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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On a related note; Akin can't fight McCaskill or reshape his image if the GOP continues to deny him funds and threaten those who help him. I'm not so sure now that the GOP-E wanted McCaskill to lose her seat in the first place. Is she a reliable cross-over vote for RINOs like McLame?
>>The fact that the GOP chose to “legitimize” the left’s findings on the matter is absolutely reprehensible.<<
I tend to agree, although it’s helpful to remember that Scott Brown of Massachusetts was the first on what quickly became a bandwagon. Brown, defending his seat in liberal Massachusetts, had some justification for disassociating himself from Akin’s comment quickly.
The rest of the GOP-e, not so much, and Senator Brown was probably surprised himself at how many joined him, and so rapidly too. Might have even helped him in his race? (lemons, lemonade, always remember that)
So, everyone raise your hand if you’re voting for McCaskill over Akin when you get to the voting booth.
anyone?
That is so damn wrong. That thinking is why we have King Obama. Life is made up of these choices but most of us grow up and realize that if we want to live in this element we have to make sure we select the lesser. Evil is a crock of shit in this perfect life and sometimes we have to be adult enough to accept it and make it better with what we have.
Akin hurts the pro life movement.
His ill informed epically stupid comment would disqualify him to serve on a jury, much less the Senate.
All he had to say was I’m against abortion in all cases, because in every case the child is innocent.
Instead he decided to elaborate in a manner that hurts the pro-life movement today by giving planned parenthood propaganda that demonstrates our side can’t empathize with women... all while denying that thousands of women have heroically given birth to children conceived in rapes.
He’s stupid... If he cared about the pro life movement more than himself he would drop out.
There was a move in Missouri by the retired and never heard from until election time Senator John Danforth et al to slip their favored beholden to them candidate into the Senate race as late as March of this year despite the money and time that all the other three had spent on the campaign. Steelman, Akin, and Brunner were unacceptable to him and them.
And now we have this hystrionic contrivance.
It is highly possible that no matter who would have won the primary, this would be happening to them as well.
Not yet, but hopeful.
If there is no write-in, I will vote for Akin under duress. But I have lost respect for the man because I don’t think he has the nation’s best interest at heart.
I know Missouri can do better.
Yea makes sense, Senator Brown the faux tea party candidate, a wolf draped in tea bags to get elected.
A liberal in reality, perfect fit for the new Gop-e
At best,his response was a classic case of too smart by half.
Thank you.
Well stated.
As I said before, call me what you want.
I’m not playing your game.
Brown...”A liberal in reality, perfect fit for the new Gop-e”
Let’s not look the gift horse too closely in the mouth. He’s a perfect fit for the GOP-Massachusetts, and that might be the only way we hold the seat.
Politics, strange bedfellows, all of that...
It will only be lost if folks don't vote for him, whatever the issues.
In Missouri, a write-in candidate has until 2 Fridays before the election (Oct.26) to file. They seldom win anywhere...IMO it is too late for such an effort to be mounted anyway. Other than as a “protest vote.”
Akin shifted the election discourse from the economy into the definition of rape. I understand that some Akin supporters are more than happy to see the election is about abortion, rape, etc., rather than the economy, but that's not what the voters' most immediate priority now.
the economy, but that’s not what the voters’ most immediate priority now.
Howard Baker said practically these same words in 1981, and we got Sandra Day O’Connor a few months later.
Again people, we're trying to win an election here. Not climbing Hill 881s...
That's a very good description of herd mentality in action. Regardless of their individual views they follow each other in unthinking lockstep.
Thanks for the information.
I am aware that it might be a losing proposition...I will re-evaluate the situation on 26th of October.
It is possible that Sarah Palin may come up with a write-in candidate. I value her judgement.
I appreciate your courtesy.
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