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August 19, 2012 11:17 PM UTC

At Least He's Not Your U.S. Senate Candidate

  • 53 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

MONDAY UPDATE: The conservative publication The National Review says Akin must step down from his Senate campaign…not because of his harmful statements, per se, but to make sure he doesn’t cost Republicans a Senate seat:

We suspect that this same lack of judgment will cause Akin to blow past tomorrow evening’s deadline for him to leave the race and allow the Republicans to select a better nominee. We hope the congressman, who surely wants to see a Senate with as much conservative strength as possible next year, will prove us wrong.

In addition, the Washington Post reports that the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and major GOP Super PAC American Crossroads have both announced they are pulling their support from the Missouri Senate race. Says NRSC chief John Cornyn, “Akin should carefully consider what is best for him.”

Do the “right thing,” Akin! Just do it before Tuesday night’s deadline.

—–

UPDATE: Backpedal, backpedal! CNN:

“In reviewing my off-the-cuff remarks, it’s clear that I misspoke in this interview and it does not reflect the deep empathy I hold for the thousands of women who are raped and abused every year,” Akin wrote…

The legitimate ones, anyway.

——

Remember Ken “Buyer’s Remorse” Buck in 2010, who dashed his U.S. Senate election hopes after hopelessly alienating women voters with his unsightly-but-proud views on the intertwined matters of the crime of rape and access to reproductive choice?

Fast-forward to 2012, Missouri GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin–via American Bridge:

“From what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” Akin said of pregnancy caused by rape. “If it’s a legitimate rape, [Pols emphasis] the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist not attacking the child.”

A pity too, Republicans were really hoping to win this one.

Comments

53 thoughts on “At Least He’s Not Your U.S. Senate Candidate

  1. According to Mr. Akin if a woman suffers from a “legitimate rape” then her body will know that and her body will make sure she doesn’t become pregnant but if for some reason those inherent body mechanisms don’t work then, according to this guy,if it does tun out to be a “legitimate rape” and the woman becomes pregnant then society should only punish the rapist. Or, by obvious implication, if a raped woman becomes pregnant then it probably wasn’t a rape.

    Where is his scientific evidence to back up his insinuation that when women suffer from a “legitimate rape” their bodies will make sure they aren’t impregnated by the rapist. I’ve never heard of such a thing.

    This guy is nuts.

    1. He sees women as cattle. Good enough to give antibiotics to so as not to die during pregnancy, but nothing otherwise.  And there is no need for birth control, because otherwise that would interrupt the breeding schedule.

      The more important part of this is, except for the out of his stinkin’ mind science, Ryan has the same, the very same, stance on birth control, family planning and abortion.

  2. Just what is he talking about?  How exactly are we supposed to “shut the whole thing down”?  And why would this be something that would only work in the case of rape?  

    Don’t tell me he’s referring to that old canard about only getting pregnant if you have an orgasm or at least “enjoyed” it. Or does he think there’s some switch we can throw at will.   Does he think women who get pregnant as a result of rape must have enjoyed it and therefor it ‘s not a “legitimate” rape?  Does he know any women? Has he ever talked to one about anything beyond what he wants for dinner?  

    Just what the hell is he saying and what, besides something he may have heard from an equally ignorant classmate back in the day,  is he basing it on?

    Maybe all legislators ought to be required to take a human reproductive system course before they’re allowed to vote on or make statements about anything touching the subject. And please tell me the guy wasn’t defeated by someone to his right or lower down on the IQ scale.  

  3. perhaps this bozo would be kind enough to produce a few of the doctors who supposedly explained this to him.  I suspect this won’t be possible because they are probably imaginary. At least let’s hope so. If they exist it would be helpful to know who they are because they have to be quacks who should lose their licenses.

    1. One thing he didn’t do is disavow the crux of his “misspoken” statement, as Josh Marshall points out:

      But as you can see he doesn’t actually address the center of the controversy – his claim that if women are really raped (“legitimate rape”) they have biological defenses that prevent conception.

      http://talkingpointsmemo.com/a

  4. — er, Republicans — have weighed in to put this in perspective and explain how it’s a distraction. Except that ‘Tad doesn’t get to the details of conception until next semester (if mom signs the permission slip!), and Arap is waiting for marching orders from Boston. And those other interlopers aren’t paid to comment about Senate races in Missouri. Too bad, it’d be illuminating to hear what they have to say!

    1. Maybe one of you could explain this theory, supposedly commonly recognized by “doctors”, that “legitimate rape” sets off some kind of biological defense against conception? Anyone? And a link to some source for the science as well as to some specific real doctors please?

  5. He repeated what he’s been saying behind closed doors for a long time.

    Despite his “retraction” or “clarification” or whatever he wants to call it, these things don’t get said by mistake. During my years in the echo chamber, one thing I learned. The things that get said in “friendly” company get repeated and reenforced in various forms until finally that same basic notion gets said in a place where somebody says, “WTF?” You don’t just say something like “victims of ‘legitimate rape’ don’t get pregnant” and say it for the first time on national tv.

      1. English isn’t dead and is therefore always changing. “Misspoke” is now clearly defined as “Whoops! I said that shit on camera/in public/where women could hear me.” The poor doctor isn’t hiding a thing and clearly did misspeak.

          1. The headline is hyperbole, but there’s nothing sarcastic about my comment. What Lakewood Todd said is just fine except for his assertion that Akin said this on national TV. I’m not sure why shrub is calling Akin a “doctor,” either; maybe he’s being ironic.

    1. have already received several e-mails using this for fund raising from several sources. Expect to find many more tomorrow. It’s all over the internet and will be all over cable tomorrow. Probably won’t be enough but it will certainly force the GOP to spend some big bucks on this race that they would rather have spent elsewhere and force them all off message while they all get asked about this.  

      Our usual rightie apologists will probably just go with the not punishing the unborn child for the sins of the father angle and completely ignore the stupendously ignorant theory of some natural physiological anti-sperm barrier that women are supposed to have the capacity to trigger in the event of “legitimate rape”. Even as I type this I can’t believe a half decently educated adult with a lick of sense actually said it.  

      1. well, I hadn’t intended

        to bend the rules

        but whiskey don’t make liars

        it just makes fools

        so I didn’t mean to say it

        but I meant what I said

        too long in the wasteland

        too long in the wasteland

        must’ve gone to my head

  6. probably learned everything he knows about biology/physiology/science from attending some backwoods creationist madrasa . . . “legitimate rape”???!!!???  WTF?  This asshole obviously subscribes to “illegitimate rape.”  And, if you were to ask him (before this all blew up), I’ll bet that’s not the part that was his admitted “mis-spoke.”  

    Clearly Akin’s a graduate student from the Ken Buck school of buyers remorse . . . just as much as he is a student from the Libertad school of (verbal) auto-correct errors.

  7. … you know this guy’s toast.

    I’m not sure what’s stranger:

    1. Using the term “legitimate rape” in the first place.

    2. The whole “if it’s a ‘legitimate rape’ the female body will prevent conception from occurring” idea.

    3. His statement that there ought to be “some punishment” for rapists. Wow, that’s really big of you there, Todd!

  8. 1) Remove thousands of Coloradans from receiving the “permanent” mail-in ballot simply because they didn’t vote in 2010.

    2) Require picture ID’s of voters.

    3) Severely limit early voting.

    4) Express outrage over nonexistent voter fraud, yet remain silent about rampant vote counting errors.

    And now they want to throw off the ballot a congressman who won a GOoP primary fair and square just because he said something they didn’t like?

    It is clear that the GOoP and right-wing conservatives hate America and American democracy.

  9. I just heard a deadline for him to haul his sorry ass out of the world, Tuesday 5 pm local time.  He can withdraw before that and a replacement can be pulled in. After that and the troglodyte is on the ballot.

  10. The difference between him and the pinkos  now calling for his head is his willingness to blurt out what the rest of them think.

    His lack of biological knowledge is akin (no pun intended)to the drug addled limbaugh’s belief that a woman must use birth control pills every time they have sex.

    The PNC will force him out. But not because he believes, as does ryan, (who knows whar scumney thinks…….on this or any thing) that pinko politicians have every right to control a woman’s health decisions.

    No, they’ll boot him because he actually SAID what the pinko base feels but will never admit……”till they’re runnin’ the show.

    Then we’ll hear it.  

  11. There is no doubt that this was an incredibly stupid and insensitive thing Todd Akin said.

    But I could not help but think about Whoopi Goldberg’s stunningly stupid and insensitive remark — made in 2009 — about the actual rape of a child, not a theoretical situation:

    “I know it wasn’t rape-rape. It was something else but I don’t believe it was rape-rape. He went to jail and and when they let him out he was like “You know what this guy’s going to give me a hundred years in jail I’m not staying, so that’s why he left.”

    That was Whoopi’s “Words of Wisdom” about then 43 year old Roman Polanski drugging a 13 year old girl into unconsciousness and then having non-consensual sex with her.

    The GOP will pressure Akin out of this race because any other of his primary opponents could beat Claire McCaskill by even more, and no one is going to give Akin any money.  Now how do we get Whoopi to shut her big mouth?

    1. Johnny did it too argument that nobody’s mom ever bought.  For the record, yes it was rape and it was a stupid repulsive thing for Whoopi to say. I think the support Polanski receives is disgusting but Whoopi’s just another celeb who would be completely washed up if it weren’t for the View gig, not an elected official or a Democratic party official or spokesperson in any way shape or form. So it’s not at all equivalent.

      1. I thought this was CO ‘Pols’ not CO Entertainment Tonite!  

        Lets review, the politicians, shall we:

        First there is the ‘Forcible rape’ clause:

        http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo

        Then there were the anti-assault provisions in the defense bill, rape being a major issue in our Armed Forces.

        http://www.republicansforrape….

        Or the VP candidate himself:

        That same Paul Ryan whose views on Personhood–the belief that the life of each human being begins with fertilization–meshed so thoroughly with Todd Akin’s they co-sponsored a bill calling for the legitimization of that loony theory.

        That same Paul Ryan who, along with Akin and a couple hundred GOP House members, actually tried to make laws about the degrees of rape, defining “forcible rape” as the only violation worth noting–as if, in fact, “forcible” could be defined; as if, in fact, there was any other kind.

        And that’s just the federal team…

        Start looking at State Legislators and things get really crazy, quick:

        HARRISBURG – The odds that a woman who is raped will get pregnant are “one in millions and millions and millions,” said state Rep. Stephen Freind, R-Delaware County, the Legislature’s leading abortion foe.

        The reason, Freind said, is that the traumatic experience of rape causes a woman to “secrete a certain secretion” that tends to kill sperm.

        Two Philadelphia doctors specializing in human reproduction characterized Freind’s contention as scientifically baseless.

        Freind made the statement on a central Pennsylvania radio interview program earlier this month.

        http://articles.philly.com/198

    2. Are Polanski or Goldberg politicians?

      Why can’t you just admit your guy fucked up WITHOUT having to come up with some unrelated counter-example? Do you not understand how that demonstrates your insincerity?

    3. do you REALLY want to start comparing words from celebrity turds between the two camps?  Whoop’s idiocy pales in comparison to what the small-minded haters on RegRep’s tv spew.

      And RegRep stupidly denies that Achin’ coulda/woulda become an esteemed member of our highest representative wing of legislature in the land had he not shown his troglodyte-like grasp of womanly ways.  That this Show-Me conservadumb asshole coulda/woulda been that 51st vote defunding PP, dismantling ACA, and denying basic rights to folks throughout our great land.  

      But in RegRep’s world asshole Achin’ ain’t no different then a dread-headed comedian?  My gosh how far the GOP has fallen to find folks to fill out their dance cards.

      1. 2012 Hank Williams Jr.  Will wait for R calls to denounce him and his fans for rant to a cheering audience about Obama being a Muslim who hates America, the military and all the other apple pie stuff and ends by saying “and we hate him”. More cheers.  

  12. with the crazies is this whole notion that some magic soul fairy bestows an immortal soul on a fertilized human egg and that trumps everything else.

    I believe that the women haters are so sold on this theory of life because their egos are so afraid of death that they can’t comprehend a “soul” that doesn’t live forever.  It really is about frightened egos that have to believe in a heaven because that is the only way they can live forever.  God forbid that they are just forms of life that come into existence, life a fruitful life expressing the eternal human attributes and then with the last breath, the custodian of the form which has done it’s job dissipates.

    Nobody ever talks about the motivations for these superstitious theories of life and why we should tolerate their messing with other peoples lives in their desperate attempts to believe they are going to be immortal.

    1. Then we are no more important to the universe than a mosquito.  Mother nature’s a bitch, ain’t she.

      Of course we are more important than a mosquito to other people, and can choose how important the people in our lives are to us.  Other people’s fetuses, not so much.

      1. What I said is that human egos might not survive death and exist indefinitely in an unknown dimension called Heaven.  The ego is the custodian of the form.  It is responsible for giving expression to the eternal human attributes while it can navigate the form.  That’s a pretty precious task.  Love, kindness, courage and resolve only exist in the moment when precious human forms manifest those qualities.  Why does that expression of something eternal have to be tied up with “getting” into Heaven?

        Can’t you live a grateful life and be conscious of your similarity with other life forms (eyes, lungs, hear, digestive system) and be identified more with the universal life that animates all forms rather than be obsessed with the ego and superstitious beliefs that it will survive for all eternity if it can only criminalize women’s health care practices?  What crazy beliefs.

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