Sunday, March 21, 2010

Stupak Press Conference: Queen Takes Bishop, Checkmate

I just finished watching the Stupak press conference. If I get the terms of the agreement right, we really didn't give up anything significant. Obama basically has to come out and reaffirm the fact that we aren't funding abortion with the bill. This doesn't do anything close to what Stupak's amendment back in November did. I'd guess that the bloc was drifting towards voting yes on the bill, and Stupak didn't want to be abandoned and look stupid, so he did this thing. And now we have the votes we need to pass the bill.

My two thoughts on the Stupak peoples' speeches were (1) these people aren't great public speakers, and (2) I'm happy to see them describe how the bill connects their pro-life views about abortion with their pro-life views about people outside the womb.

Just heard this from Stupak on the Bishops' desire for statutory language in the bill blocking abortion funds: "I know it's Lent and all this, but if they could come up with a way to get me 60 votes in the Senate, that would be nice..."

3 comments:

John B. said...

I like your subtitle, Neil. :-D

ikl said...

Never thought that I would write this, but Stupak was actually pretty awesome today. His trashing of the Republicans motion to recommit was beautiful. And more importantly he gave in gracefully while giving anti-abortion Dems in the House plenty of cover to vote for the bill.

corvus said...

Yeah, I can almost forgive Stupak for everything, just for that one camera cut from Hoyer to him, and the ensuing cries of the Republicans. That was awesome.