Republicans claim they're not worried about voting against the Paycheck Fairness Act, because voters are totally going to see through the Democrats being all transparent and stuff, putting forward a bill that's good politics as well as good policy in a shameless attempt to pander for votes. But for not being worried, they sure are pushing back aggressively; you can't swing a dead cybercat over at Politico and similar Beltway media sites without coming across a quote from a Republican explaining just how worried they aren't, and how they totally support equal pay of course but just don't want to do anything about it.

If all those elected Republicans rushing to tell you how little it all matters didn't convince you, the site of Fox News spinning frantically on equal pay might do the trick. Here, two of its hosts couldn't talk fast enough as they threw a series of possible "innocent" explanations for the wage gap against the wall to see what would stick. Melissa Francis may have found the winner:



I would also point out that men lost jobs at two and a half times the rate as women in this last recession. I know plenty of families where the man is now out of work and the woman is the one who's working full time. Probably because she makes a little less, so she was able to keep her job.

"No two people are the same, no job is the same ... different people make different decisions and look for different things in a workplace." Different people, different decisions, but funny how consistently it shakes out according to gender, eh?

"It is a fact that there are more men who are engineers, more men who are in these higher-paying jobs typically, and that's just a statistically true fact." A Statistically True Fact, mind you. And there's absolutely nothing to be said about the fact that male-dominated occupations just happen to pay more than female-dominated occupations. Let's move right along!

"Is this being used as a political ploy by Democrats, because it worked for them last time around?" How dare Democrats use reality as a political tool!

Gosh, that's real comforting. It's not accurate, as Media Matters points out—actually, men are more likely than women to be in occupations that are sensitive to shifts in the economy—but imagine if it was true. Women across the country would be sitting there, unable to afford enough food, but feeding their verywith this thought. In case that one didn't persuade you, though, here are a few other Fox-approved explanations for unequal pay:

Way to convince us this issue doesn't worry you, guys.