What a difference two words make. That’s the difference, Politifact noted late today, between the truth and what Sen. Kamala Harris tried slinging on Friday. The California senator accused Brett Kavanaugh of deploying a “dog whistle” on abortion by claiming that the Supreme Court nominee called all contraception “abortion inducing.” And the only way that argument works is … did we mention the difference two words make?
Kavanaugh chooses his words very carefully, and this is a dog whistle for going after birth control. He was nominated for the purpose of taking away a woman’s constitutionally protected right to make her own health care decisions. Make no mistake – this is about punishing women. pic.twitter.com/zkBjXzIvQI
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) September 7, 2018
Harris cut an important second out of the clip — the attribution. Kavanaugh said, “They said filling out the form would make them complicit in the provision of the abortion-inducing drugs that they were, as a religious matter, objecting to.”
“They” refers to a Catholic nonprofit group, Priests for Life. Kavanaugh was answering a question from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, about a case in which he argued Priests for Life shouldn’t have to provide women with the contraceptive coverage mandated by the Affordable Care Act for religious reasons.
If there was any doubt about this, all anyone had to do was read from Kavanaugh’s dissent in the case:
In the dissent, Kavanaugh writes, “They complain that submitting the required form contravenes their religious beliefs because doing so, in their view, makes them complicit in providing coverage for contraceptives, including some that they believe operate as abortifacients.”
Politifact concludes that they rate Harris’ statement “false,” but it’s worse than that. Harris spent all of last week shredding her own credibility, complete with a “cross-examination” stunt that became an embarrassing failed bluff. This intellectually dishonest cheap shot completely ignores how attorneys, courts, and arguments work. The only thing Harris has proven over the last week is that she’s spectacularly unfit for the Senate Judiciary Committee, and for the Senate as well. The very best thing that can be said about Kamala Harris is that she’s consistent.
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