Posted on 08/25/2012 12:09:20 PM PDT by kreitzer
Prediction: If the GOP establishment doesn’t follow Republican Rep. Todd Akin’s example with a big, fat apology – to Akin – the whole party goes down in flames come November.
I don’t mean every Republican will lose, but there is great political peril in not sealing the hole in Republican armor that has opened in Missouri and instead permitting it to remain a Democratic pressure point. Further, “for the good of the country” (the mantra accompanying the party-wide chorus of pleas to Akin to drop out of his U.S. Senate race), Republicans must resume funding Akin’s viable campaign ASAP, after cutting it off in a mad fit of political pique. Finally, every one of them – the party standard-bearer, party bosses, congressional delegations, allied pundits – should come together for a group smack on the head, as in, “What were we thinking?”
I can’t recall anything in public life more widely craven and uncalled for than the open panic and bullying set off across the Republican Party by the first replay of Akin’s perplexingly ignorant interview comments on rape and pregnancy. The veteran conservative lawmaker, former engineer, former businessman and grandfather of eight recanted these remarks. He apologized for them.
But as the left began to bay for blood over a Republican and, by preposterous extension, Republican Party it hopes to smear as “anti-woman,” Republicans across the board, incredibly, joined in. Rather than jouncing Democrats back into some semblance of decent behavior with a firm, party-wide reality check – comparing a dumb comment about rape from one among their ranks with, say, accusations of actual rape against Democrats’ two-term hero, Bill Clinton – Republicans obligingly cut off their own noses and handed them to their political opponents.
The headline in the New York Times this week said it all: “GOP is pressing candidate to quit over rape remark.” Funny how we never, ever saw anything similar in the 1990s, when bombshells about Bill Clinton’s serial sexual harassment and assault of women were a common occurrence. Something like: “Dems pressing president to quit over rape.”
Didn’t happen. In fact, far from “pressuring” the former president into a quiet post-presidency retirement, the Democrats are spotlighting the overexposed sexual reprobate with a center-stage role at their upcoming convention. There, Clinton will officially re-nominate Barack Obama for president.
What else can we expect from the party that still lionizes Ted Kennedy, the late Massachusetts politician who notoriously left a young female campaign worker to drown in a sinking car rather than get help? Just as serial sexual improprieties perpetrated by Bill Clinton don’t count in Democrat-land as “anti-woman,” neither does Kennedy’s unconscionable behavior at Chappaquiddick. Both men not only remained in office, they remain the Democrats’ ideal.
A muddled, recanted remark about reproductive biology, however, puts a Republican one or two steps away from Hitler. He must be shunned by “decent” society, his whole career destroyed, the primary votes he won nullified, to expiate his “sin.”
Worst of all is the Republican Party’s unified acquiescence to this illogical, unjust and amoral equivalence. In fact, without the GOP’s lockstep, take-me-to-your-leader obedience to the Democrats’ rigged rules, the pitch of this controversy would have died down already. Without the Republicans’ vigorous enforcement of the left’s double standards, Akin would probably still be facing favorable odds of winning the Missouri Senate seat.
But no, which is what deeply concerns me. Indulging ginned-up, hack hysterics is not the behavior of a leader or a winner. Worse, accommodating unjust attacks on a solid citizen in the name of practicality or the “greater good” is a very dangerous precedent, as totalitarian history tells us. That’s why the GOP needs to rethink Missouri and make amends with Akin before “moving on.” Otherwise, I fear that in its vital quest to prevent Barack Obama from winning a second term, it won’t be moving anywhere.
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>> “Make no mistake, Washington does severely punish those with core values, because it seeks compromise in all things, and those with core values tend to foul that machine.” <<
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Amen!
You are not voting for anyone this election but YOURSELF and YOUR future. Freedom or slavery to the state. You do not have to like the candidates themselves but be aware that cumulative effect is at hand. To achieve a future of freedom, you had best help add to the chances that Republicans win the Senate. You are the one who will pay the price if this does not happen.
Unless voter enthusiasm returns to the Demwits, we can win this thing.
What conservative pro-life candidate can win the MO Senate seat at this point? You may have to choose between maybe and nothing.
He was a globalist power broker 100% of the time.
Akin is a real American patriot, Danforth a traitor to the bone. (and his protege Kay Baily Hutchison)
You may be right about WHY Sarah Palin endorsed Steelman instead of Akin, but even so she has been proven right.
If Steelman had won, I doubt we would be having this controversy.
Yes, but the conservative punditry is the one keeping this issue alive with their daily ranting about it.
That is stupid and self defeating. The Conservative/GOP movement is fracturing it own base in MO for NOTHING. Rather then getting back on message the GOP machine seems bound and determined to keep picking at the scab to keep the Akin wound open.
Stupid move politically
You project yourself on Akin!
Yes, we all can see that you write an autobiography in your second paragraph.
Priceless.
NO. At this point I do NOT have to choose.
My choice will be made on election day.
>> “Self-image first, family second?” <<
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You recognized dps.inspect’s autobio too?
Hard to miss, wasn’t it!
>> “Um no, the only credibility going up in flames are those clueless “conservatives” who are desperately trying to keep this story alive.” <<
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Precisely.
You have less, lickspittle. When will you explain yourself? LOL
Let's quote Clint Eastwood. Apply it to the continuing attack on your candidate for a Senate seat in Missouri.
"I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?"
Akin’s answer to the question was both honest, and essentially correct, as far as the biological understanding goes.
You need to look up the facts before you join the electronic lynching.
Still flailing, I see.
Always proud to support a conservative with a 97% ACU rating.
By defenders I mean folks like Huckabee that should have been advising the right thing but told him to tough it out. Akin has a coterie of supporters who told him to stay in. They gave him the wrong counsel at the wrong time. They will be the ones who have cost us this senate seat.
Many conservative leaders and pundits and a majority of Missouri voters want Akin to step aside. akin put himself above wider considerations and will cost us a senate seat.
” He is not leaving.”
It is not too late for Akin to realize he cant win and change his mind. 9/24 is the real deadline.
it’s nice to think you can pull it out, but ... Akin cant. Akin is running 16 points behind the top of the ticket. His favorables are worse than McCaskill’s - the only republican alive apparently who accomplished that feat. Wouldnt you rather have Brunner or Steelman in there right now?
here’ a comment from the hotair article:
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/25/mason-dixon-mo-poll-romney-up-5043-over-obama/
“McCaskill wont start running negative ads against this clown until after 9/25 when he cant petition to get out. I really really never imagined Huckabee was this politicaly stupid.... Do they not understand that the other candidates the GOP could put up are also pro life. That it does not all ride on this idiot alone. That you cant change the world until you first get in. By the way Huck has compared us to Union goons for wanting this clown out.”
Last point:
“Unless voter enthusiasm returns to the Demwits, we can win this thing.” ... the Democrats ‘war on women’ theme is their pathetic attempt to gin up voter turnout with their base, and alas Akin’s rape comments has given the Dems the weapon to do just that. Akin has been a givft to the Dems.
>> “, the family thing was for example but is true to life.” <<
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Yes, your life, not Akin’s.
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