This is exactly why Akin said what he said, and he should not be pilloried for his comments the brutal way that he has been.
So far as the word “legitimate”, it has 5 meanings which are recorded in Webster, and one of them is “actual”. That is the one he meant. He was distinguishing violent rape with statutory rape, false reports of rape (didn’t happen), and false reports of rape that were actually consentual but reinterpreted, for example, to prevent parental anger.
The Duke LaCrosse case is one example of the above that he was trying to distinguish.
In many ways, the word legitimate was a weak word choice, but in other ways it was fine, IF you were tracking with him and understood what he was thinking.
Hemingway was a subscriber to the theory that a writer should never use a ten letter word (legitimate) when a five or six letter word (actual) conveys the same meaning.
Akin violated that rule. I didn’t know that the penalty for such a violation was death.
Words vs action.
Its real nice that the GOP is waving the pro life banner but the fact is that they’re moving toward a more pro choice stance.
All the attention and fire directed at Akin and virtually no mention of Scott Brown’s announcement of his pro “choice” stance. Its a little hard to swallow that the GOP is pro life when they’ve made such a clear move toward abortion.