Last updated on March 18th, 2012 at 07:17 pm
On Countdown, guest Lewis Black ripped both Rush Limbaugh and the Republican Party’s war on women.
Here is the video from Current TV:
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Keith Olbermann played Limbaugh’s claim that Republicans aren’t really waging war on women, and Lewis Black said, “The possibility is that aliens are trying to communicate with us through him and it’s screwed his wiring, so as a result he’s kind of living in this place. There’s like no, I don’t know what part of the memory, you know, he’s got his memory, but there is no sense of today. There’s no sense of, there can’t be any sense of now, and maybe, so he’s like in a permanent Groundhog Day. He wakes up and it’s always like 1959. I mean because it’s really. I mean to live through this, to listen to this stuff again. This is stuff that when I was young. This is what we were supposed to have worked through, and then we kind of go back through it every so often, but I really did think once, because you look at a calendar and you say oh, it is the 21st Century. We’re supposed to be, the 21st Century. This is Buck Rogers time for God’s sake.â€
Olbermann brought up the GOP’s war on women and the transvaginal ultrasounds and Black said, “I mean, it’s like unbelievable to think they consider. How does it work that they consider. They just, how does it work that they end up, or send women out. I’ll listen to this if you can send a group of women out who will talk like that, and then I’ll listen. I will sit there and I will listen, but to have men babbling this nonsense. No, send out the women who still believe that. The women who still like to be at home, the women who happy that the man is the provider. “
Black ended the segment on the war on women by saying, “We worked over and over and over to get to this point where women have this right of choice. You know it’s over. The ballgame is over. You don’t get to try to put a little tripwire in between so we have to go back and go, ok can you remove the tripwire?â€
Lewis Black brought up a few really good points, besides the fact that there is a distinct possibility that Rush Limbaugh is suffering from some sort of brain damage. Where are the women who want transvaginal ultrasounds? Where are the women who are taking to the streets and begging to have their medical care infringed upon and their civil liberties taken away? Why is it always a Rush Limbaugh, or a Sam Brownback, or Tom Corbett, or a Rick Santorum telling women what they can and can’t have? I haven’t seen any clips of the women of the Republican Party coming out and saying yes, as women we believe that every pregnant women should have a transvaginal ultrasound, or that they have too many rights and civil liberties. There have been no cries from the conservative female peanut gallery calling for the men to silence them. If this is such a popular position where are the women who support it?
The other point that Black brought up highlights the fact that for decades most of the left considered the right to choose a done deal after Roe v. Wade. The left may have thought that battle was over, but the right never stopped fighting. What we are seeing at the state level is the latest social conservative gambit to outlaw the right to choose. If they can’t undo Roe v. Wade at the federal level, then they are going to fight a state by state guerrilla war.
Those who thought the right to choose has moved beyond being an issue must have been shocked by what the right has been able to accomplish since the 2010 elections. The Republican Party leadership doesn’t want this war on women, because they already know what the result will be. Women will head to the polls in 2012 and 2014, and not only defend their rights, but also win the war that is being waged against them.
Women are fighting this battle for their rights every day, but they can’t do it alone. It is encouraging that men like Michael J. Fox and Lewis Black have spoken out against what the right is trying to do, but now more than ever, women need the support of all men. This isn’t a women’s issue. It is an issue that should matter to every single American.
Every boy or man in this country at one time or another in their lives has enjoyed or continues to enjoy the support of a mother, sister, daughter, girlfriend, wife, friend or daughter. The women in our lives have always been there for us. Now, it’s time for us to be there for them.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
