So for some reason Missouri Republicans nominated a 65 year old doofus congressman to be their candidate for senate against current senater Claire McCaskill instead of either John Brunner or Sarah Steelman (both younger, more charismatic and better conveyors of ideas) and within days of his victory, he’s already basically effed up the whole race.
First, more background on why MO GOP-ers who nominated him are dummies: the dude was the hand-picked candidate by the Democrats of who they wanted to run against.
In the weeks before the August 7 primary, McCaskill and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee aired ads that ostensibly attacked Akin, but actually boosted his candidacy. The ads called said him a “true conservative” and questioned if he was “too conservative,” hardly a negative in a GOP primary. One radio ad ended by noting that Akin “has been endorsed by the most conservative leaders in our country: Michele Bachmann and Mike Huckabee.”
McCaskill did air ads against all the Republicans in the race, but only the Akin ones included such glowing testimonials. With a wink and a nod, Democrats placed their bets that the conservative congressman would be her weakest foe in the fall, even if they’re never publicly acknowledged it.
That is why his Democrat opponent Claire McCaskill isnt calling for him to withdraw – instead she’s criticizing the Republicans for trying to force him out of the race. ha.
Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., is being encouraged to stay in the Senate race — by his opponent, who does not want him to drop out and allow Republican Party leadership to pick a new candidate.
“I really think that for the national party to try to come in here and dictate to the Republican primary voters that they’re going to invalidate their decision, that would be pretty radical,” Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said on MSNBC this morning.
Second: The actual issue… What got Akin into trouble is that in one of his answers to a question in an interview, he said that from what he understood “from Doctors” is that “legitimate rape” rarely resulted in pregnancy. Well, oddly, the firestorm reaction seems to me to have confirmed that as the highest stats I can find are 5% and I would call that “rare”, but Akin also said that the rarity is because “the female body has ways of shutting that down”. That doesn’t appear to be supported by…anything.
As someone who has been saying for years that I could not register myself as a Republican despite being a lower-tax advocate and holding some other right-of-center (or at least anti-leftist) positions because the party is just too damn embarrassing to have me lend it credibility with my membership – I have to give major props to the conservative establishment on this one as its top stars have handled this superbly. Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Sarah Palin, Senator Scott Brown (MA), Gov Scott Walker (WI), tea party hero Senator Ron Johnson (WI), RNC Chairman Reince Preibus, current Missouri Senator Roy Blunt (who issued his statement along with all 4 of Missouri’s living former senators – John Ashcroft, Kit Bond, Jim Talent and John Danforth), Vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, and Presidential nominee Mitt Romney himself have all publicly asked Todd Akin to withdraw his candidacy over these remarks.
Awesome.
The only excuses-making I’ve heard has been from Mike Huckabee whom I heard today on his radio show while I was driving home from the airport talk to someone from the Family Research Council about the issue and even the FRC dude gave the weakest of weak defenses to Akin (saying only that it should “be his decision” to make with his family. eh. okay), I think because they just dont want to bash anyone who is pro-life. Huckabee questioned why the GOP establishment would attack a wounded man instead of rush to his aid, which I found uniquely unpersuasive since it was Akin who shot the self inflicting wound and whose refusal to leave the battlefield could very well kill other “soldiers” in the party down (or up) the ticket. Huckabee endorsed Akin the primary, so I guess thats his vested interest in continuing to defend him, which only shows to me that the dude has little integrity. Huckabee actually asked the FRC dude if people are piling on Akin “because he is pro-life”… um. what? All of the names I mentioned above are pro-life, moron. Quit trying to pretend this is some anti-family-values attack when everyone can see it is just an anti-stupid-offensive-things attack. Akin himself sent out a message that the “liberal media” is trying to get him out of the race which is along the lines of Huckabee’s argument. They both have to know they are being dishonest with those claims… shame on them.
Akin should of course withdraw from the race. He should have withdrew the other day when it would have been smooth and easy. Now that he’s remained defiant past the deadline to be smoothly replaced on the ballot, he needs a court order to do so now and 4 of Missouri’s 6 Supreme Court Justices are Democrat appointees so, considering that Akin is the Democrats hand-picked candidate to run against, it is not at all a sure thing such a request would be granted. Still though, he should try. Better late than never.
Further – his apology makes no god damn sense whatsoever. He said he “misspoke”. er..okay. so what did he mean to say then?… he never reveals. well then wtf. If you “misspoke” then you have to tell us what it was you mistakenly said in lieu of what you MEANT to say. Otherwise you’re just apologizing for saying what you actually believe – which I’m positive was the case.
I think Akin had heard something along the lines of the trauma of rape to the body making fertilization less likely and said so. When he was corrected, he should have just said “my bad. now I know for the future” and also reiterated his abortion stance which was the context in which he made the remark in the first place.
If it’s his use of the phrase “legitimate rape” that he is saying he misspoke on (I heard a clip of him on Hannity’s radio show referring to a “misplaced word” but he didnt say what the word or misplacement was), what is his excuse for the other nonsense he said? And to the petty attackers pretending like the phrase modifier word of “legitimate” can never be justified – you are wrong and you are stupid or you are lying. Which one is the President? Cuz he said “Rape is rape. The idea that we should be parsing types of rape doesn’t make sense to the American people or to me.” Um. Sorry dummies, but while it might not be a prudent phrase to use or might come off as insensitive, “Legitimate rape” isn’t a nonsensical term to any American anywhere outside of the context of those trying to score cheap political points through intellectual dishonesty. There’s a thing called statutory rape which is not forceable rape (and thus has no business ever being used in the context of forceable rape) and the term “date rape” has been around for ages and no press conference outrages by the President have been held over it and how “rape is rape” because everyone understands the distinctions. So that can’t logically be the target of the scorn.
President Obama continued to say “What these comments do underscore is why we shouldn’t have a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are men, making health care decisions on behalf of women.” – come back to me when you can show us any evidence whatsoever that women inherently know science and biology better than men. Oh, you have none? Just using the old idiotic feminist bumper sticker line that makes the emotional appeal to women that “men shouldn’t make any decisions for them”? Real classy. Almost as much as using the trope of calling abortion “health care”.
Third: This doesn’t actually matter.
While I’m all for endlessly dumping on this d-bag for his past and future comments – facts are facts, and unfortunately the anti-Akin reaction hasn’t exactly been honest.
His comments were stupid and the guy personally appears pretty douchey as far as I can see, but I’ve never cared for *any* of Missouri’s politicians in the past decade since I’ve been following politics (Ghephart, Ashcroft, both Blunts, all the Carnahans, McCaskill, Akin, Gov Nixon and the douche he ran against – all useless tools) with the exception of Senator Jim Talent, and he’s the one who lost in 2006 to Claire McCaskill.
A lot of people are calling his comments anti-woman and that the dude is a “rape apologist”. Neither makes a shred of sense.
Being ignorant of female biology does not make you “anti-woman”. I still have to explain to grown-ass-men how women dont pee out of their vaginas (trust me – it comes up more than you might think) but none of those dudes are “anti-women”. They’re just ignorant on something. So thinking that the female body is more likely than not to chemically burn a fertilized egg or send white blood cells down the birth canal to fight off and kill what has been identified by the brain as rapist-sperm is not “anti-woman”, people. Just call it what it is: Ignorant. Foolish, if you wish. But not any sign of chick-hatred.
Equally non-sensical are the liars calling the ignorant comments “pro-rape”. Da fuq? The dude says in the same breathe that in such cases the rapist should be the one punished and not the child. Hint for morons: Calling for punishment of rapists is not “pro-rape” and you are an idiot for saying otherwise. In fact, I’m more outraged by someone hearing a guy say he wants to punish rapists and calling that rapist-apologistery than I am that some 65 year old dude didnt know that there is no science behind the trauma of a rape preventing an egg from being fertilized.
So if the comments aren’t signs of woman-hating or rapist-loving and instead are just signs of “being ignorant about a bogus scientific claim or issue he misunderstood” then one has to ask how that relates to the job he is running for. And the answer is that it doesnt. at all.
Don’t believe me? Then make some money and bet me…if Akin is elected and ever introduces or is a decisive vote on bad-science-based rape legislation, i will agree to pay a thousand dollars to anyone who will also agree to pay me $500 if McCaskill is re-elected and introduces or is a decisive vote on bad-economics based legislation stemming from her own stupid comments. standing bet – open offer to any takers.
Akin should resign from the race because he is a poor advocate of his ideas and philosophy and needlessly created a swarm of bad publicity that could sink his parties chances at winning that race and the senate at large – which is a big deal (remember that when you vote for senate and congress you are not just voting for a single person to represent you, but you’re voting for control over the institution which has consequences over who chairs committees and oversees important proceedings).
He should drop out of the race because he’s not up to the task and there are many more suitable replacements that deserve the slot he is currently in.
His dumb comments do not reflect on whether he would be a bad senator or a worse one than his opponent.
