Of course you realize this means war.

The wonderful Jane Hamsher from firedoglake posted an excellent piece at Huffington summarizing all that's taken place on the abortion front this week and highlighting what action she thinks we that support choice should take politically. Her call to drop an anvil on the collective heads of the "Gang of 14" is spot on. Those Senators that are part of that "extrodinary circumstances" coalition that call themselves pro-choice yet voted for cloture are not worth a tinker's damn. Lieberman, Chafee and Snowe have shown they can't be trusted to follow-through with action when it comes to protect reproductive rights.

I was struck by this response from the comments section to Jane's post:

Bush won the election. Republicans won 55 seats in the Senate. They EARNED the right to appoint justices to the Supreme Court. Even ones that don't pass the NARAL/NOW/PP litmus test .

It's not called "bullying", it's called "democracy". Look it up sometime, you obviously have no clue what the word means.

Posted by: tarajunky

I pay a lot of attention to politics. I follow national elections outside of my local and state races. I love watching C-Span. I get as nervous meeting my congressional representative as some people do meeting their favorite rockstar or actor and I can't for life of me remember abortion being a major issue in the last national election. I don't recall it being much discussed at all and certainly not by most Republican candidates for office.

In point of fact there were moderate, pro-choice Republicans paraded across the stage at the Republican convention as the face of the party. Their were no James Dobsons or Pat Robertsons speaking in prime-time and leading a charge against abortion. Instead there were Schwarzeneggers and Guliannis talking about security, September the 11th and immigration and sold to the American people as the authentic face of the party. And Bush? Bush refused to say what kind of judges he would nominate, only that he wouldn't apply a "litmus" test.

The Republican Party didn't win the last election running ON the issue of abortion but rather running FROM issue of abortion.

But perhaps no other thing gives lie to tarajunky's babbling than to point out the obvious: the Republicans DO control both houses of congress and the presidency. Why don't they just pass legislation banning abortion?

It's because they haven't EARNED a damn thing.

As for the "democracy," South Dakota is a perfect microcosm of what's wrong with that argument. In a state with only 750,000 residents the average voter already has more say more say on this issue than the average New Yorker via the advice and consent of their two Senators. Their efforts this week at leading the charge for judicial review by passing a law banning all abortions just add insult to injury. I wouldn't call that democracy. Tyranny of the minority maybe.

No, I think Jane described it best when she termed it "bullying." Sure, it's like being bullied by an Ewok but it's still bullying. Nobody likes a bully.

Least of which a short, fat, cute, furry and really annoying bully.