Posted on 08/26/2012 4:55:54 AM PDT by Kaslin
Liberal pundits are declaring they have no idea what Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) meant when he referred to “legitimate rape” in an interview this past week. Akin stated, "In cases of legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." It was an awkward, inarticulate statement, but the substance of it was correct. Explaining what he meant since then would be a bit crude, so he has not been able to adequately defend himself. His attackers have used the awkwardness to pounce on him and pretend they don't know what he meant, or make up even worse explanations.
Does anyone actually believe his critics? It may have been a poor choice of words, but everyone knows Akin was referring to the distinction between what we traditionally consider rape - forcible rape - versus statutory rape and what some claim is also rape, having sex while drunk. Some women will have a one night stand while drunk, admit it to their friends afterwards, then change their mind and declare that it was rape. The FBI updated its definition of rape this year to include the inability to give consent due to intoxication. Any woman who has been drinking can now claim afterwards that she was raped. This may have opened a Pandora's Box considering how many people drink alcohol before sex. The cliché “rape is rape” no longer means what it says. The definition has now been broadened to include any woman alleging rape after she has been drinking.
As for women's bodies shutting down, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that Akin meant that a woman is not going to get aroused if she is forcibly raped, making it difficult to become pregnant. Akin brought this up in order to explain why abortion in case of rape is not necessary. It is very rare that a forcible rape results in a pregnancy, so the issue of whether to permit abortion in the case of rape is mostly a red herring, used for fear mongering. Last week, GOP officials drafting the abortion ban for the party platform, declined to put in an exception for rape or incest. Tellingly, Akin's critics haven't bothered disputing Akin's real message, which is that less than one percent of rapes result in a pregnancy.
Akin immediately apologized for his remarks, clarifying later that he meant “forcible rape.” He has been running 30-second TV ads around the state apologizing. David Roney of Pro-Life Arizona notes that Akin's point was unborn babies shouldn't be sacrificed to punish rapists. Aborting children because they were a product of a rape would have taken the lives of gospel singers Mahalia Jackson and Ethel Waters. Ryan Bomberger, also born of a rape, wrote about Akin for Life News, “ I’m glad such a pro-family, pro-life stalwart, despite a few bumps and lots of scrapes, is not quitting under pressure from hypocritical pro-abortion radicals and spineless Republicans.“ Bomberger listed several crude jokes that liberal celebrities have made about rape, and asks, “Where was the condemnation of Whoopi Goldberg who, on The View, defended film director Roman Polanski’s 1977 drugging and rape of a 13 year old as not “rape rape”?”
It is troubling to see Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, the chairman of the RNC, Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) and conservative stalwarts like Rush Limbaugh demand the resignation of Akin. Limbaugh himself has been accused of comments that have made him vulnerable to intense criticism. It is reported that high-level GOP officials have told Akin they will no longer help him with fundraising. Many in the GOP have developed a herd mentality and are piling on Akin, asserting that no one can win without establishment support. Sadly, they are shooting their wounded to react so quickly and demand that Akin jump out of the race.
Fortunately, not all conservatives have deserted Akin. Because of the injustice of what has happened to him, Mike Huckabee has come to his defense, assisting with fundraising. It's notable that Akin exceeded his goal of raising $125,000 within a few days. Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life group, has put out a statement defending Akin.
Prior to Akin's misworded comment, he was leading in the polls over the Democrat incumbent, Sen. Claire McCaskill, who is considered to be the most vulnerable Democrat in the Senate. If his chances are now so dismal, why is Moveon.org calling for Akin to resign? Or why is the liberal super PAC American Bridge 21st Century demanding that Romney drop Huckabee from the GOP convention for supporting Akin? The left is well aware that to put in a substitute candidate now would risk losing the seat, due to the lack of time left to set up a ground game and garner name recognition.
Akin is a solid conservative who voted against No Child Left Behind, despite being pressured in a phone call by President Bush. He has a 97% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union. A favorite of social conservatives, he obtained a Master of Divinity degree from seminary and has co-chaired the House Prayer Breakfast. No doubt his background is why many are targeting him so viciously.
Most voters will forget about this in a week. Three days after the story broke, McCaskill pulled ahead of Akin in the polls but could not break 50%, according to a Rasmussen poll. Akin can still win, unless Republicans continue to turn on him. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” The Republican Party could still try to force Akin out up until September 25, by challenging his candidacy in the courts.
When people can't freely express their opinions it is a serious matter. Why isn't an apology sufficient? Why make this into a career-ruining incident? Akin didn't say “rape is ok,” and everyone knows exactly what he meant. Akin told Huckabee that he "misspoke one word, in one sentence, in one day." Wait until it happens to you.
This is the same dilemma we have with the RINOs who run in many states where a regular Republican wouldn't have a chance.
Sometimes we get a RINO and he gives us a ruling majority, and as long as we keep him out of party ideologically oriented affairs, that's usually OK if it's a real life and death difference.
However, I think the time of the RINO has disappeared. We must be prepared to run real Conservatives in every race even if some in the GOP-e don't think so, AND we have to be prepared to NOT run a Conservative who is doomed to lose ~ particularly when we have Conservatives of equal or greater quality waiting in the wings.
Give you an example, we are facing the mind-numbed robot-like knee-jerk Leftwingtard of the century, and he's a very stupid man to boot. We do not need to run a RINO against him to win. We certainly don't need to run someone who could be easily mistaen for him when it comes to oppressive policies and methods.
So why did we stick with the GOP-e when they decided they need a faux Democrat to beat Obama?
Clearly this is the year for some new departures.
Foley had his enablers, and they were part of the House management team, so yeah, they were guilty.
Above that, Foley and them and Sen. Craig, and, alas, the RNC chairman, were all guilty, the public sensed that, and we lost the 2006 election and with it control of the House.
And if they were supporting him the ad money would have been sent directly as a campaign contribution instead of being used in ads against him.
If Akin loses (especially if the GOP fails to win a majority in the Senate) Akin will automatically become pegged by the RINOs as a Tea Partying right-wing conservative and 2014 will be for the RINOs what 2010 was for the Tea Party.
Too Conservative? Stuck in the mud of his thinking that has dried solid? He gives conservatives a bad name. Just because one is pro-life [and I am] doesn’t mean that you have to be stupid, or that you have to be anti-women like some here. [false cries of rape after drunken escapades?] Dumb for a woman to get drunk, but it is no excuse for a accepting being raped. And no reason to think a woman is lying just because she was drinking when it happened. Taliban thinking abounds among some [mostly male] As Paul Ryan says, ‘rape is rape’ and Akin does not get it.
If arguendo Akin is a 'Rat tools, put into the primary by 'Rat crossover voters to screw up the GOP side of the race, then why are Dim NGO's now calling on Akin to bail? If he's on the road to Crash and Burnville, why would they insist he leave the race as the RNC and some pundits insist he do?
If he bails out, the Missouri GOP would simply put someone of the stature of John Ashcroft or Kit Bond in the race, and they'd incinerate a slime mold like McCaskill. Yes? No?
And blowing the budget apart and funding bridges to nowhere (nowhere owned by buddies of the appropriator) sure didn't help. There were three or four GOP scandals within a year or two, contrasted with only the James Trafficant and William Jefferson follies on the other side of the aisle. That, and Rahm Emanuel's massive electoral fraud, with phony "Blue Dog" Dims running all over the place who were no bluer than Grigory Zinoviev.
Fred lost because he honored contractual obligations to NBC arising from the last episodes of Law and Order he shot for them, which were in reruns in the summer of 2007.
If Fred had declared timely, say June or July 2007, in time to participate in the campaign-funding rush for big-donor early money, he could have faced a lawsuit from NBC, which would have had to cancel the reruns if he'd announced.
Staying out until September cost him everything. I think of that every time I see him in one of those sad little commercials.
Unicorns and butterflies or not, it would have been doubly nice to have had an adult in the room in 2008.
K, I’ll type slowly.
Its GOP primary, which means very conservative = good.
McCaskill knows this, and she wants to run against Akin.
THUS, she “criticizes” Akin as “too conservative” knowing that will be a good thing for him in the primary and will carry weight with anyone naive enough not to know what she was doing.
Let's look at what you said again...
@With due respect Chipper, you totally missed the psy ops part of the McCaskill campaign. Don't you get what she meant to accomplish by calling him "too conservative" in the middle of a GOP primary? Is this really hard to figure out? No, it's not....
Then I said...@Since you haven't stated it then I'd sure like to hear your opinion on what you think she was trying to accomplish.
And your "reasoning" is this...
Its GOP primary, which means very conservative = good.
McCaskill knows this, and she wants to run against Akin.
THUS, she “criticizes” Akin as “too conservative” knowing that will be a good thing for him in the primary and will carry weight with anyone naive enough not to know what she was doing.
Weeeeell I find your "reasoning" just a liiiiiittle suspect
Let's see...her ad calling him "too conservative" @came out around 8/2/12-8/3/12
And the election was held on @08/07/12.
So didn't that ad come out at the end of the campaign and not in "the middle" of the campaign as you asserted? Just asking.
So that's a whole four or five days in which that ad had time to "have an effect", right?
(what was the polling like at that time and who was winning on the GOP side? /strictly rhetorical question)
Furthermore, given the reporting at the time...
@McCaskill ad frames Rep. Akin as too extreme for Missouri 08/10/12
The new ad follows what has been McCaskill's tactic throughout the Missouri GOP primary race: to tar Akin as too conservative for Missouri, a state Democrats hope can swing in favor of Obama this year, despite a narrow loss in 2008. Akin was the favored candidate to win the GOP Senate primary, as Democrats hope his Tea Party ties will make him vulnerable.
(throughout? how long did those campaigns go on again? /strictly rhetorical question)
...I hope you don't mind if I consider your reasoning very suspect.
It seems to me that she got a little too smart for her britches and he won despite her best efforts to stop him.
And as was also written around that same time frame...
@Claire McCaskill trails GOP candidates in Senate race, poll shows July 28, 2012
Coker predicted that McCaskill's fortunes at this point turn in large part on luck.
"They're going to need a little more than message politics. They're going to have to hope for an incident that hurts the other side, he said.
She needed an "incident" then...one month prior to the primary.
Well, she didn't get it then, but one is sure being created now.
Anything can be created and twisted into something it isn't, as you well know.
Correction...07/28/12 - 08/07/12 isn't even a month, is it? That's barely over a week!
Ping to reply 150.
No, and I should have said anyone not from Missouri and that includes me should let the MO voters decide as we have no right to. BTW I did so a few days back in another thread
With due respect, your response was arduous, humorless, obtuse, and not logical at all. You must be a lawyer, accountant, or bureaucrat.
Claire clearly meant what I said she meant by her ads, regardless of when she ran it and regardless of how effective, or ineffective, it was. Take a powder and have some decaf.
Huh? I get it. YOU ARE TODD AKIN.
This explains so much. About both of you.
I was not aware of any Dims calling for Akin to leave the race. Who is doing so and what is their reasoning?
Exactly how I see some around here as well. The louder and more stupid one is about his or her pro life position, the more some folks like it for some reason. I think there is plenty of intellectual reasoning that supports an intelligent pro life position, and it really irritates me that some think there is some kind of foolish nobility in doing so foolishly. Some sort of arrogant phony self righteousness or something.
With due respect, your response was arduous, humorless, obtuse, and not logical at all.
Thanks for sharing your opinion.
And yet you make no attempt to refute what I wrote other than your one paltry statement.
Duly noted.
Good night.
It explains why Claire wanted to face Akins and what she did to try to ensure that happened. You can disbelieve the article if you want to, but it is a widely known fact in Missouri, outside of Todd Akins' reality
You made no point, and you made no sense.
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