Friday, November 17, 2006

Ah, yes...the spirit of compromise

UPDATE2: Jessica at Feministing has more on this "nut". It seems that he has some unorthodox ideas about more than birth-control.
But apparently if you’ve had sex with too many people you use up all that oxytocin: "People who have misused their sexual faculty and become bonded to multiple persons will diminish the power of oxytocin to maintain a permanent bond with an individual.” Hear that? Too many sexual partners and you’ll never love again!

UPDATE: Here's Tristero's take on it... it was all a joke!

It would appear that the hand that GWB is extending across the aisle has its middle finger extended. Via TPM Muckraker we learn of this WaPo article:

The Bush administration has appointed a new chief of family-planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services who worked at a Christian pregnancy-counseling organization that regards the distribution of contraceptives as "demeaning to women."

Eric Keroack, medical director for A Woman's Concern, a nonprofit group based in Dorchester, Mass., will become deputy assistant secretary for population affairs in the next two weeks, department spokeswoman Christina Pearson said yesterday.

[...]

The appointment, which does not require Senate confirmation, was the latest provocative personnel move by the White House since Democrats won control of Congress in this month's midterm elections. President Bush last week pushed the Senate to confirm John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations and this week renominated six candidates for appellate court judgeships who have previously been blocked by lawmakers. Democrats said the moves belie Bush's post-election promises of bipartisanship.

The Keroack appointment angered many family-planning advocates, who noted that A Woman's Concern supports sexual abstinence until marriage, opposes contraception and does not distribute information promoting birth control at its six centers in eastern Massachusetts.

[...]

Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, called Keroack's appointment "striking proof that the Bush administration remains dramatically out of step with the nation's priorities."

Taken together, Keroack's appointment, the Bolton push and the judicial renominations suggest that although Bush may work for consensus with Democrats on selected issues, he does not plan to avoid decisions simply because lawmakers will disagree, and he may in fact seek fights in some instances when he feels they may be useful politically.

Confirmation of Bolton and the judicial nominees are popular causes with Bush's conservative base, and a family-planning chief from an organization that opposes contraceptives may appeal to disaffected social conservatives.

White House spokeswoman Dana M. Perino cautioned against reading a larger pattern into the recent moves, saying, "You have to look at these things in isolation."

She added: "The president has said we will look to reach common ground where we can find it. However, he's not going to compromise on his principles."

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