (don’t ever use that term to a Naval Aviator to his face if you aren’t looking for a fight, because you’ll get it).

    Anybody remember the Tailhook scandal, where the Boys in Dark Blue and Forest Green were trying to rape any female trying to get past them in the hallways? That’s Grampy’s worldview on view for all. That was the day I stopped being proud of my association with naval aviation.

  • I think this fits into my top three reasons not to vote for McCain.

    1) Whatever independent or moderate positions he once held have been abandoned so he can act as a shill for the extreme right.

    2) He combines the knee-jerk, militaristic foreign policy of the Bush administration with a bad temper.

    3) He’s an old fart who has totally lost his marbles.

  • DK said:
    3) He’s an old fart who has totally lost his marbles.

    Yeah. Marbles, bearings…something’s rolling across the floor.

  • Not making a Rape exception is just making women womb-slaves.

    We really need to pound the Republican’ts more over this.

  • So … a woman is doomed to die in child-birth because the unborn take priority over the living. Or is it because the man thinks that the child is more importanly his creation? Either way, the unborn child becomes the favored rather than the wife/mother. Misogny? Why aren’t women up in arms about this total ban of all abortions?

  • This should give pause to women who claim they will vote for McCain if Hillary isn’t the nominee. Right?

  • I thought that GOP candidates tacked to port after getting the nomination, not starboard. The feeling that he is this nervous even after all but securing the nomination is telling. It might be a good thing that the GOP convention is later, giving him less time to try to attempt a change in course.

  • #23 – not sure what your point is. Josh IS refering to an organization that calls itself “Women’s Voices. Women Vote”. The president of said organization is a woman.

    She herself states it’s an “unfortunate coincidence in timing” and acknoledges it may result in “confusion or aggravation for either your state’s voters or registrars.”

    Just like in the racist robocalls in PA, they are purportedly advocating winen to register to vote after the deadline to register for the primary.

    Betty Ireland (a woman) reports her office is getting returns from this mailing that it actually is causing confusion.

    No mention of hair color – and the article if all about what some women are actually doing, not what the media or men are doing.

    So if this reinforces “dumb blonde” who never learn, who is really responsible for this? Ditzy blondes themselves? We all know that education levels in WV (men & women) are not in the stratosphere.

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