Kathryn Jean Lopez Simply Does Not Care for Louis C.K., 'Women'

There has been such a dearthof commentary -- a gaping hole, really -- from both left and right about the Health and Human Services' birth control coverage mandate. National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez will now fill the hole! And she will fill it, hard, with the important parts in it that everyone has been neglecting in this story: Louis C.K., the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Sarah Palin's lady parts, the crucifixion and, sure, Hitler. Let us revel in her newest sortie, "Miserable 'Women'." (Scare-quotes in the original, because... miserable feminists are not women, or feminist non-women are miserable, or because there is no such thing? Is Kathryn Jean Lopez a woman? If you prick her, does she not bleed?) My, she sounds upset!

First of all, Kathryn Jean Lopez just needs to point out something before anything else, in her lede, because it is so oft forgotten by blog readers:

There is something special about a mother and her love for her child.

Maternal love! This will be a column about maternal love, according to the lede. Next?

We know it innately, and it’s one reason why the “women’s health” rhetoric, of which we’ve heard so much lately, resonates to the point at which it drowns out any and all details of a given policy, controversy, or testimony.

That is an interesting sentence, because it does not mean anything. Let's paraphrase: "A mother's love is so innate that consequently no debates about women's health are possible."

But what about comedian Louis C.K.? He almost performed at the Radio and TV Correspondents dinner, but then he didn't. This basically makes him Barack Obama's Chief of Staff, in terms of his policy influence in Washington. Has anyone asked him for his thoughts on an entirely different topic, that of how much he hates Sarah Palin?

I can’t relate in this column some of the obscene things [Louis C.K.] has said about former vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin. While he contended that she would “Hitler up” Washington — this, about a woman who often wears a star of David to express her solidarity with the Israeli people — most of his venom is the product of a crude obsession with her most intimate body parts, and he talks about them graphically in relation to her youngest child, whom he dubs a “retard.” This has less to do with politics than with misogyny, unless politics itself has become nothing more than a sexual power play.

(Wonketteers, the aforegoing does not give you license to play "Louis C.K." in the comments. But onward.) What does this prove? Let's read on to the very next paragraph, for clues:

The current White House mandate debate is not so much about birth control as it is about effectively shutting religious citizens and entities down when it comes to contraception, sterilization, and even abortion. The government is saying:  Sure you can believe that crazy stuff, but you can’t practice it in the public square. We know what’s best, and so you will pay if you really want to act on that nonsense in 2012 — literally, pay with a penalty. 

So, tasteless jokes about Sarah Palin prove that the government is trying to impose a tax on having religious beliefs. That seems like an accurate assessment of the comedian's words.

And now how about some weepy pablum about feminism with a fancy word in it! The fancy word cancels out the tornado of incoherence ripping through the sentence structure:

At some point, the “women’s health” shouting has got to stop so that the cries of women can be heard — cries that expose the immiserization of a generation and more, a generation that bought into the false promises of the pill as lifestyle revolution and was sold as “freedom” an unhealthy subservience to non-commitment, all in the name of professional success and independence.

WE COULD GO ON FOREVER LIKE THIS. Okay one more. Did you know that Mary was the mother of Jesus, and that he was crucified? Thank heavens you remembered to read K-Lo's column this week.

When you walk up the steps to Calvary in Jerusalem, at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher your eyes are quickly drawn to a statue of Our Lady of Sorrows, her heart pierced with pain. Whatever you think about the divinity of Christ, the man Jesus — her son — died on a cross, after a brutal scourging. And she watched the whole thing.

In sum, the Virgin Mary did not use the Pill, and look what happened to her. [National Review Online]