Beyond the usual suspects....

What do you bloggers use for source material offline? I think as the mid-term and Presidential elections come closer, we're going to have to read more selectively. Of course, Think Progress, Media Matters, and Crooks and Liars are the big three of the lefty blogosphere online sourcebook. WaPo and the NYFT getcha the news, and WaPo's linky love via Technorati makes it a preferred choice.

But I think we need to go beyond our own insular online world and figure out what magazines and other print outlets might yield good posts. I recently picked up the June issue of The Atlantic Monthly, and I was so impressed I think I might just subscribe I did subscribe to the print edition. Print subscribers get full access to every article online, which makes cut and paste all the easier, but even more than that I was so impressed with the analysis, subject selection, and pure blogability (yep, that's my filter for just about everything these days) of this issue, that this magazine may become a favorite foil month-to-month. The fact that it's monthly helps, too. I can hardly keep up with The New Yorker, though it comes to the house, too, and I can't imagine life without it.

The June issue of The Atlantic has a fantastic cover story on the end (gasp) of Roe v. Wade, and how, if such an event were to occur, it would decimate the Republican Party. Read up:

The current abortion drama in South Dakota provides the best predictor of what might happen if a handful of other states try to resurrect old abortion bans, or pass new ones, that fail to include exceptions for rape, incest, and serious threats to a woman’s health...

Since the South Dakota ban passed, the approval rating of the governor, Mike Rounds, has dropped by 12 percentage points, and several state legislators have announced their intention to switch parties from Republican to Democrat. [Bwa ha ha ha. Ride the donkey, South Da-ko-ta!]

...the moment pro-choice and swing voters perceived that their own right to choose was threatened, there would be increasingly urgent demands for a federal bill protecting the early-term choice that two-thirds of the country supports. If congressional Republicans failed to respond, or insisted on trying to ban early-term abortions instead, their intransigence could set in motion a national backlash that would make the response to Roe v. Wade itself look tame.

If Roe falls in June 2007, abortion will almost certainly become the central issue in the 2008 presidential election. And Republicans are already worrying about the political fallout. “We’d be blown away in the suburbs, and you wouldn’t see another Republican president for twenty years,” a pro-choice Republican congressman recently told Roll Call.

So there’s a good chance, assuming Roe falls, that there will be a Democrat in the White House by 2009. If Congress, at that point, passed a Freedom of Choice Bill protecting early-term abortions, the president would sign it. And if Republicans attempted a filibuster, they might marginalize their party for decades to come.

Now, perish the day that we all need such a cataclysmic event to push the Republicans to the margins of electability, but hey, at this point nearly everything else has failed. The Atlantic is preaching to their choir, of course, but notice that nice photo of Alito and Roberts on the cover. The Atlantic is preaching to them, too, and don't think for an instant that the Justices are any less narcissistic than us daily-hit-count-checker bloggers. The Justices have staff to be narcissistic for them, as well. They've read this article, and will not be Roe-ing any abortion boats in a political vacuum.

A side issue: in another section The Atlantic points out that a politician's support of reproductive rights regardless of party, is in direct proportion to the number of daughters that politician has. Yeah, I kinda think that's why Laura's not out giving speeches for the right to lifers. Do you think the twins are celebate? Nah, don't go there.

I've quoted Nina Totenburg on this many times here. She said during the Roberts confirmation hearings that the overturning of Roe would be the worst thing to happen to the Republican Party apart from a return to the military draft. I've also pointed out that while some extremists and many Christian's "on the ground" feel passionately about overturning Roe, abortion is such a cash cow for the religious right that they really have a negative vested interest in "winning".

Let me put it this way. Pat Robertson and James Dobson may talk loudly about protecting the unborn. But if Roe is overturned their ability to fundraise on the issue is as good as over. And Karl Rove does not want Roe overturned. I guarantee you. Who has more power within the Republican Party, do you think? Pat in-any-sane-world-I'd-be-committed Robertson? Or Karl in-any-just-world-I'd-be-indicted Rove?

So then the question becomes do the Justices themselves give a rat's behind who is in The White House for the next 20 years? Uh, Bush vs. Gore, 2000. I think they do. I also think they get it. Perhaps more's the pity, in spite of the upheaval, it might be nice to watch the GOP poison themselves on Operation Rescue Kool-aid. But this Republican Party, Rove, DeLay, Cheney, the whole lot, are the most politically astute crooks in the history of American politics. I would not take the bet that they are stupid (or compassionate) enough to throw away power over a few unborn, unwanted, babies.

UPDATE: Shake's Sis has info on the ballot initiative against the South Dakota abortion ban.