When A Conservative Right-Wing Democrat Is Just A Conservative Plain Old Right-Wing (With Update)

It was people like her who made me an Left Independent to begin with:

Blanco signs abortion ban into law

6/18/2006, 4:30 p.m. CT
The Associated Press


BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Gov. Kathleen Blanco signed a strict anti-abortion ban into law and a group supporting abortion rights condemned the move as an example of "misplaced priorities of politicians in Louisiana."

The ban has no immediate effect — it will only take effect if the U.S. Constitution is amended to allow states to ban abortion or if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down its own 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that provides for a right to abortion.

Blanco signed the measure on Saturday. Planned Parenthood of Louisiana issued a statement saying the new law "endangers women's health by criminalizing abortion at a time when the state is still recovering from Hurricane Katrina and scrambling to prepare for the start of the new hurricane season."

The measure, sponsored by Sen. Ben Nevers, D-Bogalusa, includes no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. It would allow abortion only to save the life or the health of the mother.

Doctors found guilty of performing abortions under other circumstances would face up to 10 years in prison and fines of $100,000.

The law is similar to one passed in South Dakota earlier this year that is expected to land before the Supreme Court. A majority of the high court's nine justices has voted to uphold Roe v. Wade in the past.

Let's recap this, Clones:

The act was sponsored by a Democrat, passed in a majority Democratic legislature, and signed into law by a Democrat. It is just as strong as the bill signed in South Dakota which is designed as a trigger to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

So...will we be seeing mass protests from the usual women's groups on this law, and the restriction of women's basic reproductive choices??

Oh, but I forgot...Kathleen Blanco is a DEMOCRAT..and a woman to boot!!! We can't put basic principles above the need to keep women in power...and besides, the Republicans are so much worse!!!

Hey, Kos and the DLC: Is this the kind of "swing voter" Democrat that you want us to "compromise" with???

And they STILL can't make up their damn minds on rebuilding MardiGrasLand.....errrr, New Orleans, or adequately fund our crumbling infrastructure; or provide decent pay raises for teachers and their support staff.

Tell me again about how we have to stay in the party and win these people over, Dr. Dean.....please???

No thank you....I'd rather vote Green and Left than stay in a party that allows this shit.

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Update: R. Francis R. (an Alexandria native) does the best job yet of analysis on the political background behind KittyBlank's (my new gloss for our current neo-Repub governor) betrayal of "progressive? values:

[....] None the less, it is a disturbing move. It reflects a rightward trend for a state that is already so far right that Democrats here would be a Republican in any other state. But Democrats in the state have been a buffer to the more extreme David Duke Lite Louisiana Republican Party. Our Republican US Senator once won the endorsement of David Duke, and our Democratic Senator brags about voting with George Bush the vast majority of the time. But the one thing that kept Louisiana Democrats from morphing from kissing-cousins of Louisiana Republicans into their monozygotic twin siblings, was the overwhelming Democratic constituency in New Orleans. Mary Landrieu, in 1996, won her Senate seat in Louisiana by a mere 10,000 votes, but won New Orleans with 87 percent of the vote. Without New Orleans, Mary Landrieu would never have been elected Senator. In these post-Katrina days, the Louisiana Democratic Party is suddenly recognizing that fact. They acted as if they didn't know that before with their complete neglect of New Orleans.

But now that New Orleans has lost nearly 300,000 of its citizens to the post-Katrina diaspora, the likes of Blanco have realized that without New Orleans there is little chance of being re-elected. So, now she moves rightward (it is hard to believe that someone so conservative needed to move rightward, but such is the case in increasingly white constituency of Louisiana). To be fair, Blanco never said she was pro-choice. But she was more than willing to allow Louisiana progressives to believe she would never sign a sweeping abortion ban into law. She never pretended to be liberal or particularly sympathetic with progressive causes--- she simply allowed us to believe she wouldn't offend us as terribly as right winger Bobby Jindal. But, now she has. And it doesn't matter to her. Blanco never presented herself as anyone with any clear convictions on anything; she just wanted to live in the governor's mansion. She clearly wants to live there another four years.

[...]

The New Louisiana Political Calculus is this--- with fewer African-Americans in the state, Louisianian Democrats can rid themselves of the stigma of being the "black party" or the "New Orleans party". They can now be the white-lite party. Blanco sees this and will now free the Louisiana Democratic Party of any semblance of owing anything to those scalawags [sic] progressives.

(Excerpts from Truth, Justice, and the Progressive Way: Blanco Understands New Louisiana Political Calculus; click on link for full article)

Simply another case of how "lesser evil" candidates merely lead to greater evil than ever....and yet another signal that the post-Clinton (White) Democratic Party of the South will be far closer to David Duke and Jim Rarick (former John Birchite who was a pro-segregationist Congressman during the 60's) than to the delusions of the Daily Kos/Jim Hightower liberal populist crowd.

Makes me glad that I dumped this party 20 years ago.