People often seem confused when I say that I’m anti-abortion and pro-choice. We don’t much care for ideas too nuanced to wear a convenient ready-made label. Reasonableness is seen as a sign of weakness. Today, South Dakota has struck the latest deliberately unreasonable blow in the battle over abortion:

South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds signed a bill Monday that bans nearly all abortions in the state, legislation in direct conflict with the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in 1973.

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State lawmakers had rejected proposed amendments that would have made exceptions for rape or incest.

Last week the PBS NewsHour reported on the ban. Reporter Fred de Sam Lazaro asked about exceptions under the new law:

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: [South Dakota state senator Bill] Napoli says most abortions are performed for what he calls “convenience.” He insists that exceptions can be made for rape or incest under the provision that protects the mother’s life. I asked him for a scenario in which an exception may be invoked.

BILL NAPOLI: A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.

He certainly sets the bar high, doesn’t he? Yet the actual language of South Dakota’s new law does not allow even the type of exception Napoli describes. Allowing abortion for his brutalized, raped religious virgin would be too “convenient.”

(Crooks and Liars has video from the NewsHour report.)

Bill Clinton used to bite his lip and tell suffering Americans, “I feel your pain.” George W. Bush is different. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says Bush feels no pain:

Why doesn’t Mr. Bush get any economic respect? I think it’s because most Americans sense, correctly, that he doesn’t care about people like them. We’re living in a time when many Americans are feeling economically insecure, but a tiny elite has been growing incredibly rich. And Mr. Bush’s problem is that he identifies so totally with the lucky, wealthy few that in unscripted settings he can’t manage even a few sentences of empathy with ordinary Americans. He doesn’t feel your pain, and it shows.

Here’s what Mr. Bush said in India, when someone raised the question of the political backlash against outsourcing: “Losing jobs is painful, so let’s make sure people are educated so they can find — fill the jobs of the 21st century. And let’s make sure that there’s pro-growth economic policies in place. What does that mean? That means low taxes; it means less regulation; it means fewer lawsuits; it means wise energy policy.”

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The fact is that we’re living in a time when most Americans are seeing little if any benefit from overall income growth, because their share of the economic pie is falling. Between 1979 and 2003, according to a recent research paper published by the I.R.S., the share of overall income received by the bottom 80 percent of taxpayers fell from 50 percent to barely over 40 percent. The main winners from this upward redistribution of income were a tiny, wealthy elite: more than half the income share lost by the bottom 80 percent was gained by just one-fourth of 1 percent of the population, people with incomes of at least $750,000 in 2003.

And those fortunate few are the only people Mr. Bush seems to care about. Look at what he had to offer after asserting, in effect, that workers get outsourced because they don’t have the right education: lower taxes, deregulation and fewer lawsuits. Funny, that doesn’t sound like “pro-growth” policy to me. Instead, it sounds like a wish list for wealthy individuals and big corporations.

Mr. Bush once joked that his base consisted of the “haves and the have-mores.” But it wasn’t much of a joke.

I just watched the Academy Awards show, all the way through, because Jon Stewart was hosting. Big mistake. Every time I’ve watched the Oscars, I’ve sworn I’ll never watch again. This time I double-dog swear. Horrible, horrible, horrible.

The only good moment in three and a half hours came early, when George Clooney won for best supporting actor:

And finally, I would say that, you know, we are a little bit out of touch in Hollywood every once in a while. I think it’s probably a good thing. We’re the ones who talk about AIDS when it was just being whispered, and we talked about civil rights when it wasn’t really popular. And we, you know, we bring up subjects. This Academy, this group of people gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 when blacks were still sitting in the backs of theaters. I’m proud to be a part of this Academy. Proud to be part of this community, and proud to be out of touch.

For a moment there, I got my hopes up. Words of wisdom: never get your hopes up while watching the Oscars. (Quote courtesy of Crooks and Liars.)