[He didn’t] think that ’mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term.

Given that the current law governing late term abortions includes mental distress mental health as one of the health exceptions, this would be a significant narrowing of abortion rights.

Via Talk Left, Obama has refined his remarks, but he continues to back a position that would significantly narrow access to late term abortions over what the law currently allows. Even more troubling, he’s dishonest about what his position means in terms of how it would change current law.

Here’s Obama’s WORM:

Reporter: You said that mental distress shouldn’t be a reason for late-term abortion?

Obama: “My only point is this — historically I have been a strong believer in a women’s right to choose with her doctor, her pastor and her family. And it is ..I have consistently been saying that you have to have a health exception on many significant restrictions or bans on abortions including late-term abortions.

In the past there has been some fear on the part of people who, not only people who are anti-abortion, but people who may be in the middle, that that means that if a woman just doesn’t feel good then that is an exception. That’s never been the case.

I don’t think that is how it has been interpreted. My only point is that in an area like partial-birth abortion having a mental, having a health exception can be defined rigorously. It can be defined through physical health, It can be defined by serious clinical mental-health diseases. It is not just a matter of feeling blue. I don’t think that’s how pro-choice folks have interpreted it. I don’t think that’s how the courts have interpreted it and I think that’s important to emphasize and understand.”

According to Linda Douglass, the Obama campaign’s senior spokesperson, the senator from Illinois was making a distinction in the magazine interview between medically diagnosed mental illness and the kind of mental distress that an unwanted pregnancy causes many a pregnant mother.

As Melissa McEwan pointed out about his initial statement - “[h]e’s breathing life into the damnable lie that there are legions of women who seek out late-term abortions just because they’ve changed their silly little minds and make up lies about “mental distress” to get them.” This revised statement continues to breathe life into that lie, only now with the more offensive “feeling blue” language.* It also reaffirms his previous patronizing language about a woman consulting with not only her doctor, but also her pastor (read: man) and her family (read: husband). Because no woman could make this decision by consulting only with her physician or, heaven forbid, just herself. Apparently, it takes a village to abort a fetus.

More troubling than all of that is that, as ABC’s Jan Crawford Greenburg points out, Obama continues to assert a more restrictive position than the rights currently enjoyed under Roe:

Here’s the problem with that, and why Obama’s remarks are so startling. Obama is trying to restrict abortions after 22 weeks to those women who have a serious disease or illness. But the law today also covers some women who are in “mental distress,” those women who would suffer emotional and psychological harm without an abortion.

This standard has long been understood to require less than “serious clinical mental health disease.” Women today don’t have to show they are suffering from a “serious clinical mental health disease” or “mental illness” before getting an abortion post-viability, as Obama now says is appropriate.

And for 35 years—since Roe v. Wade—they’ve never had to show that. So Obama, it seems to me, still is backing away from what the law says—and backing away from a proposed federal law (of which he is a co-sponsor) that envisions a much broader definition of mental health than the one he laid out this week.

In Doe v. Bolton the Supreme Court partially upheld an abortion restriction that limited physicians to performing abortions except where it was necessary based on the physician’s “best clinical” judgement. The Court upheld this provision as being permissible because such:

medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors —physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age — relevant to the wellbeing of the patient. All these factors may relate to health. This allows the attending physician the room he needs to make his best medical judgment. And it is room that operates for the benefit, not the disadvantage, of the pregnant woman.

This is a much broader definition of health than that offered by Obama even after his WORM

Originally, a fictitious game show where such rationalizations are put forth.”> revision.

So Obama is either stupid and doesn’t know what current law is or he is deliberately portraying his position as current law when he knows it isn’t. I’ve never believed Obama was stupid.

Obama’s pulling the Bushian trick of portraying his position as being centrist by saying it’s the status quo when it’s actually to the right of the status quo. He’s moving the Overton window, but not to the left.

* As we already know periodically when they’re feeling down women launch attacks against good, upstanding men like Obama.

Let’s recap where we are. Barack Obama appears to have secured the needed number of delegates to become the presumptive democratic nominee (a number reported by the AP and which apparently included SDs who would only confirm their support “privately.”) This occurred less than 24 hours ago. After her win in South Dakota, Hillary Clinton congratulated Obama and his supporters and said she wasn’t going to make any decisions last night. Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean and Joe Manchin (head of the Democratic Governors Association) issued a statement today asking Super Delegates to tell them where they stand. While the statement congratulated both candidates, it did not announce a winner. Hillary Clinton’s campaign said yesterday that she would spend today contacting Super Delegates. This make sense, after the mindfucks the Obama campaign and the media have pulled, who could blame her for wanting to talk directly to the SDs themselves and confirm the delegate count. And, in fact, that appears to be what the Democratic leaders are doing as well.

This morning, in a show of unity, Hillary Clinton praised Barack Obama at AIPAC, specifically as it relates to Israel (yes, I know, AIPAC, but politically this was presumably helpful to Obama). While she has not conceded or formally suspended her campaign, she also has not said or done anything publicly that I’m aware of to criticize Obama or dispute that he is the presumptive nominee or that would indicate she is planning a convention fight. Indeed, this morning Terry McAuliffe reportedly confirmed Obama was the presumptive nominee and reiterated that Clinton will meet with him and that the party will be unified. Unless someone has heard or seen something I haven’t, I’m not aware of any information that Hillary Clinton plans to diverge from what she’s said previously, that she would do everything she could to unify the party and that she would do everything in her power to ensure a Democrat wins the White House in November.

Now, back to that amazing Rosen piece. It’s been less than 24 hours since the closest nominating battle in Democratic history came to an end (assuming media reports of the delegate count are right). Yet, Hillary Rosen is pissed that Hillary Clinton has not already conceded the race to Barack Obama. What upsets Rosen even more is, in Rosen’s words, Hillary’s suggestion that “[s]he is waiting to figure out how she would “use” her 18 million voters.” Rosen herself is eager to disabuse readers that she’s anyone’s bargaining chip. Because, of course, it would be awful if Hillary Clinton used Rosen or her other millions of supporters to get Obama to improve his healthcare plan. A real tragedy for the party and the nation.

What was Rosen urging Clinton to do?

She had a chance to surprise her party and the nation after the day-long denials about expecting any concession and send Obama off on the campaign trail of the general election with the best possible platform. I wrote before how she had a chance for her “Al Gore moment.” And if she had done so, the whole country ALL would be talking today about how great she is and give her her due.

But because Hillary Clinton did not give Hillary Rosen her “Al Gore” moment, Hillary Clinton “left her supporters empty, Obama’s angry, and party leaders trashing her.” As a Clinton supporter, I’m going to dispute that first one at least for those of us who don’t live in the Village, but let’s look at the other two because those are what are really upsetting Rosen. Because Hillary did not immediately surrender (possibly before her campaign could even confirm the delegate count), she suffered the anger of Obama’s supporters, which presumably includes the media, and the trashing by party leaders. Heavens, how awful. People will say bad things about Hillary Clinton. She must be shaking in her boots. According to Rosen, “the next 48 hours are now as important to the future reputation of Hillary Clinton as the last year and a half have been.”

Now, let’s think about what Hillary Rosen is really saying because it is very illuminating about how our thoroughly corrupt Village works. What she’s really saying is that Hillary Clinton must not use her political power, which is considerable, to demand one god-damned thing from Obama or the party for her voters. To do otherwise is “using” them. And god forbid a politician should ever use their political leverage to gain any kind of compromise or concession. How would the republic survive?

What is the awful price Hillary will pay if she uses her political power to get something for the people who voted for her? The party elite and media will criticize her. Her reputation will be ruined in the Village. Not with her voters, notice other than claiming to speak for all of Hillary’s supporters (we felt “empty” last night apparently) there’s no mention of what those 18 million people might want out of this. Nor is there any suggestion that they should get something in exchange for coming together with the Obama faction of the party.

Instead, what Hillary Rosen advised Hillary Clinton to do is to give up all of her political power and walk away. To unconditionally surrender instead of seeking to represent the people who voted for her and trying to get them something they might want whether it be to advance a policy or Hillary herself. Because if she doesn’t, then the Village might say mean things about Hillary. And it is better to simply give up your power than have the Village say mean things about you for a day or two.

Isn’t this a nice example of so much that has gone wrong with the Democratic Party, not to mention our media? Any use of political power that might cause tension or any hint of unpleasantness must never be used. Otherwise your fellow Democrats and the media will join together to trash you for how much disunity you’re causing.

If that doesn’t describe everything from Gore’s concession - tellingly mentioned by Rosen as a great moment worth emulating - to the capitulation on setting a withdrawal timeline on Iraq, I don’t know what does. It’s a perfect prescription for ensuring that Democrats never get what they want.

At some point, Democrats became scared of politics. You can’t win at a game that scares you.

NOTE - I’m not suggesting that Clinton should not recognize Obama as the presumptive nominee or take other actions to unify the party. I’m suggesting that the idea she should do so within one day and without getting anything in return is ridiculous and goes completely against how our political system is designed to work and how it has historically worked. That Democrats don’t seem to understand this basic premise of politics is why they keep getting their asses handed to them.

In an interview with Politico, NARAL President Nancy Keenan said the group’s nine-member political action committee chose Obama after extensive deliberation that included studying the two Democratic candidates’ delegate counts (both pledged and superdelegates), their viability in a matchup against the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, and their cash on hand.

I feel so much better knowing that they are so committed to supporting my rights that they essentially sold their endorsement to Obama. And it wasn’t just a chance to raise money, it was also a chance to tell long time supporters to go fuck themselves:

But there was something larger at work in this endorsement, Keenan said. “Right now, when you have the mobilization of a new generation of people coming and participating in this democracy, there’s a moment when they are listening, and in my judgment, they are listening now.”

But back to those dwindling coffers. Perhaps the reason NARAL’s PAC doesn’t have all that much cash is it does a lousy job advocating for its ONE ISSUE. From Jane Hamsher’s classic takedown:

And what did they do with all that cash? They sat on it and didn’t do a damn thing, didn’t lift a finger to fight Samuel Alito. Worse yet, when the Gang of 14 decided to vote in favor of cloture, they said that they did not consider cloture votes “significant” and would not be considering them in their scorecard. They then went on to add insult to injury by asking their membership to thank Lincoln Chafee and Joe Lieberman for the beatings they delivered with their “aye” cloture vote by pretending that their “nay” floor votes were significant. They then poured salt into the wound by endorsing both “short ride” Lieberman and Chafee over their opponents who made it clear that they would not have voted for cloture for Alito, which gave us the 5-4 decision we have today.

Don’t reward failure. Tell your friends. Don’t give money to NARAL when they come knocking on your door to tell you that choice is going down the crapper unless you give them a lot of money, because what you’ll be giving money for is Nancy Keenan’s ability to point her little pinky over tea at Washington cocktail parties and tut-tut over the state of choice in this country at the hands of the fundamentalists. She’ll take no responsibility for the fact that NARAL will not fight, will not back those that fight, and worse yet, that NARAL sucks up all the pro-choice money so nobody else can mount a meaningful fight, either.

Big surprise. NARAL does a lousy job defending choice, loses its donor base and then decides to remedy the situation by further pissing off its donor base. Hell, even Obama supporters thought it was stupid. From that Politico article:

Even some Obama supporters, while ultimately believing that their candidate is the strongest on these issues, were unhappy with its handling, said Conlin. “The supporters of Obama that I know on our board and in our membership thought it was ill-timed and ill-advised and really antithetical to people coming together in common purpose to beat John McCain,” she said.

Given the “massive healing” needed to keep Clinton’s staunchest women supporters in the fold should Obama become the nominee, Conlin said, the endorsement was like “throwing a flaming spear into a tinderbox of raw emotion.”

That doesn’t matter, however, because Nancy has hooked NARAL up to the Obama cash machine. Of course, I fully expect the Obama donors to get the same level of service (read: pathetic) the old donors got.

NARAL sucks or at least its national PAC does. Don’t give it a dime. This is not about its Obama endorsement, this is about it trying to replace one group of suckers who paid for lousy advocacy with another.

(h/t commenter IzikLA at Talk Left)

Fortunately, the Bush Administration came up with a solution, putting Scott Bloch in charge of the office. Putting a Bush appointee in charge of the office that’s designed to protect the career civil service against being politicized is like putting a lion in charge of protecting baby gazelles.

For starters, Bloch has a long history of fighting against gay rights, perhaps not the best sign for someone whose responsibilities can include anti-discrimination laws. One of the first things Bloch did at the OSC was reverse the OSC position that gay federal employees could not be discriminated against (his predecessor was a lesbian appointed by Bill Clinton, OSC chiefs serve appointed terms). The discrimination protection for federal employees had been in place since at least 1978.

Bloch backtracked some under White House pressure, but his position on protections for gay employees remained unclear. In 2005, OPM launched an investigation after receiving complaints about the OSC’s handling of, among others, a gay whistleblower. But that was hardly the only allegation of wrongdoing about Bloch’s OSC:

More than 1,000 whistleblower complaints were dismissed without investigation, said Jeff Ruch, executive director of PEER. Employees were barred from speaking with a whistleblower if the complaint appeared unclear, he said.

“He has yet to go forward and directly litigate on a single whistleblower case,” Ruch said. “By contrast, Bloch has gone out of his way to intervene where he has no jurisdiction.”

OSC staff members were also prohibited from talking to members of Congress or any agency officials who contacted the office with questions about the federal policy on sexual orientation discrimination, Ruch said.

“If an agency is looking for guidance, it’s absurd that OSC lawyers can’t elaborate,” Ruch said.

While Bloch was supposed to enforce merit-based hiring across federal agencies, he converted several OSC positions to at-will appointments, Ruch said. This included hiring recent graduates from the conservative, Catholic law school Ave Maria, as well as hiring his child’s former headmaster from boarding school, the complaint details.

In 2005, several democratic members of Congress became concerned about Bloch’s failure to protect whistleblowers and the management of his own office (which appeared to be an effort to purge career civil service members, ironic, huh?):

Three watchdog groups had complained that Bloch’s reorganization was an attempt to purge career employees and replace them with political allies. The complaint was made by Danielle Brian of the Project on Government Oversight, Jeff Ruch of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and Tom Devine of the Government Accountability Project.

Two federal unions — the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union — also have called on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to probe Bloch’s reorganization. The committee’s staff is looking into the matter, a spokeswoman said.

The letter from the House Democrats asks GAO to investigate why Bloch told 12 employees in Washington to transfer to field offices or face dismissal; why he wants to open a Detroit office “even though the OSC does not appear to have a significant caseload in that region,” and why Bloch has approved the use of no-bid management consultant contracts.

In addition, the House members asked GAO to determine why Bloch signed a contract with a former boarding school headmaster “for unspecified services.”

Boy, do I feel safe. BTW, if you want to know why I try never to divulge what agency I work for or exactly what I do, this is why. The corruption extends to the agencies designed to protect me.

In light of the problems in Bloch’s office, the Inspector General of the Office of Personnel Management began an investigation. It quickly hit snags as OSC personnel claimed Bloch was trying to intimidate them to prevent them from cooperating:

The 16-month investigation has been beset by delays, accusations and counter-accusations. The latest problem began two weeks ago, when Bloch’s deputy sent staffers a memo asking them to inform OSC higher-ups when investigators contact them. Further, the memo read, employees should meet with investigators in the office, in a special conference room. Some employees cried foul, saying the recommendations made them afraid to be interviewed in the probe.

This week, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the Project on Government Oversight, the Government Accountability Project and Human Rights Campaign and a lawyer for the OSC employees protested in a letter to legislators and to Clay Johnson III, the Office of Management and Budget deputy who ordered the OSC probe.

The OSC’s memo, the group said, “was only the latest in a series of actions by Bloch to obstruct” the investigation. “Other actions have included suggestions that all witnesses interviewed … provide Bloch with affidavits describing what they had been asked and how they responded.”

Today’s search warrants and grand jury subpoenas served on Bloch and the OSC by the FBI relate to an investigation about whether Bloch obstructed justice by destroying documents and other evidence related to the investigation into his office’s activities:

Agents from the FBI and the Office of Personnel Management today raided the headquarters of Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch as part of a probe into whether he obstructed justice by having his computer files erased.

Bloch was served with a grand jury subpoena by 20 federal agents, and about 17 other employees were served as well, according to a source who has seen the subpoenas. Agents were seeking a broad range of records, and the office’s e-mail system was shut down during the search, the source added.

Agents also raided Bloch’s home in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County, hauling away boxes of files in unmarked cars that pulled up to the residence on Stockade Drive. Agents declined to speak with a reporter, and no one answered the door of the home after the agents left.

In theory, the OSC is supposed to be investigating Rove and DOJ for its apparent Hatch Act violations. Of course, asking Bloch to police the DOJ for things he appears to also have done is ridiculous.

The Bush Administration has waged a war against the civil service for seven years. Now that the Administration is near the end, there is a lot less to fear. It’s ability to retaliate and punish career personnel diminishes every day. Hopefully, today is a sign that the career civil service is starting to fight back and make the political hacks accountable for what they’ve done.

Thanks to wikipedia for many of the cited links.