can't you see .... Clay Aiken
Posted on 08/24/2012 2:33:43 PM PDT by Da Bilge Troll
Whittaker Chambers said that "the great failing of American conservatives is they do not retrieve their wounded."
He had it right, as Todd Akin can testify.
In an interview that aired last Sunday, Akin, the Republican candidate for Senate in Missouri, was asked whether he opposed abortions for women who had been raped. Akin's reply:
"From what I understand from doctors, that's really rare. ... If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down ... .
"But let's assume that maybe that didn't work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child."
As no rape is "legitimate," this was a colossal gaffe.
Yet anyone reading his statement knows what Akin meant. He was saying that in an actual rape – from what doctors have told him – the likelihood of pregnancy is rare. But if a pregnancy did occur, the punishment should be imposed on the rapist not the unborn child.
This was the moral position of those extremists John Paul II and Ronald Reagan. Of more interest, then, was the Republican reaction.
Howls for Akin to get out of the race came from pundits, talk show hosts, members of the Senate and the GOP's monied elite that is raising hundreds of millions in hope of a sweep of both houses of Congress and the White House in November. Akin is henceforth not to get a dime.
Even Paul Ryan, whose position on abortion appears identical to that of Akin, called and urged him to drop out.
Who came to Akin's defense? The Family Research Council. As President Nixon once told me, "Count your friends when you're down."
What does this hysteria over one egregious gaffe reveal?
A deep-seated fear, a gnawing anxiety among Republicans that the positions they have held and hold on social and moral issues, and even on economics and foreign policy, no longer command the support of a majority of their countrymen.
Consider. While the three amigos – John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham – are all for intervention in Syria, the Republican Party has fallen largely silent.
Where are the Republican and neocon hawks of yesteryear now that Barack Obama is pulling out of Afghanistan, when the expected result of a U.S. withdrawal is a Taliban takeover and massacre of many of those Afghans foolish enough to have cast their lot with the Americans?
Any Republicans demanding we stay the course in Afghanistan?
Rather than hearing the old paeans to free trade we used to get from Bush I and II, Republicans now talk about getting tough with China and fighting the "unfair" trade practices of foreign regimes.
Milton Friedman, whose writings Republicans once read as gospel, said we should throw America's markets open to the world, no matter the protectionist policies of others, because cheaper imports benefit all of America's consumers.
No Republican talks like that anymore. Yet none seems to have a solution to these endless trade deficits debilitating our economy other than to ignore them or accuse the Chinese of "currency manipulation."
With homosexual marriage gaining converts among the young, the party of the Moral Majority declines to stand with Chick-fil-A.
On right-to-life, see the Republicans flee from Todd Akin, who committed a gaffe while restating his support for what has been a plank of the Republican platform since 1980.
Bewailing deficits, Republicans demand a balanced budget. And the Ryan budget does that – in 28 years.
Why so long? Because real budget cuts entail real pain.
Where is Mitt Romney going to slash a budget that consumes a fourth of the U.S. economy?
Not defense. Mitt promises to increase that. He cannot cut interest on the debt, which must rise as interest rates climb from today's near-zero levels. He says he will not cut Medicare.
Is he going to cut Social Security? How about taking an ax to Medicaid, food stamps, student loans, school lunches, Head Start, aid to education, Pell Grants, EPA, the FBI and the earned income tax credit?
What the reactions to Akin's gaffe and the congressional skinny-dipper in the Sea of Galilee expose is a fear in the soul of the GOP that history is passing it by and the end may be near.
For decades, the GOP has been the party that cuts marginal tax rates, opposes abortion, defends traditional marriage, sends troops to fight for our values abroad and slashes government spending.
Today's GOP establishment is queasy even talking about social issues and recognizes that the new America has had it with the Afghanistans and Iraqs, wants to raise taxes on the wealthiest 1 percent and contains scores of millions who will punish any politician who threatens their benefits.
The GOP's insoluble problem is that the multicultural, multiethnic and multilingual country they created with their open borders appears not to like the brand of dog food the party sells.
Beating up on Todd Akin is not going to change that.
“They are coming from people who are against stupid.”
Exactly! People need to quit talking about this like its about the abortion position - that only helps the pro-aborts, since it ties in ignorant rape comments with the pro-life position. The two are only related because of the context of Akin’s comments, but his medically ignorant statement and not his position is why he’s been challenged.
“Any MO Republican , no matter how stridently pro-life, right wing or Christian will beat McCaskill unless he is Todd Akin.”
Correct.
Pat misses the point. Todd Akin is dumber than a box of rocks. He is an idiot. That is not a difficult concept to grasp. He is nuts.
If Todd climbed on top of the Jefferson Memorial, the big Arch, and screamed at the top of his lungs, “After talking with astronomers I have concluded the moon is made out of Swiss cheese,” you would have said the man is an idiot. And you would be correct.
Now Todd did not say anything about the moon. What he did say is even dumber. He said when a woman is being legitimately raped her body is incapable of being impregnated. That is really dumb. That is why he is going to be soundly defeated and humiliated. It is that simple. He is a legitimate idiot and legitimate idiots lose elections.
I’m way ahead of you. I was thinking of going downstairs and playing with the new gun, anyway.
Not so. Allen's comments sounded racist, which is absolute poison to one's popularity in this culture. And the GOP would not have had this reaction if Akin mentioned his rape theory in the context of tax cuts or something like that. The hammer is coming down on him because the RINOs are terrified of the abortion issue.
There is the simple logical consequence that unfortunately for Republicans, unlike Democrats, foot-in-mouth disease is fatal.
Coward. The media does not decide what elections we win or lose. Your problem is you watch too much media. They like to claim they decide elections, but they don't. They're determined by much bigger issues than that.
The treatment of Akin is a symptom for a deeper sickness that infests the GOP, the most notable characteristic of which is craven cowardliness. They scurry from sight at any whiff of controversy because they are more worried about protecting what they have than advancing the needs of the nation.
As Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day proved, heartland Americans are not interested in throwing in the towel on social questions, and abortion is one question that is in serious need of further scrutiny.
Akin may have gaffed and garbled his way through that portion of the interview, but as Pat says in this article, it’s completely clear what he was trying to say.
The rot is in the head and the heart of the GOP. The Tea Party needs to double down, elect MORE Representatives and Senators, and squeeze the ossified trembling country club geezers out of their chairs and into retirement.
No, he did not say that. And you must be just shy of being mentally retarded to believe he said that after all the coverage including Pat's quote in this very article about what Akin actually said.
It’s very wrong and ignorant of Akin to say what he said, and what he ‘meant’ was bad enough, but what he said implies that rape victims who get pregnant might be lying about their rape - hence outrage.
Donate to Akin’s campaign if you really support him.
I already have, thank you very much.
You are in complete denial, just like Todd. Todd is going to be soundly defeated and humiliated. He is an idiot and incapable of realizing how he has damaged his own candidacy, the conservative movement and the pro-life position. It will take years to recover from this idiot.
No, you're inferring that. He neither said, thought or implied it. However, there are women who lie about being raped. And sometimes they do it in order to justify getting an abortion either to their family or to circumvent anti-abortion laws where they live. Why would you be outraged about someone pointing out that fact? Is this Free Republic or PC World?
You're an ignorant idiot and a lunatic. I told you to go back and read the quotes in the article and you continue to insist your utter misquotation is correct. It doesn't get STUPIDER than that. You make Akin look like a Rhodes scholar rocket scientist. And our movement most certainly isn't damaged in any way by Akin. Only cowardice or some other deep mental problem you have could make you say something as crazy as that.
This is much bigger than men’s politics. McCaskill is an advocate of partial birth abortion. She voted against the ban
Todd Akin is strongly pro-life.
For those so vocal about “saving America” ...that, in the end, is all that this is about.
If his candidacy is clearly supported by his individual, spiritual and personal integrity-which I’ve no reason to doubt, he will prevail.
If there is rot somewhere in the foundation...he will not.
The very fact there is such intense debate and rancor identifies the truth of the spiritual arguments around the issue.
IMHO..in America, such intense debates ( War Between the States, the 2000 election...etc..) always identifies the arguments occurring between “powers and principalities”...
No, he meant that, as he understood it from doctors, the stress of a forcible rape makes a conception less likely to occur than in a consensual encounter. Could be wrong, but it’s a reasonable and plausible theory.
I’m pretty sure that he meant that pregnancy was rare (not simply “less likely”) in a “legitimate” rape because a woman’s body detects a legit rape and shuts down the process. That’s what he said. And no, it’s not a reasonable and plausible “theory”, it’s just a unsubstantiated hypothesis, one that just so happened to align with his inept attempt to make a relatively simple argument against a rape exception. Bad politics, bad science and bad debating technique all in one comment.
can't you see .... Clay Aiken
What you said!
I think I must’ve told people here at least a hundred million billion gazillion quintillion tetratillion times to stop exaggerating.
It makes `em look like DUmmies.
Oh, no, it is I that owes you the 'thank you', very much.... and I am NOT joking.... I want Claire defeated, and Akin is going to need money, lots of money.
It was a stupid comment and he had her by 14%. Now he is losing the seat and Mitt is losing the state. Oh boy, let us stick by a guy who could ruin both the Senate and Presidency because boy howdy, he is brave and .....stupid. Please. There are many conservs in MO. , Sarah Steelman being one who could easily have won the seat and kept Mitt in it too. Makes no difference about the issues Pat brings up, in Mo., Claire was dead and so was Bama. Good heavens.
“Donate to Akin’s campaign if you really support him.”
Well, I do live and vote in Missouri. I HAVE been giving to him this week. I’m one of those small donors that have helped him raise about 200K this week.
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