Anti-abortion groups decry GOP silence on Sebelius

I couldn't believe how easy Kathleen Sebelius got through her confirmation hearing last week in the Senate. This would have been one of the nominees that Republicans should have attacked hard not only because of her tax issues, but also because of her anti-abortion policies. One of the most forgotten reasons that former President Bush was so successful in garnering support for his victories was that he turned issues like abortion and gay marriage into a debate that many Catholics and religious people could get interested and involved in. That is one of the biggest components of their base and to not even bring it up I think was a mistake. Even though one could say that confirmation hearings are supposed to be bigger than party politics, Sebelius represented a person pretty much on the opposite spectrum of Republicans in the health care department and considering that they believe that abortion is something that is wrong, they should have brought it up. The other area where I think they gravely missed a golden opportunity was in the tax issues. President Obama clearly did a poor job handling the vetting process in determining the tax problems of his nominations and given that one of the major areas of the new budget is the increase in taxes, Republicans could have brought even more attention to some of the hypocritical actions of the Democrats who were calling for raises in taxes, yet failing to pay their own. Overall, I see the Republicans have wasted a chance to reconnect with their base at a time when they desperately needed to do so.