Wendy Button is not a pro-lifer and she wants you to know that. She was a Democratic speechwriter who worked for the Edwards, Clinton, and Obama 2008 campaigns—and is now an outcast from that party after calling it on its vicious attacks on Joe the Plumber, Hillary, and Sarah Palin.
It started when she published an article a few days ago about why she's voting for McCain:
The final straw came the other week when Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (a.k.a Joe the Plumber) asked a question about higher taxes for small businesses. Instead of celebrating his aspirations, they were mocked. He wasn’t “a real plumber,” and “They’re fighting for Joe the Hedge-Fund manager,” and the patronizing, “I’ve got nothing but love for Joe the Plumber.” ...The reactions Button's article elicited from Democrats, from death threats on down, convinced her she made the right decision, as she writes in a follow-up piece:
The party I believed in wouldn’t look down on working people under any circumstance. And Joe the Plumber is right. This is the absolutely worst time to raise taxes on anyone: the rich, the middle class, the poor, small businesses and corporations. ...
Governor Palin and I don’t agree on a lot of things, mostly social issues. But I have grown to appreciate the Governor. I was one of those initial skeptics and would laugh at the pictures. Not anymore. When someone takes on a corrupt political machine and a sitting governor, that is not done by someone with a low I.Q. or a moral core made of tissue paper. When someone fights her way to get scholarships and work her way through college even in a jagged line, that shows determination and humility you can’t learn from reading Reinhold Niebuhr. When a mother brings her son with special needs onto the national stage with love, honesty, and pride, that gives hope to families like mine as my older brother lives with a mental disability. And when someone can sit on a stage during the Sarah Palin rap on Saturday Night Live, put her hands in the air and watch someone in a moose costume get shot—that’s a sign of both humor and humanity.
I expected anger from the far-left, but the extreme caught me off-guard. ... These extreme opinions are in no way reflective of most Democrats—most people—but the fringe element is with us now. And I am a nobody who spoke out. I pity the first big leader or press person who does and hope that the next time a lesson is learned and the pendulum doesn’t swing so far. These dogs are fierce and don’t seem to hear the call of “We can disagree without being disagreeable.” ...
The treatment of women is something that saddens me. The recent ad with Governor Sarah Palin winking at the end was another link in the chain. Sexism is okay right now and we have to fix that. Simply saying that our policies help working people and women doesn’t excuse this behavior. That’s what I believe and I would never threaten someone’s life for disagreeing or call the other person stupid, evil, or useless.
