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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Romney made a joke about The One’s birth certificate.
The left is outraged.
Romney needs to step down. ( sarc )
On second thought that would make Ryan the presidential candidate. I take back the sarc warning.
Thank you. Sorry for the misstatement. That’s still long enough to prove his consistency.
The Limbaugh name is a huge conflict of interest that would raise a lot of negative reaction.
Wagner would be acceptable but she won't run and I don't blame her. She is a shoe-in for the Congressional seat she is in and why would she risk that to run against a seasoned political pro where she will have a big fight ahead of her with no guarantees that she has if she stays where she is.
And no matter who would replace him the Dems will accuse him or her of being a stooge of the party bosses who overturned a valid primary election. Whatever would be gained would also be lost.
truth comes before all... don’t try to conflate the issue, the family thing was for example but is true to life...
Same road that many have taken with Romney...if you don't vote for Romney, you will " vote" for Obama....you vote a third party write in, you vote for McCaskill! Congrats McCaskill and Obamacare!
We have many Pro-Life conservative candidates that could step in on the Republican ticket.
I don’t know what other Missouri conservatives are going to do, I only know that I will vote for the conservative pro-life candidate that I believe can win. Akin is NOT that person.
Call me whatever you want.
I would never support either one over Todd Akin.
The libs would never call a replacement candidate a 2nd or 3rd stringer to gain advantage. It would be unethical for them to point out that they couldn’t beat the “kook” who won the primary. /s
>>He never “misspoke”, he was asked a fair question, and gave one of the most idiotic answers to a question since Clintons “is” response.<<
Oh come now. Not to say it wasn’t a dumb answer (almost Biden-like), but just in the past month we’ve been treated to “You didn’t build that” (which could very well cost Obama the election) and, paraphrasing, “I don’t think anyone would suggest that I’ve been a divisive President.” (absolutely surreal)
It was the reaction to his comments that was nonsense. First, the Left hung out the bait and then the GOP establishment sucked it in hook, line, and sinker. The time has come to quit flailing about and spit out the hook.
If in fact what Huckabee says here is true, then it is the GOP that has done a lot of the damage in Missouri -- and they need to go in there and make it right with him and fix it and they need to do it NOW.
He should withdraw so that a more reliable candidate can run on the Republican ticket.
If he does not withdraw, I will support a write-in candidate.
You contradict yourself. Either you want to pick up a Senate seat or you don’t.
The problem of abortion is worse than Americans think.
Then I did nail the essence of it. To put it in political terms instead "party over principle."
Just sayin'
Or do you want to backpedal on the use of the word "imagery" too?
Do you know any specific write-in campaign afoot in Missouri? I do not.
The fact that the GOP chose to “legitimize" the left’s findings on the matter is absolutely reprehensible.That's SOP for the GOP-e these days. And in the past.
Any chance they have to keep a Conservative out of Congress, they will take it.
Even if it means losing the Senate.
If they wanted him to stay in, they would have jumped in in the beginning explaining what was meant and that would have been the end of it if they threw their support his way.
It wouldn't matter what the media and (their helpers the) democrats spewed. They are absolutely giddy because none of the Tea Party candidates won in the primary.
No need to apologize. I just thought you’d want to be accurate if you repeat the information elsewhere.
Interestingly, Rush’s first day reaction was to state that Akin was probably one of those people who only talk to like-minded people and are lost when they run into other opinions. From that I took it that Akin was new at politics.
Even a day or so later, Rush was casting about trying to figure out where Akin had served six terms, and he decided that it must have been in the Missouri assembly, rather than in Congress, but by that time I’d checked and knew he’d served six terms in Congress.
Had Rush known that initially, maybe it would have influenced his opinion some, one way or another? Certainly a 12-year Congressman is no neophyte, so maybe he’s actually had serious policy discussions about the subject at hand, which was the pro-life position where rape is involved.
And you believe that a write-in candidate can win in this race??? Surely thou either jest or art a McCaskill fan.
Write-in candidates will never make it but in this case will make sure that the Senate gets another RAT. Akin is a good conservative and doesn't deserve such crap. Lets do what we can to support his reelection.
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