Behind every great man is a great woman......except in the GOP.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so with that in mind, let me go ahead and "say" 3,000 words:

Now look, you can make up whatever words you like to use up those 3000 words, except their is one word you really wont find anywhere. Women. Because (excluding the back of a head) they arnt in the pictures.

Which is kinda a problem, given that every single one of those pictures deals with abortion bills.

The first is the famous "all male contraception panel" that was convened last year and kicked off the whole "War on Women" line against Republicans. Now you'd think they would have learned from that to at least include a women in the damn pictures.

Nope, that brings us to the second picture, That would be a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee debating a 20 week abortion ban. Now in fairness to Republicans the subcommittee kinda had to be all male, because the ENTIRE  Judiciary Committee is male. (After all, a woman's proper place is in the kitchen....and she's not likely to need to know any laws there). That picture by the way was taken in June...as in last month.

Like the first picture it also touched off a lot of outrage....so much so that when the bill was finally brought to the full house for debate the bills original male sponsor was pulled off the bill and replaced by a women, who knew nothing about the bill because shes not actually on the committee that created it. Oh and who also wasnt actually put in charge of the bill even on the floor, until the original male sponsor made a comment about how unlikely it is for rape to result in pregnancy (speaking of things the GOP doesnt learn from....paging Todd "legitimate rape" Akin and Richard "God wanted you to be raped" Mourdoch.....)

Now you'd figure, since they did put a woman as the public face of the bill (even if she didnt actually know anything about it), that was a sign they learned their lesson. Not so.

That brings us to picture 3, taken at the beginning of July. That is Governor John Kasich of Ohio, signing his states budget. Now I know what your thinking, "how does a budget have anything to do with Abortion?" Well normally it doesnt. But the republican legislature in Ohio added 5 abortion restricting amendments, making Ohio at the time, the most restrictive state in the country for Abortions.

Now to be fair, usually when something like that happens, ESPECIALLY with a budget bill, the idea is to use the budget to "protect" very very unpopular legislation from being vetoed. After all vetoing a budget just as a general rule causes massive headaches and isnt worth it except in the most extreme circumstances.

BUT, the Governor of Ohio actually has a line item veto, that is to say he can veto any part of a law he wants then sign the rest. In fact Governor Kasich did that 22 times with this budget.....just not for any of the abortion related stuff.

See this time around the controversial legislation was shoved into the budget at the request of the governor, the idea being that YOU the voter wouldn't see it or notice it in there. Which may be why no women were invited to the signing, they do have a pesky habit of reading things and then not shutting up about what they didnt like in the things they read.....

Oh, and these are not the ONLY examples of all male groups signing abortion related laws, this has been going on for AT LEAST a decade.

See, here's George W, Bush signing the 2003 ban on partial birth abortion: (that to be fair no one really noticed was "all male" at the time....)

At least that picture has a couple of boobs in it (Bush and Santorum), but still no women.

So the question remains, after a decade of making the same mistake over and over and over and over again can republicans finally learn to at least find a women for the photo ops???

To find out, we turn to Texas, which just passed a bill that usurps Ohio as being one of the most restrictive abortion bills in the county.

And the official signing photo:

Wow, I guess you really can teach an old elephant new tricks. There are women EVERYWHERE in that photo. Problem solved right?

Actually not so much. The caption kinda illustrates the problem:

"Gov. Rick Perry, who signed House Bill 2 on Thursday, shakes hands with Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, the Senate sponsor of the omnibus abortion legislation."

So its a HOUSE Bill, but Perry is shaking the hand of the SENATE sponsor. I guess the House Sponsor/bills author/originator of the idea was unavailable right?

No actually, that person is actually also in the picture. HINT: its the blonde woman in bright red who Rick Perry has his back to.

So yea basically he signed this woman's bill into law then promptly shakes the hand of the MAN who assisted her.......(to be fair, he did shake her hand.....later, as the cameras were pulling away.)

And the rest of the publicity went just as badly. Check out the official press conference video (from the Texas Tribune obviously), where Perry, surrounded by his closest advisers, talks about how great a bill this is for women.

Notice anything missing....like say Women? I mean yea they were clearly around for the photo op, and he even touched one at the last second) but yea, basically for the majority of the video, its kinda a sausage fest.

Now to be fair, maybe he had his reasons to not really want to be seen anywhere near the only woman who had anything to do with this bill, the aforementioned lady in red, state rep Jodie Laubenberg. Now why would he want to avoid her? well see shes a moron in the Todd Akin/Richard Mourdoch mold.

After all, it was Rep Laubenberg who, when defending the lack of a rape exception in this very bill said 

“In the emergency room they have what’s called rape kits where a woman can get cleaned out, The woman had five months to make that decision, at this point we are looking at a baby that is very far along in its development.”

Yea see, she seems to be suggesting rape kit's provide abortions and/or stop pregnancy. And they dont. If you dont believe me just watch any random episode of Law and Order SVU, CSI:, CSI, Miami, CSI: NY, Criminal Minds, Cold Case, or well pretty much any of the other 100 or so police procedurals that have been on TV for the last 2 decades. What a rape kit is/how it functions isnt really an obscure fact.....

So congrats to the GOP, it took 10 years and you FINALLY figured out to work with a woman AND to put one in the picture......even if you total ignored her.

Maybe in another 10 years you'll figure out to actually acknowledge the woman's existence in the photo op.

And maybe in another 20-30 you'll figure out you might want to try working with a woman with a fully functional brain.......although call it a hunch, but by the time that happens something tells me you wont be passing these kinds of insane style abortion bills.

I guess its true what they say, for some people learning really is a very slow process.......