Smoke and mirrors, anyone?

It appears as though both candidates/parties have decided to start gaming the abortion issue. The Democratic Party today tweaked its platform to "strongly" support a woman's decision to have a baby. How very noble of them. On the other side, John McCain has said he is entertaining the idea of a pro-choice VP pick. How very open-minded.

All this does is add yet another chapter to a debate that will never end using pawns that make no difference. How many Democrats actually ever get around to reading their party platform? Furthermore, it's painfully obvious that neither party has followers who support or follow the party platform 100%. This latest change is just cheap lip-service to try to steal some pro-life votes over to Obama. Obama, in the meantime, has not changed (and doesn't yet have to change) his position on abortion or Roe v. Wade.

McCain's latest veep-tease is similarly useless. No doubt a significant part of why he made the statement is to keep this marathon fascination with he VP thoughts somewhere on the media radar. But I've never known any VP to have any influence in the thought process of the White House, the Supreme Court, or the party with whom they are affiliated. A pro-choice pick would only be an appeasement to persuade America that, hey, McCain reaches out to everybody.

I hope that Americans see both of these tricks for what they are (cheap, mindless pandering) and dismiss them by day's end. Republicans hate abortion and the choice of women to have one. Democrats care nothing for the useless proletariat that disagrees with them.

Of course, if nothing else, drawing a few of the other team's players over to your side has at least one advantage: "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."