If your roof is leaking, hiring an interior decorator to redo your living room won’t keep your ceiling from eventually collapsing. Likewise, if you’re a a political party struggling to preserve what’s left of its rapidly-fraying relevance, appointing a different messenger won’t change the fact that the message is crap. Which brings me to Marsha Blackburn, the high-powered Tennessee Congresswoman who has been appointed/anointed to take the lead on the House’s proposed 20-week abortion ban. See, ladies? Congressional Republicans are much more lady-friendly! They’re even letting a woman TAKE THE LEAD on restricting the rights of other women!

The ban originated with Congressional Douchebag Caucus originator Trent Franks, the blandly idiotic Arizona Rep who recently made news when he declared that rape-related pregnancies were “very rare” and thus a 20-week abortion ban should not contain any exceptions for pregnancies conceived by rape. Perhaps sensing an Akinesque PR disaster, the House GOP did some shuffling and quietly inserted a rape and incest exception into the bill and replaced Franks as the legislation’s mouthpiece. From here on out, Marsha, Marsha, Marsha will be the one shepherding women’s rights back to the pre-Vietnam era, where they belong (bonus: cooler hats).

But this isn’t Marsha Blackburn’s first rodeo; she’s been a vocal opponent of things you’d think women would like for quite some time. Just this month, she appeared on Meet the Press to let the men know that women don’t actually want equal pay laws. (Being paid less than men is what makes us special, you see. Breasts, intuition, and shitty pay — our *~fEmInInE wIlEs~*.) Blackburn voted against the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009 and against the Paycheck Fairness Act in 2009 — for the sake of hypocrisy avoidance, I sure hope Rep. Marsha Blackburn willingly accepts a Congressional salary that is 77% what her male colleagues make. Blackburn was also among that puzzling group of women who voted against the Violence Against Women Act. When asked to explain her opposition, the Tennessee Congresswoman remarked that it protected “too many groups.” What a progressive, lady-loving party, that GOP, entrusting a woman with the difficult task of rebuilding the glass ceiling.

Unsurprisingly, pro-choice groups weren’t terribly pleased with Blackburn’s new role . NARAL President Ilse Hogue didn’t mince words, calling the move an “insensitive and insulting compromise” and “window dressing” on “egregious” legislation, as the 20-week mark in a pregnancy is usually when women find out about the presence of serious fetal abnormalities. Whee!

Look on the bright side, though — at least the GOP has realized that people are tired about hearing men say stupid shit about women. Baby steps.

[TWS]