It’s not just rightie pundits who fall into the stupid pit. Sometimes I wonder where people keep their heads.

Barry Friedman and Dahlia Lithwick wonder what progressives will possibly do with themselves now that we appear to be cruising to victory on marriage equality.

But did you notice that, on the way to this victory, the left, as a movement, seemed to abandon almost everything else for which it once stood? That while gay marriage rose like cream to the top of the liberal agenda, the rest of what the left once cherished was shoved aside, ignored, or “it’s complicated” to oblivion? …

… Progressives were once unapologetically pro-choice, committed to the idea that women would control their own bodies and destiny, and that the government should stay out of it. They insisted that women and their physicians should make intimate health care decisions without the genial assistance of state and federal legislators and their transvaginal probes. Then along came so-called partial-birth abortion and pictures of late-term fetuses, and all of a sudden the storyline shifted to killing babies, as if killing babies was what anyone ever wanted to do. Still, progressives, pushing their own babies in their Bugaboos, came to doubt their convictions on abortion, and abortion doctors, and even on Planned Parenthood clinics, which are often the focus of angry demonstrations.

Now, mind you, this was posted on Slate yesterday. This was posted less than a week after Wendy Davis and her pink sneakers had become our fair-haired (literally) darling.

Similarly, Friedman and Lithwick complain that progressives have abandoned the causes of labor, income inequality, gun control (that was true until Sandy Hook), supporting public schools and keeping prayer out of them, and opposing the death penalty. I repeat, they are not saying that liberals have been less successful at making progress on these lines; they are saying progressives aren’t even interested in those causes any more.

Maybe we should send them a recording of last year’s Democratic National Convention. People care passionately about this stuff. And the Dems, bless them, are finally growing some spine in regard to reproduction rights, and many of them are getting stronger on strengthening the safety net. And it hasn’t been that long since the Madison, Wisconsin protests, has it?

Yes, we aren’t making as much progress on these other issues as we have on gay rights, for a host of reasons. And there’s been much more focus on marriage equality in recent months because, dammit, we seemed to be winning for a change.

But I don’t see us lefties abandoning these other issues. Prioritizing, maybe. And a lot of the action has been at state and not national level. But you go where the fight is.

Seriously, where do people keep their heads? I thought Lithwick, at least, was smarter than this.

The other column today that makes me want to smack the writer is in Politico, so yeah, it’s Politico. But Maggie Haberman is wringing her hands over what the poor Dems will do for a candidate in 2016 if Hillary Clinton doesn’t run. And I say, shut up shut up shut up shut up about whether Hillary Clinton or anybody else will run in 2016. After we went through 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and part of 2008 being told that Hillary Clinton will be the Dem nominee in 2008, it’s inevitable, there is no one else who has a prayer of stopping her, you’d think that the pundits would have grown a bit more cautious about giving her the Miss Inevitability award yet again.

But no. They can’t let it go. Hillary Clinton’s political career is the crack cocaine of beltway pundits.

First, let us send consoling thoughts to the families of the 19 firefighters who died in Arizona yesterday. The dangerous heat wave in the southwest continues. It was just a hair under 130 degrees F in Death Valley.

Egypt is acting out again. Righties blame Obama.

News for 150 years ago today — Outnumbered and disorganized Union troops retreat back through Gettysburg as Confederates advance. The Union troops are reinforced and positioned on Cemetery Hill. Confederate Lt. General Richard Ewell chooses not to attack the Union lines.

I’m glad to see I’m not the only one wondering where Jonathan Chait left his brain yesterday. Kathy Kattenburg writes,

Plainly, being a male liberal (or kinda sorta liberal-libertarian) on abortion rights does not, sad to say, mean that the pro-choice part overpowers the testosterone-induced need to mansplain women’s lives to them.

This is what Chait said, regarding Rick Perry’s comments about Wendy Davis, that pissed me (and Kathy) off:

The immediate liberal reaction is that Perry was “attack[ing] her motives and her experiences,” or “dismissing her as an unwed, teen mother.” But Perry is not attacking Davis here. Perry is pointing to her life as a success. His comments are tantamount to a liberal arguing that Ted Cruz’s family history shows why we need more immigration.

Chait goes on to lecture us pro-reproductive rights folks about how anti-rights people have a right to their opinion too, which I suppose makes it perfectly acceptable for them to force their views on the rest of us by closing abortion clinics.

But it stuns me that Chait and some other generally leftie males are oblivious to the belittling, condescending, patronizing, insult to Davis at the heart of Perry’s remarks. One more time — where does any man get off dictating to any woman what she should have learned from her experiences as a woman and mother? Whether the woman was married or single? Whether she chose an abortion or not? Exactly how does white skin and a penis signify all-pervading wisdom?

In case any of you still don’t see it, here are some resources on “mansplaining.”

A Cultural History of Mansplaining

Mansplaining 101: How to Discuss Politics and Feminism Without Acting Like a Jackass

Mansplaining on Tumblr

Men Explain Things to Me: Facts Didn’t Get in Their Way

This is such a common experience for a woman — dealing with men who assume they know better than you do about everything, including your own area of expertise, because. And then if you come out and tell them, y’know, I actually know quite a lot about this, and I would prefer you not instruct me unless I ask you a question — you get this oh, isn’t she cute smirk, and then they go on explaining things you already know as if you were six years old. Or — my personal favorite — we are told that maybe people would listen to us more if we were nicer. It’s maddening. And allegedly liberal men do it too sometimes.

Most of your know my Bigger Asshole theory of effective protesting, but here it is again — in a confrontation between protesters and those being protested, whichever is the bigger asshole loses. That’s because the goal is to sway public opinion, and public opinion will turn against the bigger asshole.

Today Texas Gov. Rick Perry stepped into a big ol’ pile of assholery in a speech to a National Fetus People Conference:

PERRY: In fact, even the woman who filibustered the Senate the other day was born into difficult circumstances. She was the daughter of a single woman, she was a teenage mother herself. She managed to eventually graduate from Harvard Law School and serve in the Texas senate. It is just unfortunate that she hasn’t learned from her own example that every life must be given a chance to realize its full potential and that every life matters.

Yes, Mr. Oops has taken it on himself to lecture a woman about what she should have learned from her life experiences, experiences that he himself never had. The Patriarchy speaks.
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(I believe I speak for many women when I say that nothing pisses us off more than a man lecturing us about what we should think based on his notions of who we are. It dismisses us as less than persons. It’s the male chauvinist equivalent of the antebellum plantation owner saying his nigras jus’ loves the massah.)

Kay:

Rick Perry is very disappointed that a grown woman doesn’t understand her own life and experiences in exactly the same way he and the attendees of the National Right To Life Convention do. First he defines what her life means, and then sorrowfully recounts how she just hasn’t learned the right lessons from his definition of her life.

Y’know, it’s a wonder that man can walk and talk and dress himself, going through life as he is with his head shoved up his ass. Digby and Shakesis also, um, comment. However, somebody needs to explain a few things to Jonathan Chait. He ain’t gettin’ it.

In the short run, the bill Wendy Davis blocked on Wednesday will almost certainly pass into law eventually. And wingnut state legislators will continue to pass transvaginal ultrasound requirements and defund Planned Parenthood and find ways to close clinics for the wommenfolks’ own good, you know. Because they can’t leave well enough alone (see previous post about GOP crack).

But in the long run — well, I do believe I feel the turning of the tide. And I’m not alone. See:

On Wendy Davis, the Supreme Court, and Speaking Out As Women

Wendy Davis’ abortion law filibuster may be a ‘Texas Spring’

http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/06/wendy-davis-scotus-and-speaking-out-as-women.html?test=true

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-is-wendy-davis-abortion-law-filibuster-a-texas-spring-20130627,0,6885101.story

Wendy Davis, Feminist Superhero

Wendy and the Boys

Yes, Rick Perry and the Texas troglodytes will pass their bill. Please proceed, governor. This is just getting started.

Justice Kennedy sided with the liberal justices this time, and DOMA is done. So is California’s Prop 8. This was a good day for marriage equality.

Justice Ginsburg Slams Supreme Court’s ‘Hubris’ In Fiery Dissent On Voting Rights Act Tell it, Sister Ruth.

This may be the most destructive SCOTUS since Justice Taney et al. decided Dred Scott. First Citizens United; now this.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday effectively struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by a 5-to-4 vote, ruling that Congress had not provided adequate justification for subjecting nine states, mostly in the South, to federal oversight.

“In 1965, the states could be divided into two groups: those with a recent history of voting tests and low voter registration and turnout, and those without those characteristics,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. “Congress based its coverage formula on that distinction. Today the nation is no longer divided along those lines, yet the Voting Rights Act continues to treat it as if it were.”

Does Justice Roberts live on the moon? Has Justice Roberts even visited this country?

I linked it in the last post, but a lot of what Chris Hayes says here applies to the SCOTUS and this decision — the nature of the South; the sort of people who rise to prominent positions.