OPINION:
A 13-member working group with a lead mission to forge the Senate’s version of Obamacare reform-slash-repeal is all men — no women.
Come on now. Leadership really could’ve seen this one coming. You know, there’s a thing called token.
“Everybody is at the table. Everybody,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in a testy Q&A with reporters that focused on a “where’s the women” theme.
He then turned finger-pointing the reporters’ way.
“[Journalists] need to write about what’s actually happening,” he said, The Hill reported. “[We’re] having a discussion about the real issues.”
Stop talking, Mitch. You’re making it worse.
But he couldn’t.
“Nobody is being excluded based upon gender,” he went on.
Except, of course, it appears that way.
Isn’t this the same Republican party that was just dogged by Planned Parenthood for holding a high-ranking meeting with lawmakers — headed by Mike Pence at the White House — to discuss a health care bill, absent any women? Why yes, yes it was. Thirty men, sitting around a table, talking health care reform, not a woman in sight. Planned Parenthood was able to spin that with just a few words alongside the photo: “Here’s the picture of the leaders negotiating away birth control, maternity care and abortion. Notice anything?”
That was just in late March, for crying out loud.
Perception, people.
Seriously, Republicans had to know the media would jump on this — that Democrats would use it to full advantage.
Republican Whip John Cornyn had to go on the defense with CNN to insist that the no-female-in-sight line of thought was “totally bogus because every single woman in our conference is involved.”
And here comes Chuck, right on cue.
“If you look at the House bill, it is so discriminatory against women,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said, The Hill reported. “To not have women in the smaller group that we know is making many of the real decisions is a very, very bad thing. They’re more than half the population.”
Republicans, this is the type of media frenzy that’s self-inflicted. And completely needless. After all, March’s fiasco with Planned Parenthood is so fresh it ought to still sting. So here’s a quick bit of advice, taken from the mouth of Forrest Gump: Stupid is as stupid does. And for the GOP in the Senate, this was a pretty stupid stutter-step.
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