For all those women who are upset that Clinton lost, do you really want McCain? Because he will set women back even further :
Feminists for McCain? Not So Much
 How antichoice is John McCain? Let’s leave the psychological tea leaves out of it and look at his record. In his four years in the House, from 1983 to 1986, he cast eleven votes on reproductive issues. Ten were antichoice. Of 119 such votes in the Senate, 115 were antichoice, including votes for the ban on so-called partial-birth abortions and for the “gag rule,” which refuses funds to clinics abroad that so much as mention abortion. In 1999, the year he said he opposed repeal of Roe on health grounds, he voted against a bill that would have permitted servicewomen overseas, where safe, legal abortion is often unavailable, to pay out of their own pockets for abortions in military hospitals.
His record on contraception and sex education is just as bad. He voted against a 2005 budget amendment, sponsored by Senator Hillary Clinton, that would have allotted $100 million to reduce teen pregnancy by means of education and birth control. He voted to require parental consent for birth control for teenage girls and to abolish Title X, which funds birth control and gynecological care for the poor. He voted against requiring insurance companies to pay for prescription contraception, when they pay for other prescription drugs–like, um, Viagra. The beat goes on, and on. With a handful of minor exceptions (he voted to confirm prochoice Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher after voting against prochoice Dr. Joycelyn Elders), he has a just about perfect antichoice record, including votes to confirm the Supreme Court nominations of Thomas, Roberts and Alito.
**NO ONE is going to tell me what I can do with my body! And his stance on sex education?!? No way.
Flip-Flop Free Pass
It is a challenge to find an issue on which McCain has stood his ground in the face of opposition from his party’s extremist establishment. “How about abortion?” you ask. Well, speaking to the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle in August 1999, McCain explained, “Certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America” to be subject to “illegal and dangerous operations.” And McCain today? “I do not support Roe v. Wade–it should be overturned.” McCain says he favors a rape and incest exception for abortion prohibitions, but his party’s platform refuses to allow for any such exceptions. If the candidate plans on fighting to get this restrictive party plank changed, however, he has kept that information secret so far. What’s more, McCain has voted for every one of Bush’s judicial appointments, all of whom oppose a woman’s right to choose. What about gay marriage? In 2006 McCain was one of only seven Republican senators to vote against the Federal Marriage Amendment; two years later he told Chris Matthews, “I think gay marriages should be allowed” when states decide to legalize gay unions. Today McCain not only opposes gay marriage but favors denying benefits to unmarried couples, period.
McCain’s addiction to politically convenient flip-floppery is even evident regarding the issue with which his “maverick” reputation is most closely associated–political reform. Recall that much of McCain’s reputation as a reformer derives from the partnership he forged with Democratic Senator Russ Feingold to try to reform the nation’s campaign finance laws. He did so, he said at the time, out of a sense of remorse over his involvement with the “Keating Five,” when he helped himself to free flights on Charles Keating’s jets and asked regulators to go easy on the corrupt financier during a period when his wife happened to be Keating’s investment partner. McCain received an Ethics Committee reprimand, and he has consistently pointed to his regret over his role in the scandal as his primary motivation for his commitment to the issue, over the objection of many in his party.
That’s the theory anyway. And it is one so widely accepted by McCain’s fans in the mainstream media that many do not feel an obligation to examine McCain’s behavior anymore to determine whether he bothers adhering to the laws he wrote. Time managing editor Richard Stengel, for instance, explains that “McCain is so pure on this issue, ever since the Keating Five when he saw the light…. McCain has toed the line about lobbyists, about campaign fundraising.”
In fact, McCain’s devotion to remaining within his much-proclaimed ethical guidelines is a far murkier matter. It’s not just his close friendship and professional relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman, revealed by the New York Times, that causes so many titters–it’s that McCain flew on the private jet of Iseman’s client Lowell Paxson and repeatedly carried out legislative favors on his behalf. Paxson wasn’t the only client of Iseman’s who appeared to get special attention from McCain; the Times documented other instances where legislation introduced by McCain dovetailed with key priorities of other companies, in the telecommunications and cruise ship industries, represented by Iseman’s firm–all of which contributed tens of thousands of dollars to his presidential campaign.
**This article is a must read for those who don’t see how the media gives McCain a free pass.
