Lindsay Bayerstein of Big Think on the no-doubt humiliating but nevertheless meaningless executive order that gave anti-abortion fanatic Bart Stupak a face-saving way to flip-flop on HCR.
The president might as well have signed an executive order banning federal funds for vajazzling, the option was never on the table. It costs nothing to repeat the obvious. At first it seemed like Democrats might have to make substantive concessions to Stupak in order to placate him. Then Stupak shot himself in the foot by publicly dissing nuns. His vaunted coalition of anti-choice Democrats began to fray as more more mainstream Catholic organizations came out in favor of reform.
That sounds about right. Bayerstein quotes Amanda Marcotte’s more pithy version
That this is some impressive political jujitsu. Having the President reaffirm what was already the law of the land in order to secure a vote from Bart Stupak, who has clearly never read the bill he’s so fucking concerned about. Did they come up with this brilliant plan after Stupak has made it clear that his contempt for women’s opinions applies even to nuns? Is it possible that Nancy Pelosi called up Obama and said, “Look, I’ve been telling him and Sebelius has been telling him there’s no federal funding for abortion in this bill. He apparently needs to hear it from a man, so can you give us a hand?”
That sounds even better.
Yes, it’s humiliating that Obama had to sign it to get HCR passed. And yes, it’s a setback for those of us who’s ambition it is to make pregnancy termination safer, more easily accessible, and less-often necessary. But at the end of the day Stupak’s damage had already been done. This just kept it from being worse.
