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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If you believe that none of the Akin voters were
Democrats, you are naive.
The claim that Akin’s comments on the female anatomy is factual does not even deserve a reply.
Would she not have 10 million dollars if someone else had won the primary?
IOWs GOPers are bed-wetting cowards who can’t stand behind someone who merely utters a clumsy sentence. As I said before; with friends like these who needs enemies?
>Akin is a good man with a solid conservative record, who misspoke, mainly with the use of one unfortunate word (”legitimate rape”). And immediately every Republican in sight, including many supposed conservatives, seem to think that that is MUCH WORSE than killing every baby in sight, as Akin’s attackers advocate.<
No, Mr Akin said (paraphrasing) that in a legitimate rape a woman’s reproductive system shuts down, keeping a pregnancy from occurring.
It’s no wonder people from both parties are upset and the Democrats are attacking right and left.
It’s one thing to be solidly pro-life, but it’s quite another to shoot your mouth off and give your opponent a platform with which to ride to victory because of an appallingly ignorant statement about such a hot-button issue.
McCaskill would be 7-10 points behind right now if Brunner or Steelman were the winners, instead of 10 points ahead like she is against Akin, and would be up against better fundraisers and candidates to boot. After all, the only reason Akin won was McCaskill’s spending $2 million telling voters how conservative Akin was.
She was 7-10 points behind before the GOP-E and it’s stalwarts began trashing their own candidate because of a quasi-misstatement.
I’m sure the best course of action is to continue trashing him, so carry on.
Especially when what you are saying is designed to obfuscate and somehow justify your answer to the question: "What about pregnancies due to rape?"
Why go off on that tack if you are confident in the rectitude of your belief?
Akin's awkward answer betrays a lack of confidence in his pro-life belief -- "Well, most women who get raped don't get pregnant, so it's not a big deal anyway."
Then you support McCaskill. You’re not very bright, are you?
I find all of the comments interesting, but the only people who really matter here are those who are going to send $$$ to Akin. Your support on Free Republic won’t buy him a donut let alone ads that need to run on television, disputing the Dem attack machine.
I personally won’t be giving anything to him because I don’t really respect him intellectually. He is Mike Pence with 1/2 Pence’s IQ. Pence is a winner, and Akin is not.
How many people are going to pony up some cash for Todd and how much? That is all that matters at this time.
I am not going to match wits with someone who is unarmed.
Because even that wouldn’t give you a chance.
Talking science to people who have a religious belief in the magic uterus is futile.
Their idiocy will tar educated lifers as also being yahoos.
Go back to DU, asshole.
That kind of talk loses your argument for you. Have a nice day.
Have a nice day to you also!
Statistics on rape and pregnancy are complicatedSurprisingly few hard facts and figures were available about the prevalence of rape-related pregnancies. Many news outlets, including this one, cited a 1996 study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, which estimated that more than 32,000 women experience a rape-related pregnancy each year. The report also concluded that 5% of rape victims become pregnant, which would mean that 640,000 rapes occur each year.
But that figure doesn’t jibe with other reputable sources. For example, FBI data show that 95,769 forcible rapes were reported in 1996. The 2005 National Crime Victimization Survey calculates that 64,080 rapes occurred in 2004 and 2005.
Sorry. You made it so easy.
I wish we could have Diana West as President.
she has always been true to her principles.
she has never flip-flopped.
and she has usually, been AHEAD of the curve.
(for example, about Afghanistan...)
I don't pay much attention to you, so am unaware of where you stand.
Except to note that your tagline insults members, and this site.
Everyone of your posts is anti-freeper as long as you have a tag line insulting freepers.
I don't waste my time analyzing other members.
If I did, I would probably be as wrong as you are.
If you want to be around people that will revere you as a real smart guy, go to one of the anti-freeper sites with your first post being Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be.
For a while you will be loved as a very smart person.
They will applaud you and post hundreds of stupid FR quotes to you.
You will get your tagline affirmed over and over again.
You are the last person who should be deciding which members are “solid” and which are not.
Man up and change your tagline to (I removed my anti-freeper tagline! : > )
Be sure to include the exclamation point and the symbols after it. It will automatically create a smiley face!
sorry for such a long post but I was bored and you are so easy
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