Detroit Monster
Pamela Hilliard Owens
It really doesn't get any better than this for the Democrats.
Yesterday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) stirred up a hornet's nest of controversy when he wouldn't allow a woman to be placed as a witness for a committee hearing he was chairing about contraception. He laterdefended his decision by saying the woman's testimony would have been irrelevant because she "wasn't a member of the clergy" and therefore really wasn't qualified to be on the panel of imminently 'qualified' men. Men who were called to testify about contraception in a hearing called to 'examine' the Obama administration’s new regulation requiring employers and insurers to provide contraception coverage to their employees. Because only men are qualified to testify about this religious freedom issue (Issa's words) which actually has nothing to do with women but is strictly about "what would Jesus do?" or something like that.
Riiiiiight.
In truth, the only purpose of Issa's hearing is to put Obama's new policy on trial in an election year when the Republicans are running out of issues and are stuck with a pack of bad jokes in place of candidates. Sad, but in an entertaining sort of way.
“Where are the women?” the minority Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., asked early in the hearing.
She criticized the Republican committee chairman, Rep. Darrel Issa, for wanting to “roll back the fundamental rights of women to a time when the government thought what happens in the bedroom is their business.”
“We will not be forced back to that primitive era,” she said.
Issa bristled at the charge and said Democrats could not add their witness because she was not a member of the clergy, but a student at Georgetown. He also faulted Democrats for not submitting the name of the witness, Sandra Fluke, in time.
Among the witnesses invited by Issa to attend the hearing was a representative of the Catholic bishops, who oppose the Obama administration “accommodation” on birth-control coverage. Joining them are many other men of other religions. Not invited, complained Democrats, were representatives from the Catholic Health Association, which is run by a woman and actually runs the Catholic hospitals, nor Catholic Charities, both of which said Friday they supported the president’s plan.
Issa’s staff sent a letter to the Democrats, saying, “As the hearing is not about reproductive rights but instead about the administration’s actions as they relate to freedom of religion and conscience, he believes that Ms. Fluke is not an appropriate witness.”
Darrell Issa issa crazy.
At this point all I want is for the Republicans to keep handing the Democrats ammunition. They really are making this too easy.
