Just dumb.
It was a fumbled attempt to explain his otherwise admirable position. He tried to make an excuse for himself and, evidently, totally oblivious the fact that rape can result in pregnancy -- and often does.
Somebody so unprepared to explain why he believes what he believes -- or so maladroit as to engage in such a weak defense -- has no business being a serious candidate for U.S. Senator.
The likes of Karl Rove and Chris Christie should both earn our enmity for piling on as they did. But Akin deserves disdain, as well, for being too stupid (or selfish) to recognize the mess he'd made of things.
DeMint is the only party who did the right thing. But, even then, I wonder if his $290,000 might've been better invested in another conservative candidate.
We also have at least one Freeper, Diamond, who is a member of Akin’s local church.
Akin has a long history of being a conservative evangelical Republican, and he has been attacked many times by GOP-e people as an example of the sort of conservative they want to marginalize or eliminate.
I expect that from GOP-e people. I am sick and tired of listening to Akin being cited on Free Republic in the same category.
Akin said something really, really stupid. I'm not going to defend it. Any evangelical in politics knows he's going to get the “abortion in case of rape” question. There is simply no excuse for him not getting his chosen answer to that question evaluated in advance by solid political advisers in the pro-life movement with current medical knowledge since his chosen answer was based on medical advice.
What makes it even worse is that because Akin is a longtime student of military history, he **CERTAINLY** knows about the large numbers of pregnancies resulting from wartime rapes. Look at what the Russians did to German women (and others) and you'll have positive proof that Akin was factually wrong about the trauma of rape resulting in failure to implant and therefore failed pregnancies. At most, an argument could be made that the percentage of pregnancies from rape is less than from consensual sex, and I don't think even that can be backed up from current empirical medical evidence, though apparently Akin based his views on old medical opinions that were once held more commonly than they are today.
But the simple fact of the matter is that all this needed to come out in the primary, not a few weeks after the primary.
Why wasn't Akin grilled on his views about abortion? I don't know. But the result is that because neither of the two other serious Republicans running in the Missouri senatorial primary pushed the pro-life issue, perhaps because everybody knew Akin has solid pro-life credentials and has had them for decades, we ended up with a disaster.
The proper solution under these circumstances, once it became clear that Akin would not withdraw, was to back him or at least back off and not attack him, saying, “Missouri voters have made their decision; we totally disagree with his stupid statement but that's now between Akin and the voters.” (And let's not forget that Akin himself disagreed with his own statement once he realized it was based on grossly outdated decades old medical advice.)
What the Republican establishment did instead was to viciously attack Akin in the hope that more moderate Republicans wouldn't be destroyed by Akin’s stupid comment.
What happened? Akin lost, and most of the moderate Republicans lost, too.
So we got the worst of both worlds.
I understand why GOP-e types will attack Akin. That makes sense, and is quite consistent. But somebody needs to explain to me how attacking Akin in 2014 on Free Republic for a stupid statement in 2012 helps anyone except Democrats and GOP-e people.
I certainly would never accuse Freepers of being GOP-e supporters, but I do think some Freepers are repeating GOP-e talking points, quite possibly without even realizing they are doing so. The result is that they're unintentionally helping GOP-e people accomplish their agenda.