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Here's something you don't see every day. One of these talking heads stopped in their tracks for lying on the air. MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan calls out The Family Research Council's Cathy Ruse (what a name for a spokesperson, huh?) for lying about what affect the Stupak amendment would have on private insurance if passed.

After noting that The Family Research Council called the Stupak amendment a “huge victory for women", Ratigan asked her this:

Ratigan: Cathy, what was the victory?

Ruse: Well the victory is that the question is elective abortion and who should be forced to pay for those, the individual or the government. Before the Stupak amendment passed, Americans would be forced to pay for other people’s elective abortions.

Ratigan: That’s not true.

Ruse: It is true, under both the public option plan and…

Ratigan: No, that’s not true…

Ruse: …and under the federal subsidies…absolutely true. That’s why…

Ratigan: The objection was to the use of the exchange. I’ll have this debate but you have to operate in the factual reality which is you’re saying that all the private insurance being sold on a publicly established exchange cannot fund elective abortion, and that is not federal dollars paying for abortion—that federal dollars paying for an exchange upon which private insurance is sold where elective abortions are provided.

Ruse: The Stupak amendment did two things. It prohibits federal funding for covering elective abortions, but it allows private insurance to carry coverage of elective abortions so long as no federal tax dollars are involved. And let me just…

Ratigan: Cathy, you’re not dealing with—you can’t—just coming on television and lying is not journalism, nor is it actually beneficial to the country. Let’s talk about what we’re discussing which is the establishment of an exchange upon which private insurance that we bought and sold establishes federal dollars. Nancy you were going to say?

Keenan: Yeah listen, we know that about 80-85% of private insurance companies today privately cover abortion care, and what the Stupak amendment does, is basically means that women will not be able to purchase insurance coverage that covers abortions with their own money, with their own money in this new healthcare system. That’s the reality of the Stupak amendment and it is outrageous that they are saying that this is good for women or that this is somehow the status quo. This goes far beyond the status quo.

Maybe Tony Perkins should get himself someone else go to up against Dylan Ratigan if his group wants to continue to try to spread misinformation about what the Stupak amendment does, although I don’t think Perkins himself would have faired much better against Ratigan. Both Ratigan and Keenan go on to point out what the real purpose of the amendment is, which is to prevent private insurance from paying for any abortions, get Roe v Wade overturned and to derail health care reform.

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November 09, 2009 CNN THE JOY BEHAR SHOW

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Moments like this are why they sent us here. To finally meet the challenges that Washington has put off for decades. To make their lives better and this nation stronger. To move America forward. That`s what the House did last night when it brought us closer than we have ever been to comprehensive health reform in America. Now it calls on the United States Senate to take the baton and bring this effort to the finish line on behalf of the American people. And I`m absolutely confident that they will.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BEHAR: Well the House bill may be historic but it doesn`t cover abortion for poor women so what good is it anyway? Here to help me make sense of all this, are Nancy Keenan president of NARAL Pro -- Choice America. California Congresswoman Maxine Waters who voted for the House bill. And Julie Menin, host of Give And Take and contributing blogger with the "Huffington Post."

I`m so agitated about this now. Maxine, Congresswoman, how you are you? Thank you for doing this

REP. MAXINE WATERS, (D), CALIFORNIA: I`m fine. Thank you.

BEHAR: OK, now we know that you`re pro-choice and that you`re pro female and you would you do the best for all of us. Why did you vote for a House bill that restricts abortion coverage?

WATERS: Oh Joy; let me tell you, I was absolutely torn. Absolutely undecided. All during this process, as you know, I was the 218th vote. That means I did not vote early. I thought about it. And in the final analysis, I reluctantly voted because it covers 36 million people who have either been refused health insurance or who cannot afford it. And when you look at a district like mine, where you have so many people who cannot afford health care insurance, I have to make a decision of whether or not I was going to literally hold up this bill for the entire nation or whether or not I was going to go with it and reluctantly, I relented. And I supplied the 218th vote.

BEHAR: I mean it is really kind of sad that we cannot get women`s rights in these bills. I mean can`t we -- you now I`m hearing from the A.P. a little while ago, that the public option is going to be dead in the Senate. What are we going to get?

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