The Republican Party war on women‘s medical freedom brought a rousing speech from Hillary Clinton a few days ago (see speech above). It’s gotten a lot of cable play, but not so much newspaper attention. Maureen Dowd remedies that today. First, quoting Clinton:

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“Why extremists always focus on women remains a mystery to me,” she told an adoring crowd at the Women in the World Summit at Lincoln Center on Saturday. “But they all seem to. It doesn’t matter what country they’re in or what religion they claim. They want to control women. They want to control how we dress. They want to control how we act. They even want to control the decisions we make about our own health and bodies.

“Yes,” she continued to applause, “it is hard to believe that even here at home, we have to stand up for women’s rights and reject efforts to marginalize any one of us, because America needs to set an example for the entire world.”

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Then an observation or two, including:

The attempt by Republican men to wrestle American women back into chastity belts has not only breathed life into President Obama, it has roused and riled Hillary. And that could turn out to be the most dangerous thing the wildly self-destructive G.O.P. leaders have done.

In some kind of insane bout of mass misogyny, Republicans are hounding out the women voters — including Republicans and independents — who helped them gain control of the House in 2010.

The column continues on a political track and examines whether this could signal Clinton’s emergence as a presidential candidate. It also could just signal that she, like many others, are fed up with paternalism, misogyny and threats to affordable family planning and basic medical care for women (see Mitt Romney’s promise to end any support of Planned Parenthood). Anybody who thinks this isn’t a message Clinton has been delivering since her days at Wellesley College hasn’t been paying much attention. YouTube illustrates.

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BTW: Here’s a guide to crackpot-right conspiracy theories about Sandra Fluke. It would be funny if they weren’t so deadly serious.

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