So why was the power of the conference ignored by everyone but the prospective first lady, the most marginalized of any political actor? (And P.S. Why is she marginalized, anyway?)

Is this so hard to understand? The "First Lady" is "marginalized" because she is not a political actor or a politician any more than other political spouses. She is at best a stateswomen by custom. It is not sexism that marginalizes this "position," it is sexism that we haven't had a female president. If Clinton won the presidency, as she came fairly close to doing, we wouldn't have a first lady at all, we would have a first gentleman.

Or was the writer talking about Michelle Obama personally?

Warren is just the latest in a line of conservative televangelist Billy Graham-wannabes wrapping up bigotry in a new package.

Obama drops in my esteem for attending this mandatory whistle-stop on the campaign trail. Do we have to give him bonus points for remaining pro-choice in this audience? I thought this was a basic plank in the party platform. "Above my pay-grade," weak indeed.

Maybe in the end everything he did was just smart politics. But it's a sad day to see a "progressive" candidate schmooze with this disgusting man.

"If they think that life begins at conception, then that means that there are 40 million Americans who are not here [because they were aborted] that could have voted."

How many times have I heard this tired old saw from insufferable lifers? Every time I have to picture the overcrowded, overpopulated, crime-ridden America of today, with another 40 million on top of our 305 million. And not just 40 million of the present demographics, but 40 million unwanted children with parents who cannot or will not support them, who are abusive or criminal, or who are grossly disabled.

A beautiful world these Christians seek, isn't it? Of course, since they don't believe in any social supports or welfare, they would be happy to welcome these 40 million into their own homes.

for proving my point.

And by the way, assuming 40 million is an accurate figure on the number of abortions since Roe, it actually greatly underestimates the "missing" Americans since these unwanted children would in turn have had millions of their own unwanted offspring since that time.

Except that there is the countervailing fact that many of these abortions would have happened anyway, except unsafely, killing the mother along with the fetus. So maybe it's a wash.

since "death," just as "life" (consider the abortion movement, for instance) is a matter of definitional line-drawing.

Instead, let's follow the slippery slope and ditch the "dead donor rule." Stop worrying about cardiac death, brain death, whatever. If there's no hope for recovery and no further resuscitation is desired, then grabbing the organs early when there is the best chance for organ viability and a successful transplant should be done. Hastening the process should be fine too, if it is indicated by the transplant specialist. And ditch the foolish "familial consent" requirement. If I go to the trouble of signing and keeping a donor card, then I don't want some meddling family member interfering with my post-mortem dissection. Who asked them? Too many donors intents are thwarted by "grieving" family members who refuse to respect their wishes, and living patients die on wait-lists as a result.

There's considerable overlap between transplant ethics and the abortion and euthanasia debates. I guess it boils down to the idea that there's something holy about the human body per se, and we get people looking to neatly confine this holiness depending on their sect, from the moment of conception up to some other discrete point in time.

Carlin said it best, "People say life begins at conception. I say life began about a billion years ago, and it's a continuous process."

I did not say "every one of them" would turn out in such&such a way. I stand by the obviously true point that aborted fetuses are by definition unwanted, and are statistically much more likely than the average pregnancy to be born to parents who are incapable, unready, or unwilling to raise them properly, as well as much more likely to be profoundly disabled.

Nor am I saying that any given class of people has nothing to contribute to society. I am saying that the the world, and America in particular, needs FEWER people of any kind, and that definitely includes overprivileged, rich hyperconsumers, and it definitely includes children destined to live lives of suffering, poverty, abuse, criminality, and/or disability.

Of course I am wasting my time trying to explain these obvious facts to a wide-eyed natalist like yourself, to whom every child is precious and god's own little gift to the world. Nevermind the suffering, poverty, war, and rape of the environment, be fruitful and multiply.