Nikki Haley talks to reporters on Tuesday (Source: Alex Seitz-Wald)
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday ahead of her primetime speech at the Republican National Convention, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said she is “offended” that Democrats are accusing the GOP of having a poor record on women’s rights issues.
“These [abortion] debates that you fellas keep talking about, that the Dems keep talking about, is just not where women are,” Haley told reporters, according to Salon’s Alex Seitz-Wald. “The only people that are saying that the Democrats are the better party for women are Democrats. And they think if they say it enough, we’ll believe it, and that’s probably about as offensive as it gets.”
REALLY. The governor who called rape victims “distractions” and “special interests” is offended that Democrats say they have a better record on women’s rights. Less than a week after the Republican VP nominee called rape just another “method of conception,” and a GOP Senate nominee talked about “legitimate rape.”
This is the same governor who said “women don’t care about contraception” earlier this year when Republicans attacked President Obama for giving women copay-free birth control. It’s the governor who vetoed a bill helping young women get an optional vaccine for a cancer-causing STD, even though she once supported making the vaccine mandatory. It’s the governor who called a female journalist “little girl” simply for reporting on Haley’s taxpayer-funded junket to Europe.
Tuesday morning, reporters asked Haley about the GOP’s ultra-conservative platform calling for a total ban on abortion without exceptions for rape and incest. “I have no idea,” she said about the platform. “I haven’t been paying attention.”
A word to the wise: If you’re going to act offended when people criticize your party’s record on women’s rights, you should probably pay attention to what that record is.
“I have no idea, I haven’t been paying attention” has to be Haley’s most memorable line yet. I suppose it qualifies for the definition of a “gaffe” that goes: “when a politician accidentally speaks the truth.”