As was expected, the Senate rejected GOP Senator Roy Blunts anti-contraception pander amendment. Retiring Republican Olympia Snowe voted with all but three Senate Democrats to table the amendment. Blunt responded predictably:

In a statement following the vote, Blunt said he was “disappointed” at the “partisanship that has been injected into this debate on religious freedoms.”

“Instead of working to pass a bipartisan measure that has been part of our law for almost 40 years, this debate has been burdened by outlandish and divisive efforts to misinform and frighten Americans,” he said. “The fact remains that this provision would simply preserve the fundamental religious freedom that we enjoy today. For the first time in our history, the Obama Administration’s health care mandate is an egregious violation of our First Amendment rights.

Partisanship? Blunt’s effort to whip up the base resulted in partisanship? Who’d have ever guessed?

Also, tell me again why anyone would need to pass a law to enable a measure that “has been part of our law for 40 years”? If that’s so, wasn’t Blunt’s amendment just a bit redundant?  

Does he mean that part of our commonly accepted practice has been to let people off the hook when it comes to observing rules, regulations and laws they don’t like as long as they claim they have a “moral” objection? I bet that news comes as a surprise to Quakers who don’t seem to be able to subtract from their taxes the funds that go to the military. And, to take a slightly different if somewhat more significant tack, what about segregation? As I distinctly remember, there were lots of folks back before the civil rights movement who defended that practice by appealing to their own special version of Christian morality. Does Blunt believe that was just hunky-dory?

I  hope our GOP Senator is enjoying the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of swing states. Seems like President is leading Blunt’s boy, the presumptive GOP presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, in swing states. And the crucial factor?:

In the poll, Romney leads among all men by a single point, but the president leads among women by 18. That reflects a greater disparity between the views of men and women than the 12-point gender gap in the 2008 election.

So why such a yawning gender gap? According to the President’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, “American women can’t trust Romney to stand up for them.” This is the same Romney who, after some inept attempts at equivocation, declared unambiguously, “Of course I support the Blunt amendment.” I hope Romney appreciates what the efforts of his “congressional liaison” have done for him – or is it “done to” him.