Conservatives making a pass at women?

I read an article tonight bemoaning the 10% tax on tanning salons that was passed as part of the democrats' Health care bill. The author went on to suggest that this tax specifically targets women because 75% of tanning salon owners are women. The Salon owner that the author spoke with suggested that there's "no way" they'd ever have tax on men's barbershops.

Right. Because not a single study out there suggests you can contract cancer from going to the barbershop.

The bigger, more ironic, picture here is that this conservative author was suggesting that it's not those pointy headed democrats who have women's best interest in mind. The author even quotes a "Harvard-educated" dermatologist as saying this tax is good for the fight against skin cancer - just to drive home the anti-elist motif the right has been running with since William F. Buckley's uber-elitism went out of favor.

This is exactly why I'm a liberal, not because there's nothing in the conservative cause I believe in (fiscal responsibility!) but because all the arguments conservatives make are paper thin! They've been playing to the lowest common denominator for decades and now, that's all they're left with. The lowest possible denominator. At least, I hope it doesn't get any lower.