At a campaign event in Ohio yesterday, Clinton blasted GOP candidates for their positions on women's health issues. She criticized Rubio for bragging about being against abortion even in cases of incest and rape, Kasich for holding back funding to rape crisis centers that referred victims to abortion services, and Jeb! and everybody else for wanting to defund Planned Parenthood.
She said, "Now, extreme views about women—we expect that from some of the terrorist groups." In the video, you can see her pausing after that statement, as if to check the new poll numbers before moving on to say, "We expect that from people who don't want to live in the modern world, but it's a little hard to take coming from Republicans who want to be the president of the United States."
Right. On.
The barely animate robo-pundits over at Fox News argue that the comparison is extreme, that ISIS cuts women's faces off and Republican presidential candidates don't. They are demanding an apology, accusing her of using inflammatory speech as a cover for her e-mail scandal, and, for the sake of fairness and balance, comparing her to a "sociopath" who has been backed into a corner and is now trying to hang herself.
While it's true that the Republican candidates aren't literally raping and murdering people on television, they are religious extremists who are making women's lives miserable and less safe. As Elizabeth Warren pointed out a few weeks ago, the Republican position on these issues is part of a strategic and ongoing attack on the bodies of women. The moral basis for this attack stems from the Bible. The moral basis for stoning women to death stems from the Koran. The comparison is not as far off as Fox suggests.
Also, within the context of the Trump Primary, it's hard to get worked up about Clinton comparing the views of one religious extremist group with the views of another religious extremist group. At this point, Trump is post-verbal in his capacity to offend. Instead of calling Mexicans rapists and murderers, he prefers now simply to kick them out of his press conferences, whether they're well-respected journalists or not.
By the way, Sarah Palin is going to go over all of this stuff—the Bible, kicking Mexican Americans out of press conferences, etc.—tonight in her interview with Trump. That's right, Palin and Trump are going to be glitching out across from each other on her show On Point with Sarah Palin. If you wanna come over later to watch, you'll have to bring the popcorn. I've been out since Trump switched to the red hat.
The upshot of Clinton's exaggeration? It calls attention to the importance of protecting institutions that support women's health.
