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" There was one part of the president&amp;#039;s press conference today that gave me a bit of the political whim-whams, and I think it&amp;#039;s worthy of its own post. Late in the proceedings, he was asked by Jessica Yellin of CNN whether or not he agreed with &amp;quot;some Democrats&amp;quot; \u2014 specifically, with Democratic National Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz \u2014 that the Republican party is engaged in a &amp;quot;war on women.&amp;quot; (This was posed by Yellin, with almost superhuman obliviousness, as a what-about-the-tone-of-our-discourse question in the context of Rush Limbaugh&amp;#039;s porcine grunting over the past couple of weeks. Jesus, these people...) The president ducked the question. Here&amp;#039;s what he said: Here&amp;#039;s what I think. Women are going to make up their own mind in this election about who is advancing the issues that they care most deeply about. One of the things I&amp;#039;ve learned being married to Michelle, is I don&amp;#039;t need to tell her what it is that she thinks is important. And there are millions of strong women around the country who are going to make their own determination about a whole range of issues. It&amp;#039;s not going to be narrowly focused just on contraception. It&amp;#039;s not going to be driven by one statement by one radio announcer. It is going to be driven by their view of what&amp;#039;s most likely to make sure they can help support their families, make their mortgage payments, who&amp;#039;s got a plan to ensure that middle class families are secure over the long term, what&amp;#039;s most likely to result in their kids being able to get the education they need to compete. And I believe that Democrats have a better story to tell to women about how we&amp;#039;re going to solidify the middle class and grow this economy, make sure everybody has a fair shot, everybody&amp;#039;s doing their fair share, and we got a fair set of rules of the road that everybody has to follow. So, I&amp;#039;m not somebody who believes that women are going to be single issue voters. They never have been. But I do think we&amp;#039;ve got a strong story to tell when it comes to women. And, as a follow-up: You know, Jessica, as you know, if I start being in the business of arbitrating... Right, and what I do is I practice it. And so I&amp;#039;m going to try to lead by example in this situation, as opposed to commenting on every single comment that&amp;#039;s made by either politicians or pundits. I would be very busy. I would not have time to do my job. That&amp;#039;s your job to comment on what&amp;#039;s said by politicians and pundits. Not a simple, mumbling word about the right to decent health-care, let alone the right to choose. Given a golden opportunity to say flatly that he and his administration were foursquare behind these rights, he gave the whole thing a pass. I&amp;#039;m sure he&amp;#039;s got poll numbers that tell him not to say &amp;quot;abortion&amp;quot; in public but, damn, this was disappointing. This is what I mean when I say that this issue can only be a political winner for the Democrats if they go out and make it one. How hard would it have been for him to say, &amp;quot;Look, it&amp;#039;s probably not a good time in history to be using the war metaphor, but there&amp;#039;s no question that the Republican party is a vehicle in an organized campaigh to roll back women&amp;#039;s rights in the most personal sphere of their lives, and, as long as I&amp;#039;m president, that won&amp;#039;t happen.&amp;quot;? I&amp;#039;m glad he called Sandra Fluke. I just wish he&amp;#039;d show that he appreciates the incredible political gift she gave him. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a13024/obama-ducks-the-question/>