×
- As we put-down, put-upon, lovable-losing liberals have been learning for decades now, if you can't win-even in your own party-at least you can revel in reminders of your moral and intellectual superiority. Republicans, bless their hearts, are ever more happy to oblige.
- On Thursday, as you may have heard, governor-turned-Fox News guitar hero Mike Huckabee, revving up for another run at the White House (he's slimming down, people, watch out!), graced us with a whole new concept of women's liberation: "If the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it," Huckabee told the RNC.
- Entirely unpredictable liberal reaction? For shame-and yee-haw! Here's Michael Tomasky: "This is what he said-in essence, that birth control, provided by people who think women can't control their libidos, makes women 'helpless.' It's the culture of dependency again, but this time transferred from the ghetto to the uterus. The Democrats, I guess, want women to go out and have unrestrained sex, so Democrats can then go out and destroy America by distributing these sinful contraceptive devices. So women, you see, are not human beings with agency and volition about their sexuality in Huckabee Land. They're nothing more than the cat's paws of the godless, baby-killing Democrats, who want to keep them on the Democratic plantation. The Pill, the welfare check, the Earned Income Tax Credit-all the work of Satan, propagated by the party of Satan." Nicely said, sir!
- Molly Ball seconds that analysis, albeit more succintly: "The creepy, condescending-uncle image, the retrograde attitude toward sex: Huckabee managed to illustrate exactly the phenomenon he was trying to decry, the perception that Republicans don't know how to talk to or about women." Even more concisely, our own Paul Waldman says the Huckster "stepped up to the plate and smacked a stand-up double in the GOP's ongoing effort to alienate every woman in America."
- But it's Amanda Marcotte at The Raw Story who truly nails the superiority thing: "I did have one idiot trying to convince me that Huckabee wasn't saying that Democrats were disrespecting women by saying they use contraception, but just those women who use contraception funded by the ACA-required contraception coverage. However, the idea that one's libido is in control if you pay cash for contraception but out of control when you use insurance to pay for it is so stupid that I can't even imagine Huckabee is that dumb."
- But while Huckabee was busy stealing all the outrage thunder, you might have missed something just as liberally gloat-worthy in the news on Thursday. Pew, bless its pollstery heart, asked Republicans and Democrats for their "opinions about the rich and poor" and the "fairness of the economic system." You know this is gonna be good. So, Pew asked, what's the biggest factor in why somebody gets rich? Fifty-seven percent of Republicans say it's "because he or she worked harder than others" (27 percent of Dems concurred). Might it be, instead, that rich people "had more advantages"? Pshaw! say Republicans.
- And how about poverty? What makes someone poor in this great land? "Lack of effort on his or her part," say most Republicans. ("Circumstances beyond his or her control," sayeth the Dems.) But perhaps, just maybe, America's economic system is tilted ever-so-slightly in the favor of the wealthy? Heaven forfend! Three-fourths of GOPers aver that hard workwill get you ahead in these United Stats.
- Giddy liberal translation? Take it away, TPM: "Poll Shows Most Republicans Think People Are Poor Because They Don't Work Hard Enough." Can we get an amen?
- If that's not enough fodder for you, consider the extreme weather most of us are currently shivering through and recall another delightful (and frightening) survey finding from just a while back: Not only do the vast majority of Republicans deny climate change, no fewer than 58 percent of them go just a tad bit further, calling climate change-according, again, to Pew-a "hoax."
- Predictably enough, the cold snap has had Fox News suddenly all abuzz on the subject of climate change-as in, "You're freezing? It's snowing? See! No global warming!" Media Matters ran some numbers, comparing a heat-wave week with the chilly one of Jan. 2-8, and found that Fox was nine times more likely to bring up the subject when, baby, it was cold outside. Can't imagine why that might be.
- And here is your final happy thought for the weekend, fellow travelers: Sean Hannity, the charmingly intellectual Fox personality who's leaving New York in protest of Andrew Cuomo's runaway liberal bigotry, is seriously considering a run for office wherever he lands next. "It would either be in Texas or Florida," he confirms. Which inspired Senator Ted Cruz to call dibs immediately on Twitter: Texas, he said, "would be happy to have you." And so would we all. Run, Sean, run!
