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Anti-Abortion Politics at the Center of Missouri Political Scandal
One never has to look far to illustrate the way the the so-called culture wars remain at the center of our political life, and are likely to remain so for the forseeable future.
There is an excellent post over at Daily Kos today that illuminates the once dark secrets of the Missouri governor's office. Among the revelations emerging from the release of thousands of emails is the way that Republican Governer Roy Blunt's chief of staff coordinated -- on the taxpayer's time and the taxpayers dime -- with Catholic leaders and religious right anti-abortion groups to attack Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon (now governor elect) who was Blunt's likely Democratic challenger. |
Here is an excerpt from a St. Louis Post Dispatch report on the mushrooming political scandal:
[Ed] Martin, appointed in August 2006, was Blunt's pugnacious gatekeeper. The St. Louis lawyer and devout Catholic had built a reputation as volatile and fiercely partisan in his work for anti-abortion groups and as head of the St. Louis Election Board.
In August 2007, Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit to overturn an anti-abortion law that imposed more requirements on facilities that perform more than five first-trimester abortions a month.
Martin immediately attacked Nixon, a Democrat who was already running for governor. At the time, Blunt, a Republican, was expected to seek re-election, though he later dropped out of the race.
Martin told Catholic leaders and other conservatives that Nixon, an abortion rights supporter, could not be trusted to defend the abortion law.
"We need to beat the living heck out of him," Martin wrote on Aug. 20.
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