Still lots of right-wing mayhem to go around (Katha Pollitt)

Last updated October 24, 2008 3:51 p.m. PT
KATHA POLLITT
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

... to be fair, Bachmann has been sending bulletins from Outer Wingnuttia for quite a while. In August she mocked Nancy Pelosi for "global warming fanaticism ... She has said that she's just trying to save the planet. We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago." Bachmann also claimed that Democrats want high gas prices in order to force Americans to move to "the inner city." Watch out, Real America, Democrats want to turn you into blacks ...

... According to McCain, if Obama had only agreed to do 10 town hall debates with him, none of this mud would be slung now. It's as if he's blaming Obama for his own decision to take the low road. You leave me no choice, sir, but to lie and slander ...

... every poll suggests these appeals to the devils of our nature aren't working their mojo. It may have taken the collapse of the global financial system to get Americans to elect a black man president, but give the voters a little credit ...

Not too much credit, though. The culture war may fail at the top of the ticket, but it still has enough juice to do damage further down. This year's state ballot initiatives offer numerous opportunities for social conservatives to damage women's health and human rights: Californians can vote to require parental notification on abortion, a measure they've rejected twice but which looks likely to pass this time around. South Dakotans can vote to ban abortion entirely, with narrowly tailored exceptions for rape, incest and serious injury to the woman's health -- just make sure you report being raped by your brother immediately and that your doctor is prepared to risk 10 years in prison if his colleagues think he's erred on the side of keeping you alive. For the true fetal fan, though, Colorado is the place to be: There voters can choose to declare that human personhood, with all its legal protections, begins with the fertilized egg, putting at risk not only legal abortion but also emergency contraception, the pill, chemotherapy and other medically necessary procedures, to say nothing of in vitro fertilization ...

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/384903_katha26.html