WTF, John McCain?

As we know by know, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act failed to get the necessary 60 votes in the Senate. I was pleased to see that several Republicans voted yes, but not enough did. Someone who did not vote at all was Senator and Republican presidential nominee John McCain. Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who are also running for president, made it to Washington for the vote. Yesterday, I listed John McCain as someone who doesn't give a shit about women because he didn't vote on the Act at all. And because Clinton and Obama are running campaigns just as much as McCain, I can only assume that McCain would have voted "No" had he voted this week, and what a blemish that would have been on his record. Here's McCain's reasoning for not supporting the bill (but not why he was too cowardly to vote at all):

"I am all in favor of pay equity for women, but this kind of legislation, as is typical of what's being proposed by my friends on the other side of the aisle, opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems."

Lawsuits such as Ledbetter vs. Goodyear, perchance? That's the point, jackass. If pay inequity based on gender is illegal, and a company pays any woman less anyway, that is breaking the law, and breaking the law opens you up to a big, fat, well-deserved lawsuit. That was pretty bad, but at least he has hundreds of years of conservative philosophy backing up his reasoning. But why, oh why, didn't he just stop there?

"They [women] need the education and training, particularly since more and more women are heads of their households, as much or more than anybody else. And it's hard for them to leave their families when they don't have somebody to take care of them.

It's a vicious cycle that's affecting women, particularly in a part of the country like this [Kentucky], where mining is the mainstay; traditionally, women have not gone into that line of work, to say the least."

Um, no. More women than men are enrolled in college. And no matter where you go or what your profession, women are making less than men. And maybe more women will become miners once Elaine Chao stops screwing them over.

If you want to take John McCain to school, sign this petition.