The day after an Obama re-election, I think you’ll see Fox News in a complete state of shock. But they are already starting to lay the groundwork for the multiple hits of “Why did Mitt lose?”

I heard yesterday that Romney is not even going with the VP choice that Fox News keeps trumpeting, Marco Rubio, and is instead going to opt for the safe choice of either Rob Portman or Tim Pawlenty. Which makes sense for Romney but will not make the Fox News folks very happy – it will be yet another thing he’s done that they told him not to, and yet another nail in the coffin of his campaign.

Obama has been fairly restrained in his comments about Fox News, when you think about how brazen they’ve been during his presidency. He’s been called every name in the book, he’s been vilified on a daily and even hourly basis, and he’s been accused of every crime imaginable. And yet he still goes on their network to talk with Bill O’Reilly, and Jay Carney still calls on their rep at the press events. Seems to me they’ve gotten more than a fair shake here.

We actually had a discussion about this when Laura Ingraham tried to belittle an expert on sex and health education and instead got her head handed to her.

The right wing approach is apparently to encourage the kids to practice abstinence. Because this has really worked for the past 2000 years, hasn’t it?

Romney’s last statement is ironic. He talks about how people want him to release more and more records – to try and pick through everything to find or make issues. So Romney would understandably not want to submit to that kind of fishing expedition.

But isn’t this what the right wingers have repeatedly been trying to do with President Obama ever since 2008? “Give us the Birth Certificate!”, and he does, but they don’t accept it. “Give us the Long Form Birth Certificate!”, and he does, but they say it’s a fake. “Give us all your college transcripts and papers because we hear you weren’t a good student!” And then when he doesn’t do the last, somehow he must be hiding something…

Maybe the next time Obama is asked about his college transcripts, he could cite Romney’s answer to this question…

Fox is already preparing the narrative to explain a Romney loss, particularly since their boss has been hammering Romney online for how the campaign is being run. The result is a paradoxical split. On the one hand, it’s clear they know which way this is going. On the other hand, the realization of it is causing some of them to panic, resulting in embarassments like the John Sununu freakout on Hannity on Thursday.

This is yet another example of the growing panic among the right wing over the Romney candidacy. Now O’Reilly is losing his temper and fudging his facts over something that’s not much to discuss.

Romney can choose which way he wants his embarassing performance to be interpreted. Either he deliberately said something he knew would provoke that audience to have a bad reaction (as he has admitted he did), or he so misunderstood that audience that he thought he could do it with impunity. I personally think it was the former, based on his statements, and based on the immediate right wing reaction that this behavior would give him “street cred” for having stood up to the NAACP. Even Dick Morris was touting that line on Fox the night before. But now O’Reilly wants to walk that back somehow…

I don’t think Romney did it to attract racist white voters, and I don’t believe that’s what Nancy Pelosi was implying in her statement. He did it to try to play his appearance to appeal to two different constituencies. By appearing at the NAACP, he thought he would appeal to independent and undecided voters as being open-minded. By deliberately provoking them with what would obviously be taken as an offensive comment, he thought he would show conservatives that he wasn’t pandering to the NAACP. That isn’t the same thing as getting a white racist vote. It’s a matter of appealing to conservatives who don’t like the NAACP and say things like several Fox commentators did the night prior about the organization. It wasn’t a specifically racist vote Romney was appealing to in his base – it was the specific right wing vote, which is still not convinced that Romney is their guy.

The argument about schools took O’Reilly down another blind alley for him. Romney’s comment about how he would deal with schools was blatant code for throwing education funding into a voucher program, where rich people could be subsidized for putting their kids in private school while poor people could choose between either spending a lot of money on private school past what the voucher would cover, or leaving their kids in the public schools, which would see their funding base gutted even further than what we have seen so far. That’s long been on the right wing wish list, and it hasn’t happened because smart people on the other side have been able to keep the right wingers from getting away with it. This has never been about school choice; it’s a matter of rich people not liking their tax money going to fund schools their kids don’t attend, and wanting to get a little bonus in the form of a voucher.

It’s a sad situation for Romney that the one time he pops up in public recently, he makes a poor showing at the NAACP and embarasses himself. This is not a good omen for the many public appearances and debates he will need to somehow ace in September and October. It’s no wonder that we’re seeing desperate twitters from Rupert Murdoch and increasingly frantic media appearances by people like John Sununu.

There’s a key point in the interview where Ingraham notes Romney being behind in the polls in several states. Then she notes he is “thankfully” ahead in Virginia. And she notes that key GOP voices like Krauthammer, Kristol and Limbaugh (all of whose voices are featured on Fox, albeit to a much lesser extent with Krustol) really want Romney to win.

The issue here is that while her statement is true, she’s also admitting on the air that the “Fair and Balanced” network is biased toward the GOP candidate. Meaning that the “Fair and Balanced” sobriquet doesn’t apply. Of course, this is no surprise to Fox viewers, but it’s an interesting slip by Ingraham to make a public admission.

The other interesting part was the frozen horrified grin on Begala’s face as he waited to say his first talking points…

The two Holder contempt votes will go down in history as party line votes that a few Dems were pressured into supporting by the NRA. No result will come from this, and the real story has already been published by Fortune.

This is a nothing story about Darrell Issa grandstanding and throwing tantrums, and it’s cheap political revenge for the appropriate investigations of criminality and impropriety in the Bush Admin. By November, I seriously doubt anyone will be thinking about it – at least not anyone that isn’t in the hard right GOP group already.

Just wait til O’Reilly and Hannity’s heads explode tonight. They had been pretty smug about predicting this one. I have been trying to say this entire time that you never really know what the Court is going to rule from the oral arguments. Much of the time, they take devil’s advocate positions in public, which don’t tell you what they’ll actually decide…

There is a major story on The ATF and Fast & Furious out today in Fortune, by Katherine Eban. She did a lot of research on it, and it shows. The story clarifies what happened, what the story was with the “whistleblowers”, and why it is that Darrell Issa still hasn’t had public hearings with ATF guys.

It’s a bunch of dirty laundry and personal backbiting, coupled with all the usual beaurocratic snafus. The two primary “whistleblowers” turn out to be disgruntled agents in a fairly disfunctional team. I’ll at least give Larry Alt points for a really funny, albeit totally improper false memo he posted on the door of his office about the team leader he clearly despised.

Among the big things cleared up is that memo that the GOP keeps trumpeting from Dave Voth about the “exciting opportunity” and the “fun”, which turns out to be a response to the group all whining about a wiretap detail that nobody wanted to do.

The reason this stuff wasn’t being passed on to Issa is pretty obvious. It’s not criminal behavior going on here. It’s more like junior high school playground hijinks which really isn’t something for Congress to be dealing with. (Are we really going to take up taxpayers’ time in the House with who told who to turn off the “Godzilla” email alert sound in the office?). This is the sort of thing best handled the way it already was – by transferring people and cleaning up the mess.

There’s no conspiracy here. There is one ATF agent (Dodson) who has been giving roaringly false testimony and has been completely hypocritical in this situation. And there’s the usual round robin of blame. But there’s nothing here that merits the tantrums and histrionics being thrown at Eric Holder by Issa. Which just points up the fact that this is clearly just an election year game.

Eban is smart enough to include in the article Issa’s own legal problems from carrying a loaded and concealed weapon in his car.

Jan Brewer just declared victory! That may be the laugh-out-loud funny line of the day…

This was a fairly smarmy appearance by Issa, and Wallace didn’t come across very well either. Wallace’s treatment of Elijah Cummings was to essentially tee him up a few times but not allow him to finish his statements, particularly after Issa would say something nasty.

The tone of Wallace’s questions was consistent with the surprisingly skeptical one taken by Fox News when you read the full articles they’ve run on this matter. The feeling is definitely that Issa is grandstanding for what will amount to a pointless vote, just because he’s backed himself into a corner and wants the attention. GOP leadership doesn’t see the point of the contempt vote other than as a way to embarrass Holder and Obama. They’re always happy to do that, but not in a way that looks like just a nakedly partisan statement with no further value.

Issa’s conduct during the interview was revealing. While he was a little uncomfortable with some of the questions, it’s clear he was prepped for a lot of it. He disagreed with Wallace when confronted with the fact that for all his posturing, he has no intention of holding public hearings with the ATF people who could shed any real light on this policy. And he was inadvertently cornered by Wallace into admitting he has no evidence of a coverup by the White House.

Issa’s most revealing moment came when Wallace asked him what he thought would happen if the full contempt vote were held. When Wallace sarcastically suggested the notion of Issa having Holder arrested, Issa smirked before covering and resuming his “very serious” demeanor. That slip tells a lot. Issa clearly is hoping for exactly that scenario – where he reads an arrest warrant on Holder as the cap to his Congressional career. The fact that it would be meaningless was totally lost on him.

Issa’s hope that 31 Dems would vote for his attack on Holder is also revealing. This is part of the reason the GOP doesn’t want to actually have this vote. The higher-ups know they won’t be getting any Dems to sign on, and they don’t subscribe to Issa’s fantasies.

The more likely approach to be taken this week will be for John Boehner to meet with Holder himself and declare that he’s pushed Obama and Holder into cooperating, thus aggrandizing himself, making the President appear ineffectual, and taking the spotlight away from Issa. And that’s a scenario Issa really doesn’t want to see happen. Because he isn’t concerned about getting this or that “gotcha” document. He just wants the spectacle of getting to morally berate the Obama Admin at least once a week during an election year.

The despicable use of Brian Terry’s parents was typical but still fairly revolting. They used the only moments of Hannity’s interview that fit the Fox approach (and which was the only reason Hannity interviewed them in the first place – to get that sound bite). Issa’s solemn comment about calling Terry’s mother was not only a dodge from the real question he was being asked about what the next step would be, it was a sickening display of fake concern. Issa was clearly happy to be able to hide behind the parents while implying that Holder must be covering something up.

Cumming was also left in a bad position, both being cut off by Wallace repeatedly and being forced to take up a portion of his time discussing the Terrys and his own grief over losing a child to gun violence. Cummings never challenged Issa or Wallace on the key fact re Brian Terry: that he wasn’t killed by a F&F gun, but instead by another AK still at large in Mexico with the man who fired the fatal shot.

Martin, that’s a very interesting story you’re telling. It’s too bad that it doesn’t line up with the facts.

1. F&F was indeed a continuation of Wide Receiver, which didn’t work well either, and which didn’t see a lot of help from the Mexican government, who said the same things under WR – that they weren’t informed, that they didn’t know, etc. Some WR prosecutions actually happened under the Obama Admin.

2. The right wing meme promoted by Rush Limbaugh and Fox News about F&F and some evil conspiracy to gut the 2nd Amendment is laughable. There is no evidence of this, yet right wing pundits keep shouting and repeating it, hoping it will stick. If anything, it’s a sign of how desperate the GOP is becoming about the upcoming election. They know their nominee was not the choice of 70 percent of the primary voters, and they’re becoming panicked about what will happen when he has his Etch-a-Sketch moment and takes less than hard right positions in September.

3. There is no trail to speak of in the documents Darrell Issa has repeatedly changed up in demanding. It’s a matter of Issa having a pattern of harassing and overstepping his bounds in maintaining a fishing expedition for over a year. The idea of “this puts us inside the White House” makes little sense in the present context. With Watergate, it was due to Nixon and his cronies trying to cover up their criminal acts. With Iran/Contra, it was due to many Reagan Admin members and cronies committing criminal acts to pursue a foreign policy that was outside the constitution and certainly resulted in many deaths in Central America and the Middle East. With the Wilson/Plame matter, it was criminal activity conducted by staffers in the Bush Admin to punish someone for publicly challenging them, and the outing of Plame certainly resulted in multiple agents and sources in the Middle East being exposed and endangered. We’ll never know how many people died Asa result of the criminal actions taken re Wilson/Plame, but it’s clear that the Bush Admin was not concerned about that consequence.

The current matter re F&F is a discussion of a discontinued policy that Eric Holder has repeatedly testified to Congress about and provided over 7500 documents to give Darrell Issa what he can without jeopardizing ongoing investigations. Among the ongoings is the matter of Brian Terry, who was killed in a shootout by a gunman with an AK who fled the scene with his gun and is still at large in Mexico. At that same crime scene, 2 F&F AKs were recovered, but the bullet used to kill Terry didn’t come from either one. So it’s a canard that Terrywas killed by F&F, and a particularly despicable one by the right wingers who are throwing rocks at a President they dislike and hiding behind the body and parents of a Border Patrol Agent.

4. The whistleblowers you refer to are listed on various right wing blogs and posts, including one put on this site this weekend, and it’s interesting that the list comes verbatim from a Fox News article. No other news organization, like AP or anything else, has stories about those guys other than to note that when they testified for the GOP panel, the Obama Admin challenged their credibility. The one prominent voice, John Dodson, was shown to have been completely hypocritical in his denunciations, but this only came out from a memo leaked by Dennis Burke, who the Obama Admin then pushed into resigning.

5. If the Dems are laughing at all, it would be because they can’t believe the GOP is so desperate as to try this contempt vote – which will come down to a party line situation that will have no force of law. If they’re laughing, it would be because they know this nothing more than a revenge move for the investigation of the Wilson/Plame matter and the conviction of Scooter Libby, as well as for the forced resignation of Alberto Gonzales.

If there’re laughing, it would be because they know Darrell Issa is an unscrupulous career politician who is trying to puff himself up and look more important than he is. His past history is instructive, especially his failed attempt to become governor of California by orchestrating the recall of Gray Davis. When Issa realized that Arnold Schwarzenegger was about to steal his thunder, Issa threw a public tantrum about how he couldn’t get his way. Issa knows this committee chairmanship will be the highest political position he’ll ever hold, and he’s trying to make the most of it by repeatedly grandstanding in public and throwing tantrums. His conduct during Holder’s appearances has been truly horrific. And now that he’s been told by the Obama Admin to ease down after months of making ridiculous and constantly changing document demands, he doesn’t know how to save face gracefully. He’d rather get humiliated in public again, this time with a fruitless floor vote on party lines, than admit that he’s not the big dog he wishes he had been.

6. F&F, like WR, was certainly a bad policy, and it’s a good thing it was stopped. Clearly some guys in both the Bush and Obama Justice Depts thought it would be an inventive way to snare more targets and add more charges when they did. And clearly, hindsight shows us, this didn’t work well for either Admin.

As for the casualties from F&F, that’s an unknown. It’s very likely that some Mexicans were killed by drug gangs that had these weapons. We don’t know the number. The only articles to mention this use either a number of 200 sourced to Darrell Issa or a number of 150 sourced to a Mexican politician whose account was challenged as a political statement rather than a factual one. Since no evidence has been presented other than, say, Darrell Issa’s opinion, there’s no way to know the true number at this point. Given Issa’s penchant for grandstanding, I’d say the number is much lower. But I will say that it’s nice to know the right wingers care about the deaths of Mexican civilians. Usually the comments heard on right wing blogs and boards are far less sympathetic, like when they’re discussing people crossing the border.

As for the death of an American, that is not factually correct. Brian Terry wasn’t killed by a F&F AK. And the death of Jaime Zapata was also not killed by an F&F weapon. You could say that their deaths happened in circumstances tangentially connected to F&F, but that kind of connection could be made about many law enforcement operations. One suspect in a shootout might well be involved in multiple other illegal activities that each have their own investigation or operation concurrently running. Either way, it puts the lie to the shameful way the right wing pundits and the GOP are trying to work up crocodile tears about the real deaths of two law enforcement officers in order to score cheap political points in an election year. Where were these pundits when Pat Tillman’s parents wanted to know what happened to their son? Why did the same pundits openly and despicably attack Cindy Sheehan for having the temerity to ask Bush about the death of her son?

7. If you want to compare body counts, I agree that there have likely been casualties in Mexico due to F&F. They didn’t happen because of Eric Holder’s testimony before Congress. They happened as a result of a policy he stopped once he knew what was going on with the continuation of Bush Admin ongoing ideas. With Watergate, I don’t believe there were direct casualties, but you must remember that the criminal coverup done by the Nixon people of the criminal break-in was done to cover a lot of intelligence activities which may well have involved casualties of their own. Given their nature, we’ll never know. With Iran/Contra, there were anywhere from hundreds to thousands of Nicaraguan, Iranian and Iraqi casualties, as a direct result of the criminal arms sales to Iran and the funneling of the money to the murderous Contra forces. With the Wilson/Plame matter, there were certainly casualties in terms of the agents and sources who were exposed in the Middle East when Rove and Cheney had Plame’s cover blown to punish her husband. But like Watergate, we’ll never know the names of those people, as the CIA isn’t in the habit of divulging that kind of information.

8. The F&F story has never had “legs” other than in the right wing press outlets like Fox News or right wing radio stations. Because it’s obviously just a GOP witch hunt against an Attorney General they’ve been trying to hound out of office since day one. They tried the Black Panther thing, and it didn’t stick. They tried with F&F, and only right wingers bought it. They tried with the “leak” scandal, and again, no dice. It’s sad that they keep trying the same idea over and over (Attack Holder and imply he’s somehow dirty) hoping they can create a fact on the ground by telling the same falsehoods as many times as possible. If they would admit that they’re just angry that Alberto Gonzales was properly asked to step down, and that they’re angry that the Bush people were caught exposing Plame’s status, this would be a lot easier to handle.

It honestly gets tiresome having to constantly refute so many tired talking points, so few of which have any basis in reality. It’s like trying to argue with a Birther or a 911 conspiracy theorist – the reality is so far away from the mythology in the talking points that it’s hard to find a starting point of reference.

Bruce, thank you for your apology. I was referring to the end of your first post where you made descriptions of President Obama and AG Holder.

I’m glad to know you were critical of the Bush Admin for their unfortunate treatment of the people involved in the warrantless wiretapping, not to mention the attacks on the Wilsons. Good to know you stood up for them.

I did read your citations. That’s how I knew what they were. And that some were literally reprinting, word for word, what was in a Fox News article. As you did with the list of guys Fox News says were retaliated against. Since you did not answer this, I’ll accept that you understand you’ve conceded that point, as you did the truth about the killing of Agent Brian Terry.

The LA times article re Trevino notes his allegation of 150 deaths is unfounded, and has a critical comment from an ATF agent on the other side which says Trevino, the former AG now working as a lower level politician, Just has “a good political thing to say”.

I was trying to spare you any indignity of refuting all of your statements. You unfortunately left me no other option. I have read your opinions and the unfounded basis on which you made them. I don’t know how to help if you don’t want to hear the appropriate response.

This is really shameful. And by the way, I would say the same about pundits from either side trotting out parents of slain victims just to try to score cheap political points. And no, Hannity doesn’t really care about this couple. If he did, he would have known the facts and not just made all those cheap and wrong statements while trying to goad the Terrys into singing his song.

Let’s see. Hannity has already rung this bell at least twice. With the Joe Sestak matter as Ellen properly recalls. With the nonsensical “leaks” scandal. Maybe even with the silly attempts to make hay out of Solyndra. And now with the latest salvo in Darrell Issa’s latest embarrassment.

The reality is that Issa has been on a fishing expedition for more than a year. He asks for documents that he knows he isn’t entitled to see, since they impact current investigations, and then throws temper tantrums in public when he’s reminded that he’s out of line. Issa has changed up his requests repeatedly, in an effort to keep this storyline alive for the election. It’s no wonder after Issa threw yet another tantrum that Holder asked the President to simply declare the privilege to stop the fishing expedition.

Keep in mind that Holder specifically met with Issa and more level headed Congressmen on Tuesday to settle the matter, once again reminding Issa of something he should not have needed to know: that he doesn’t have the authority to override the Justice Department on current investigations. Instead of humbly acknowledging that he can’t accomplish anything more here, Issa chose to throw another public tantrum, crying that he wasn’t getting his way. At that point, Holder called his bluff.

Issa knows that even if the House votes to hold Holder in contempt, it would be on a purely party line vote, leaving the GOP unable to do anything with the vote. And it would be obvious to the public what game is being played.

Ellen is correct that this is just the latest witch hunt against Holder, who has had to endure what may be a record number of personal and professional attacks practically since being sworn in. The GOP has a serious obsession with humiliating him and driving him from office. Since they can’t achieve the latter, they’re hoping that repeatedly trying the former will cause Holder to somehow run away.

And yes, this is partly revenge for the fact that Holder has called the GOP on multiple bad constitutional calls. His Justice Dept attys fought the various attacks on immigrants and voting rights, two areas the GOP was hoping its staunch radio and tv shouters could get them an easy walk. And those moves we’re clearly intended to intimidate and disillusion potential Obama voters. Holder’s interference has certainly angered some GOP flamethrowers.

This is also revenge for the prosecution of I. “Scooter” Libby and the near-miss on a prosecution of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney over their criminal behavior re Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame. And let’s keep the facts in mind: Plame was a NOC (undercover agent) working for the CIA while posing as a state dept staffer. She was known to have worked with the CIA in terms of state dept briefings but was not publicly known to be managing intelligence assets overseas. Exposing her was meant by Rove and Cheney to be a message to her husband about how vulnerable he could be. So multiple Bush Admin staffers including Libby and Richard Armitage were tasked with getting a “line of the day” out to various reporters.

Libby knew the reality of Plame’s status but exposed her anyway out of deference to his boss, Cheney, and out of spite against Wilson and his wife. Other staffers, like Armitage, didn’t know the truth about Plame, and thus just repeated what they thought was public knowledge. The result was that Plame’s career was ruined and her assets were likely lost or killed by foreign agents. We’ll never know as all of that was classified CIA material. But in the aftermath, the Wilson’s moved to an undisclosed location and Joe Wilson called publicly for Rove to be "frog marched out of the White House.

During the ensuing investigation, Armitage cooperated but couldn’t name anyone other than Libby, and made clear that he didn’t know about the NOC status. Libby, on the other hand, lied repeatedly in order to stall the investigation and protect Cheney and Rove. His ploy worked, and he wound up getting convicted of obstruction and perjury, the sentence for which Bush commuted, which insured that Libby could never testify about the matter.

The point is that the Plame matter really was a criminal matter and a very serious one. Ironically, the laws broken were actually GOP revenge for CIA whistleblowers like Philip Agee and John Stockwell writing books about the CIA in the 70s and 80s. The GOP never dreamed that would come back to bite them, but that’s life.

Fast and Furious isn’t a criminal matter. It’s a discussion about a mistaken Bush Admin ATF idea the Obama people didn’t terminate in time. This is already being investigated by Justice Dept staffers. And yes, Brian Terry was killed in an shoot out where a couple of these guns turned up. (I don’t know that he was killed by those guns. I doubt it, or the GOP would be waving that around too.).

The Plame matter and Watergate really were criminal matters, as was the Iran-Contra situation. The fact that that the GOP and Fox News seem unable to see the truth about that speaks to how desperate they’re getting the closer we get to November. Issa is in a real bind now. By pressing this button, he’s left himself no way to save face.

I’m still not sure Boehner wants to embarrass himself with a public vote on this. I think he’s sticking up for Issa in public, but will do what he can to avoid having to go through what will be a pointless waste of Congress’ time. Since we know this would be a completely party line vote, I don’t think the GOP gets any moral ground from doing it. It would just be yet another public black eye during an election year when they can’t afford it.

There is a casually smug racism in the whole tone of the remarks here. Goldberg’s attempt to psychoanalyze Sam Donaldson for his “liberal white guilt” is the same pablum the right wing tried in 2008. When they said Obama was only getting good poll numbers because liberals wanted to tell pollsters a lie about voting for a black president. And then when they explained Obama’s victory with the idea that liberals oly voted for him because he was black. And now, after 3+ years of nonsense like the birther ideas and total GOP intransigence, they want to dredge this canard up again?

I’ve heard plenty of subtle racist digs at Obama, all the way from the idea that he couldn’t have gotten into Harvard by being a good student. And I’ve heard the more direct stuff, including various references to lynching.

That said, Goldberg is correct to note that we’re at a real low point in civility when people celebrate Neil Munro’s antics or celebrate Bush having shoes thrown at him. That kind of thing smacks of “I like it when it happens to the other team’s guy” which gets us nowhere in the end.

Munro clearly had no intention of waiting for President Obama to finish his statement. He wanted to get in his gotcha remark while Obama was caught in the cameras. And his repeated interjections arguing with Obama prove this. I’m not surprised that Bernie Goldberg found it despicable. Nor am I surprised that Sean Hannity would try to justify it.

I really have to wonder why this kind of thing is becoming the norm. First we have Joe Wilson screaming “You lie!” in the middle of a State of the Union address. Then we have Samuel Alito mouthing something similar. Then we have the endless parade of insults for President Obama – to the tune that either he wasn’t born in the country, or didn’t get good grades or whatever other nonsense they want to throw out.

And now we have this guy from the Daily Caller doing his best to disrupt a speaking appearance by the President, and then trying to argue the point afterward. Munro’s excuse rings quite hollow – he knew full well what he was doing, and went ahead anyway. He wasn’t trying to get in a question – he was trying to ask a “gotcha”, and felt it was a good enough hit that he could forego even waiting for the President to finish his remarks.

Jane, I have to acknowledge that your response was deeply thought-out and well presented.

I would still have to go with a basic rule that the person who should be in charge of what to do about a pregnancy is the person who is pregnant, in consultation with her doctor. Imposing a moral judgment by someone else unfortunately puts that woman into a position that has less to do with medical issues and more to do with the outside person’s opinion of the woman’s lifestyle and choices.

We also need to be aware that taking away the legal choice of abortion for most women will not mean that they will not get pregnant. It just means that the situation will revert to what it was before Roe v Wade, where some places were known to be legal locations for it, and other places saw a lot of unsafe makeshift abortions which were dangerous to the women involved. There’s a reason those were referred to as “back alley” abortions. Attempting to reimpose that scenario in the 21st century strikes me as an untenable option.

I would be very happy if more people would pursue abstinence and chastity, and devote themselves to a single mate for their whole lives. I agree that we are in an age where marriage as an institution is no longer as much of a core value as it was fifty years ago. But we should also be aware that fifty and even one hundred years ago and longer, people were not simply chaste and abstinent up to the day of marriage. Some were, and some even practice that philosophy today. Most were not. And while I can happily point to many couples who have enjoyed long marriages, I can unfortunately point to many more who have not. Couples who married young and then realized ten years later that this was not the person they wished to spend the next fifty wiht. Couples who had children in an effort to keep the marriage together, only to find themselves working out a situation of divorced parents sharing custody.

I agree that sex education that consists of wink-wink, nod-nod will do very little to help a teenager understand some basic information everyone should have. But just telling teenagers “You shouldn’t do this until you’re prepared to spend the rest of your life with this person” will not address the situation either. I think there’s a middle ground – where you can address the very real health issues, and the very real emotional and societal ramifications of sexual activity. Again, more information is better than less information.

I don’t know anyone who wants a ten year old child to be engaging in this kind of activity. Among other reasons, that’s before the child has even gone through puberty. However, if we’re talking about a sixteen year old teenager who is dealing with all the raging hormones of that age, isn’t it a better idea to address the situation rather than just telling that teenager “Just say no”?

I believe that what Laura Berman was trying to say, repeatedly, was that the notion of abstinence-only education was tried for 8 years under the GW Bush administration. It did not lower the numbers of teen pregnancies or teen STDs. The numbers went up. She agrees that abstinence-BASED education is the way to go, as it acknowledges what is really happening while trying to provide some basic guidance. Guidance, I might add, that should have been provided by the parents and many times is not.