On the heels of California gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown (D) and/or the Brown campaign calling his opponent, Meg Whitman, a "whore" comes this clip - below - from the archives.
Reported on by Politico, "The comment about mammograms came during an episode of 'Firing Line' in October 1995, when Brown was a guest on the William F. Buckley Jr. show. He sat alongside feminist and commentator Susan Estrich during a discussion about government regulations that dealt with the death of the Clinton administration health reform proposal. Estrich discussed the component of the plan that had dealt with mammograms.
'Can we get off of mammograms?' Brown interjected. 'I mean, first of all, if you read the Lancet Magazine in July, there's no statistical evidence that mammograms help anyone at any age. 'So it's July 1995, Lancet Magazine. Okay? It's there. Now I don't want to argue that case,' he added, as Estrich started to object. 'I just want to throw it out there.'
Former Delaware Gov. Pete du Pont interrupted, 'But you ought to have the option — if you think they're going to help you, if you think they're going to help you, you ought to have the option of having one.'
Brown replied, 'Ten thousand women, three women will be saved for one year.'
The abstract from the Lancet Magazine article Brown mentioned discussed a study questioning the efficacy of mammograms, mostly in the context of a push for public funding."
As Politico points out, this "comes as Whitman is making an aggressive play for the female vote, who some of her supporters see as turned off by the 'whore' flap."
So two major hits against the Brown campaign within one week, both touching on issues likely to resonate with women voters. It might do Jerry Brown well to remember that larger percentages of women vote in most California elections.
P.S. A bit of advice/perspective from Mrs. Bliss Index: "Apparently, Jerry has never had a woman in his life who has suffered from or died as a result of breast cancer."
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