On 3/9/2012 18:31, Lee Lofaso -> John Massey wrote:   
    JM>> It was a press conference, a photo op No more than that.   
      
    LL> The House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee is a congressional   
    LL> committee, not a press conference.  When an individual testifies before   
    LL> a congressional committee, it is called a hearing or congressional   
    LL> hearing, not a press conference.   
      
   Many of us knew that the Republicans would self-destruct and hand Obama a huge   
   advantage if they started their usual obsessing over abortion. The surprise,   
   though, was that the Republicans would do pretty much the same thing over   
   contraception.   
      
   The first ploy is to get Obama to mandate that the Catholic Church birth   
   control to employees of many Catholic institutions.  Who DIDN'T KNOW this   
   would incense the GOP.  Obama overplays his hand a bit here, so he has to   
   retreat to simply demanding that the insurance companies provide the   
   contraceptives --- free.  The bonus here was that the ploy would take the   
   Democrats a step closer to their long-term goal of destroying the   
   profitability of private health insurance products.   
      
   Once that contraception battle dies down, the Democrats come up with Sandra   
   Fluke.  She was tailor-made for this task.  If some research is to be believed   
   she is a long-time activist dedicated to women's health issues and she may   
   have actually chosen Georgetown because it is a Jesuit (Catholic) institution   
   - a perfect platform for birth control activism.  Now the Democrats can't   
   quite get Fluke before an actual Senate or House committee to testify.  She   
   simply doesn't have either the credentials or a compelling story to tell.    
   Who, after all, gives a flip about whether or not a woman paying over $50,000   
   a year for law school can afford the pill or a few condoms now and then.  So   
   the Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi,  having failed to get Fluke before a   
   committee, throw together a little Democrat garden party and invite Fluke to   
   sit before them and spin her tail of woe.  (misspelling intentional).   
      
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