make him stop! Make him stop!

That was just unbelievably pathetic.

I believe the answer he was searching for was: Men can have sex with or without intending to procreate, but women cannot. Oh, and I...er, I mean, MEN shouldn't have to pay for it, either.  

him right up. I cringe every time I watch it...and it's worth it. :)

John McCain: Definitely NOT Sponge Worthy!

He needs to get Bob Dole on board as his Viagra adviser.  He'd be able to come up with an answer.

Ive seen mccain say he does not know enough about the issue to speak about it.

who could scrutinize this remarkably revealing video and make some informed medical judgments about McCain's current cognitive abilities?

If I were one of McCain's family members witnessing this kind of behavior, I'd be seriously concerned about his apparent cognitive decline and would gently urge him to seek a professional medical evaluation.

have the mental dexterity to handle this office? We've all seen the effects of what the presidency entails. Questions like this make me think that we're going to be run by others in his administration just like the Bush administration. Yuck...

No.

are we surprised that this man doesn't care about the right of women to do what they want with their bodies? This is the man who called his wife c*** and laughed when a woman asked him "How do we defeat the b****?"

to every wavering Clinton supporter and every young professional, hell every young woman you know. Except for fundamentalist evangelicals who have drunk the Koolaid, this is a wake-up call, and deserves the widest possible distribution. Not photo-shopped, just raw data from which one draws one's own unhappy conclusions.

It's actually not hard to defend. Viagra is prescribed to treat a medical disorder, in which an organ of the human body is not functioning properly. Wheras birth control doe snot treat a disorder, but rather alters healthy body to behave in a manner more convenient.

It's like the difference between needing a rear fender for your car after an accident versus wanting a better stereo for it. One thing is rationally 'insurable' while the other is not.

I'm all in favor or access to birth control. It's obviously good public policy, since it reduces the number of unwanted pregnancies and ends up saving tax money associated with public spending on unwanted children. So from a fiscally conservative position, we should have a government program to give away free birth control pills to women who can't afford them. Sign me up in support of that. But ordering a private health insurance company to provide those pills is not something that I support. It's the wrong way to do a right thing.

We're essentially trying to get privately held corporations to act like government agencies and then we're regularly surprised to discover that they are in fact businesses. It's a fool's errand and it ultimately supports the case for a national, single-payer health system of some kind.

just because it's not "functioning properly." It may be a medical disorder, but it's a disorder that isn't going to kill you or cause you bodily harm.

But sex is a necessary part of good health, you say? Without a healthy sex life, people will suffer severe emotional, psychological, and physical damage? Sex is a natural, God-given right? Well, okay, then.

If you need Viagra, you need it to maintain an erection so you can have sex. If you need the Pill, you need it to stop conception so you can have sex. Either way, it's about people wanting to have sex. So why should insurance companies be forced to support the sexual needs of (mostly) older men and not the sexual needs of women?  

that the Pill can be prescribed for reasons other than preventing conception--endometriosis, for example, which can be a severe and paindful condition, frequently leading to surgery. The Pill has also been prescribed to women to get them on a regular menstrual cycle. There may be other reasons as well; I only speak of the ones I know of with certainty.

I only know of one reason to prescribe Viagra. If anything, its side effects can be dangerous, not beneficial.  

Hee. That was worth repeating!