"Let us not waste our time in idle discourse!"
By Jane and Atrios are, of course, right. Whatever the merits of NARAL endorsing Chafee at the time–and I thought that as soon as Langevin pulled out it wasn’t particularly defensible–after he’s bailed on the cloture vote (which, needless to say, means far more than his symbolic vote against Alito) to continue to endorse him against a pro-choice Democrat…I can’t see any argument for this. It’s not just that they’re rewarding people who are selling them out and helping the anti-choice party retain control of Congress. Waiting for the fabled pro-choice-in-action federal Republican in this manner is also counterproductive in that it provides cover for Northeastern Republicans hoping to uphold their bullshit-social-liberal credentials, despite the fact that they aren’t willing to do anything for reproductive freedom when push comes to shove. Katha Pollit, as quoted by Jane, puts it well:
NARAL can start by NOT endorsing pro-choice Republicans. As the Alito roll call shows, when their party calls, they obey. Even supposedly feminist “republican for choice’ Olympia Snowe. If the pro-choice republicans had backed the filibuster, Alito would not have been confirmed today. Whatever their private beliefs about women’s reproductive rights, they are soldiers in the wrong army.
Yes. I can’t believe they haven’t seen enough; I really don’t know what they’re waiting for. NARAL should not, I agree, be reflexively partisan. If there are more-than-nominal pro-choice Republicans in competition with anti-choice Democrats, fine. But the current number of pro-choice Republicans, in any meaningful sense, in the current Senate is zero. Every last one of them rolled on the vote that will leave Roe in tatters and rags, with the phoniest nominal “pro-choicer” of them all ramming him through the Judiciary Committee from his position as chair. By pretending that their claims to be “pro-choice” to get elected actually mean anything, pro-choice activists can only make this problem worse. It’s time to pull the plug on the Collins/Snow/Chafee/Specter axis of empty opportunism, post haste.