How sad it's not when a dubious meme is rendered threadbare from overuse.
Liberals are desperately hoping that their deceitful "war on women" defamation of conservatives will help them shift momentum away from Republicans as the midterms approach. And if this requires that left wingers render themselves more laughable than usual, so be it. It's a sacrifice they're willing to make.
Rachel Maddow did her part in propping up the ruse on her MSNBC show Friday while describing the gubernatorial race in Massachusetts between Republican Charlie Baker and Democrat Martha Coakley.
Coakley, you may recall, was defeated by Scott Brown in a January 2010 special election to fill a Senate seat left vacant by the death of Edward Kennedy. Brown served in the Senate only three years, losing to Elizabeth Warren in 2012 and is now running for Senate against Jeanne Shaneen after having moved to New Hampshire.
One of the reasons that Coakley lost in 2010, Maddow pointed out, was that "she didn't clobber Scott Brown in the women's vote," winning it by only three percentage points, not nearly enough to overcome Brown's huge advantage among male voters.
To the chagrin of Bay State Republicans, Charlie Baker doesn't appear to have the same appeal to women that Brown showed four years ago. Baker "has been trying to rekindle Scott Brown electoral magic," Maddow said, and at the very least "suppress the margin for women for the Democrat running against him."
Maddow then showed a news report on Baker's campaign by an unidentified female reporter with WFXT, the Fox affiliate in Boston --
FOX REPORTER: Even though polls show the race is in a dead heat, they also show with women Baker is trailing Coakley by double digits. His commercials, featuring his daughter and his wife, target women. Monday, Baker did shake up his campaign by changing out the firm that runs his media strategy. He says it was just over a disagreement. When I tried to ask him one last question about how Democrats believe it could mean the start of negative ads, here's what Baker said to me --
FOX REPORTER (speaking with Baker): Democrats are saying, they just put out an email a couple of ....
BAKER (putting his hand on the reporter's shoulder): OK, this is going to be the last one, sweetheart.
MSNBC viewers then saw Maddow's eyes widened in mock horror, her countenance bearing an eerie resemblance to Edvard Munch's "The Scream."
MADDOW: She's asking him about his bad image with women voters and he pats her and says, this is gonna be the last one, sweetheart. (Maddow again engaging in a beloved favorite hobby, making goofy faces). Then watch how she responds --
The exchange was shown again, this time to include the reporter's incredulous "sweetheart?!" and Baker saying, "I'm kidding."
MADDOW (mimicking Baker): I'm kidding! Charlie Baker, he kids. He also loses very badly among women voters. (Maddow saying this while headlines are shown from Boston media on Baker apologizing for his remark).
Turns out this was just the tip of the iceberg, one that only the keen-eyed Maddow can discern on the horizon. She then talked about Scott Brown's campaign for Senate in New Hampshire and Brown, in response to a question from a reporter, claiming he could not remember anti-abortion legislation he sponsored while in the Senate.
"So, all right, Charlie Baker, one," Maddow said, "Scott Brown, two. But the two of them have it easy compared with Colorado congressman Cory Gardner," the GOP nominee for Senate. And what has Gardner done to get him lumped with such infamous, ne'er-do-well company? He's having second thoughts about so-called personhood legislation he previously sponsored that, if approved, would outlaw abortion and could render abortifacients illegal as well. Colorado voters rejected ballot questions on personhood in 2008 and 2010.
Even though Gardner said back in March that he no longer supports this legislation, he remains a co-sponsor of a personhood bill in the House. And because Congress adjourned two weeks ago until after the midterms in November, Gardner won't get a chance to end his sponsorship of the personhood bill until after the election.
Next came Maddow's attempt to show what Baker, Brown and Gardner share in common, aside from their GOP affiliation, just in case you missed it (5:58 in embedded video) --
MADDOW: Republicans hate what Democrats call their war on women, they hate it. But in the case of the Charlie Baker gubernatorial run and the Scott Brown Senate run and the Cory Gardner Senate run, this is what it looks like.
To put this claim by Maddow in its properly absurd perspective, consider what she said in opening the segment -- "When the liberal lion Ted Kennedy passed away ..." That's right, the dearly departed and iconic Democrat who let a woman drown in his car and didn't report the accident until he'd sobered up 10 hours later, the war on women's only confirmed fatality. And for this, credulous liberals in the Bay State provided Kennedy with a lifelong sinecure in the Senate. After all, it's not as if Kennedy committed the high crime of insulting Mary Jo Kopechne with a sexist slight.
Maddow's forced claim looks even more feeble when compared to something else she reported on Friday -- the beheading of a woman in Oklahoma by a fired co-worker who recently converted to Islam. Maddow, clearly reading from the same memo making the rounds at MSNBC, predictable described the incident as "workplace violence."
Just as predictably, the words "war on women" to describe the murder never passed Maddow's lips. Then again, how could they? Useful idiots for the jihad in the American media would rather perpetuate a fantasy about Republicans than acknowledge that women and girls the world over -- and now in America -- are the victims of savages waging an actual war against them.
