Murc’s law, abortion rights edition

The authors of a forthcoming book on Dobbs and its aftermath interviewed Hillary Clinton on the subject, and the results (gift link) aren’t pretty.

First, the authors themselves engage in some, to put it charitably, questionable political analysis:

Even when they held control of Congress, Democrats were unwilling to pass legislation codifying abortion rights into federal law. While frequently mentioned in passing to rally their base during election season, the issue rarely rose to the top of their legislative or policy agenda.

Democrats have never “controlled” Congress in the sense of having enough votes to codify Roe into federal law, because there’s never been anything like 50/51 votes in the Senate to waive the filibuster for these purposes.

But it’s not just the authors who indulge in egregious green lanternism:

“It is really hard to believe that people are going to lie to you under oath, that even so-called conservative justices would upend precedents to arrive at ridiculous decisions on gun rights and campaign finance and abortion,” she said. “It’s really hard to accept that.”

Yet, she also had tough words for her former colleagues. In the Senate, she said, Democratic lawmakers did not push hard enough to block the confirmation of the justices who would go on to overturn federal abortion rights. When asked in confirmation hearings if they believed Roe was settled law, the nominees noted that Roe was precedent and largely avoided stating their opinion on the decision.

Those justices “all lied in their confirmation hearings,” she said, referring to Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett, all of whom were appointed by Mr. Trump. “They just flat-out lied. And Democrats did nothing in the Senate.”

Here at least the authors ask a question they conspicuously failed to ask of themselves, when they were criticizing the Democratic party for not passing federal abortion rights legislation:

It is unclear how Democrats could have stopped those justices from reaching the bench given that they did not control the Senate during their confirmation hearings. When Mr. Trump took office, Republicans also had unified control of 24 state legislatures, making it all but impossible for Democrats to stop conservatives from pushing through increasingly restrictive laws.

Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett were all confirmed with enough Republican support that even unanimous Democratic opposition (which was very close to the case in any event — Kavanaugh got one Democratic votes, ACB got zero, and Gorsuch got three) wouldn’t have been enough to block their confirmations.

Clinton’s answer is essentially she would have clapped or voted harder:

She added: “If I’d still been in the Senate, and on the Judiciary Committee, I think, you know, I hope I would have tried to do more about what were just outright prevarications.”

More as in what exactly? Everybody knew why these people had been selected by Leonard Leo: To overrule Roe.

To give credit where credit is due, Clinton doesn’t mince words about what Trump’s re-election would likely mean:

“This election is existential. I mean, if we don’t make the right decision in this election in our country, we may never have another actual election. I will put that out there because I believe it,” she said. “And if we no longer have another actual election, we will be governed by a small minority of right-wing forces that are well organized and well funded and are getting exactly what they want in terms of turning the clock back on women.”

Mrs. Clinton described those forces and her former opponent as part of a “global phenomena” restricting women’s rights, pointing to a push by Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, pressing women to focus on raising children; the violent policing of women who violate Iran’s conservative dress code; and what she described as the misogyny of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

“Authoritarians, whether they be political or religious based, always go after women. It’s just written in the history. And that’s what will happen in this country,” Mrs. Clinton said.

Of course good leftists of the Cory Robin stripe realize that Clinton is being hysterical, because you can’t expect people like her to be objective about these things.