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Ladies, forget about transvaginal ultrasounds or contraception coverage or any other concerns about a war on women. The real issue for Fox-lovin’, rootin’ tootin’ American women is packing heat. At least, that’s what the “fair and balanced” network would have you believe as Laura Ingraham and her like-minded pals on Fox & Friends ridiculed Colorado State Rep. Joe Salazar as a Democratic Todd Akin after he inartfully voiced concerns about allowing concealed weapons on college campuses.

I’ll agree that Salazar’s words were ill-chosen and perhaps insensitive. But it’s clear he was worried about Trayvon Martin-like situations and not being heedless of sexual assault.

That’s why we have call boxes, it’s why we have safe zones, that’s why we have the whistles. Because you just don’t know who you’re gonna be shooting at. And you don’t know if you feel like you’re gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone’s been following you around or if you feel like you’re in trouble and when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop … pop a round at somebody.

Akin, on the other hand, is a staunch abortion opponent who was questioning whether claims of rape were “legitimate,” suggesting that women who said they got pregnant as a result of a rape were lying and, therefore, should not allow their fetuses to be “punished” with an abortion.

But while Fox spent a lot of time trying to ignore Akin’s comments, it loves comparing Salazar to Akin – and holding itself out as some kind of champion of women’s rights.

Carlson eventually got around to pointing out that Salazar has apologized for his remarks, though she “forgot” to mention that Salazar is a former civil rights attorney who has defended women’s rights. She also “forgot” to point out that Salazar was talking about students on college campuses, not women walking down dark alleys or home alone with children. Nor did anyone note that Salazar comes from a state that has suffered horrifically from gun tragedies. Instead, Carlson distorted Salazar's comments as, “Call boxes and whistles are the best way for women to protect themselves against an attacker.”

Ingraham wasted no time getting with the Fox News program of comparing Salazar to Akin. "Let's think back to the Richard Murdouck scandal, the Todd Akin, Murdouck - all the outrage about they said, OK? Fine. But what about this? What’s he going to shoot the attacker with, a squirt gun buried in that bow tie?” she sneered. Then she held up guns as the real empowerment for women:

He’s channeling what might happen during an attack of a 200-pound man vs. 110-pound woman. … When he’s attacked by someone, probably, 400 pounds, going up against him …Let’s see him crawl to a call box. That’s one of the most absurd things I’ve ever heard.

…The greatest equalizer is a gun in the hands of a woman who is well trained in its use. That’s the greatest equalizer out there when it comes to crime against women.

Nobody pointed out that what Salazar was really talking about was unnecessary gunfire nor that his worries are well-founded given the increased homicides in “stand your ground” states, e.g. – which Colorado is, by the way. Nor that women are five times more likely to be murdered by a gun in states with higher gun ownerships.

But they were ready to use their “sensitivity” to women to attack feminists for not attacking Salazar and/or not being more pro-gun. “Where are all the feminists, that’s what I say,” Ingraham sniped.

I had a good time in Vegas, so I didn't spend a huge amount of time at NN, but I did spend enough time to take in the mood, and it was schizophrenic. About half the people there are some combination of angry, disappointed and bitter with Democrats in general and Obama in particular.

This group sees him as not a heck of a lot better than George Bush, and in fact the Democrat who extended some of Bush's worst policies, especially in civil liberties. This includes a lot of feminists (angry at what they see as betrayals on abortion), many Hispanics angry at the continued harsh enforcement of immigration laws, gays who feel Obama has betrayed clear promises on gay rights, anti-war activists saddened by escalation in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and a mishmash of folks who think health care reform was a dog's breakfast and that the general way the economy and financial reform has been handled is a disgrace.

Then there are the folks who would characterize themselves, in general, as hard-nosed pragmatists and "realists". These range from the "Obama is the greatest liberal president since FDR" types, who think that the Obama is just wonderful and those progressives and liberals who don't agree are simply delusional to those who feel that a lot of what he's done has been watered down pap in general but that it's certainly better than nothing and that those who are disappointed are unrealistic idealists who simply don't understand the constraints Obama and Congressional Democrats are working under.

As regular readers know, I tend to the first camp, but I'm not going to go into why, I simply want to note that this divide is very real. It's occasioning a lot of anger on both sides. The first sees the second as tribalistic sellouts, willing to excuse horrible things they would never excuse in Republicans so long as they are committed by Democrats and lacking an understanding of just how bad Democratic policy has been. These are folks who tend to sneer at the "wins" as either illusory or so underwhelming as to be a parody of the "lesser evil" argument. (Reminding one inevitably of the T-shirts which say "Why Vote for the lesser evil. Cthulhu 2008.") To many of these folks the other side are, crudely put, sell-outs.

The second side is angry at what they see as fairy-tale thinking and deeply unrealistic. "Obama couldn't fix everything immediately, but he's better than the Republicans will be if they get back in power" is their mantra, ranging from "really, he's wonderful and you're insane for thinking otherwise" to "well, yes he sucks but he sucks less than what the Republicans will do when they get in power." Either way, they see the attacks from what they consider the "purists" as deeply damaging. Democrats may or may not be a ton better than Republicans, but either way, they are better, and there is a moral case to be made for sucking it up one more time and working hard to elect, as the old progressive battle cry runs, "better Democrats". This is a two-party state, with those parties having an unbreakable oligopoly on power. Dissing Democrats just helps the even worse party win, at which point they will do even worse things. So get over your problems, whether they are with economic policy or Obama's continued shredding of fundamental civil liberties like Habeas Corpus, jump back into the trenches with your bowie knife or bayonet and fight for Democrats, not against them because by constantly bad mouthing Dems all you do is make it more likely that Republicans will win, and if they win, well, that will be baaaaddddd. Very, very baaaaaddddd.

To put it crudely and unfairly to both sides, it's the sell-outs without principles against the purists without realism.

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Gender Across Borders: The 11th Carnival of Feminists

NevadaAppeal: Support builds in congress over mining reform

Swing State Project: Daily Digest

Open Left: Dodd's retirement is unspinnably bad news for Republicans

PERRspectives: 10 Moments in GOP Terrorism Accountability

ACSblog: Obama returning eight nominations, including Dawn Johnsen's

Amy Gardner at the Washington Post has an interesting piece looking into the background of the GOP's gubernatorial candidate in Virginia, Regent University graduate Robert F. McDonnell:

At age 34, two years before his first election and two decades before he would run for governor of Virginia, Robert F. McDonnell submitted a master's thesis to the evangelical school he was attending in Virginia Beach in which he described working women and feminists as "detrimental" to the family. He said government policy should favor married couples over "cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators." He described as "illogical" a 1972 Supreme Court decision legalizing the use of contraception by unmarried couples.

The 93-page document, which is publicly available at the Regent University library, culminates with a 15-point action plan that McDonnell said the Republican Party should follow to protect American families -- a vision that he started to put into action soon after he was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates.

During his 14 years in the General Assembly, McDonnell pursued at least 10 of the policy goals he laid out in that research paper, including abortion restrictions, covenant marriage, school vouchers and tax policies to favor his view of the traditional family. In 2001, he voted against a resolution in support of ending wage discrimination between men and women.

McDonnell has been going through a mainstream image makeover, though, and so he quickly issued a classic non-denial denial (Republicans are masters of these things):

"Virginians will judge me on my 18-year record as a legislator and Attorney General and the specific plans I have laid out for our future -- not on a decades-old academic paper I wrote as a student during the Reagan era and haven't thought about in years."

McDonnell added: "Like everybody, my views on many issues have changed as I have gotten older." He said that his views on family policy were best represented by his 1995 welfare reform legislation and that he "worked to include child day care in the bill so women would have greater freedom to work." What he wrote in the thesis on women in the workplace, he said, "was simply an academic exercise and clearly does not reflect my views."

McDonnell also said that government should not discriminate based on sexual orientation or ban contraceptives and that "I am not advocating vouchers as there are legal questions regarding their constitutionality in Virginia."

One might take McDonnell's denials at face value, but he has something of a history of covering his tracks after realizing he's exposed himself:

One controversy that drew wide attention was an effort in the General Assembly in 2003 to end the judicial career of Verbena M. Askew, a Circuit Court judge from Newport News who had been accused of sexual harassment by a woman who worked for her. As chairman of the Courts of Justice Committee, McDonnell led the effort in the House. He said he was opposed to Askew's reappointment because she didn't disclose, as required, that she was a party to a legal proceeding.

McDonnell was widely quoted at the time as saying that homosexual activity raised questions about a person's qualifications to be a judge. Spokesman Tucker Martin said McDonnell was misquoted and does not consider homosexuality a disqualifying factor for judgeships or other jobs.

Even more to the point, McDonnell doesn't answer specifically whether or not he still holds certain of his views about key legal decisions he expresses in the thesis.

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Shakesville: Bush trys to re-ignite the Cold War

Rising Hegemon: Like a "Smokeless" Klan rally.

TPMCafe: The Associated Press' crappy reporting makes Obama's remarks sound really threatening  Here's some more shoddy newspaper work

The New Editor: Winnie Mandela, Nelson Mandela's wife, is barred from Canada

Feministing: Feminists want to have sex without getting pregnant and therefore are murdering whores.  Scott has more...

Boozhy: American soldiers patrol Afghani marijuana fields (sound track gets an X rating)

If, like me, you're having trouble keeping track, go over to Lies from the Bush-Cheney administration

NO QUARTER: Look at our collective shock. Our horrified reaction. The public sorrow.  It happens every day in Iraq.

No More Mister Nice Blog: And no, there isn't even the slightest chance that this will lead to a serious discussion of whether guns are too easy to get in this country

The Hill: The leading GOP presidential candidates are causing 'angst' among 2nd Amendment organizations

DownWithTyranny! George Tenet's forthcoming book is bound to provoke his former BUSHCO pals

Happy 5th blogiversary to Atrios!

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: The Strange Death of Liberal America, Feminists Don't Bake Bread, chamblee5, War Czar

CJSD blog: What, you think there are no new ideas for Iraq? What about that old idea, giving more power and money to Big Oil? We tried that, but stay the course, er, I mean, new ideas.

So are we thinking impeachment yet? Just asking.

Incongruous: Why do atheists care about religion?

Diary of a Freak Magnet: Carnival of the Feminists #28

Poetic Justice: For Bolton...UNwanted

this blog will self-destruct in five seconds: The War on Christmas Blogswarm. But please, have yourself a merry little (Jon Tester) tree, from the a fine leftie blog outta Montana.

Guest round-up by Blue Gal.

Morally Correct

by Peter Beinart excerpt:

Sometimes, conservative evangelicals grasp this and find nonreligious justifications for their views. (Christian conservatives sometimes argue that embryonic stem cells hold little scientific promise, or that gay marriage leads to fewer straight ones. On abortion, they sometimes cite medical advances to show that fetuses are more like infants than pro-choicers recognize. Such arguments are accessible to all, and thus permit fruitful debate.) But, since the election, the airwaves have been full of a different kind of argument. What many conservatives are now saying is that, since certain views are part of evangelicals' identity, harshly criticizing those views represents discrimination. It's no different than when some feminists say that, since the right to abortion is a critical part of their identity, opposing abortion disrespects them as women. When George Stephanopoulos asked Dobson to justify his charge that Senator Leahy is an anti-Christian bigot, he replied that the Vermont senator "has been in opposition to most of the things that I believe." In other words, disagree with me and you're a racist. Al Sharpton couldn't have said it better....

Identity politics is a powerful thing--a way of short-circuiting debate by claiming that your views aren't merely views; they are an integral part of who you are. And who you are must be respected. But harsh criticism is not disrespect--and to claim it is undermines democratic debate by denying opponents the right to aggressively, even impolitely, disagree. That is what conservatives are doing when they accuse liberals of religious bigotry merely for demanding that the Christian Right defend their viewpoints with facts, not faith. Once upon a time, conservatives knew better. I hope some still do.

Roger Ailes: " It's all the feminists fault"
Schlafly: "A man's life has been sacrificed, and three children have been denied their father by malicious feminists who have lobbied for laws that punish spousal rape just like stranger rape and deny a man the right to cross-examine his accuser. They have created a judicial system where the woman must always be believed even though she has no evidence, one in which the man is always guilty...read on"

Kate's book originally opened up at # 29 at Amazon, it's interesting how fast she's fallen.

Emailer DLF: O'Beirne's book is rated #70, right after Brokeback Mountain (Rated #69), and just before a feminist book, Younger Next Year for Women (Rated #71). Since O'Beirne (and her right-wing co-horts) despise gays and feminists, I find the irony of her being "sandwiched" in between these two books to be hilarious.

(Update): Digby: I'm reminded of TBOGG's famous catch some years back featuring Kate and some hot wingnut chicks talkin' bout...read on