Romney, Ryan and Rape: A Todd Akin Special Delivery

[WilliamPitt]

(Author's note: the pic that accompanies the article is my new favorite thing in the world...)

Romney, Ryan and Rape: A Todd Akin Special Delivery
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed

Monday 20 August 2012

(snip)

Akin, a Tea Party darling and standard-bearer, is no stranger to the stupid comment, but broke new ground in the annals of idiocy in an interview aired on Sunday. "First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare," said Akin during an interview with KTVI, a Fox network out of St. Louis. "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Who the what the where the when the why the how the what the hell?

Yeah, that happened. In the odd, demented, windy spaces that pass for the mind of Mr. Akin, if you are raped and become pregnant, you weren't really raped, because "the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." That sound you hear is the heads of a million OBGYN's exploding simultaneously. Before the sun came up on Monday, Akin's campaign had rushed out a he-misspoke-we-hate-rape retraction, but the horse was already out of the barn. Akin's words were not a mistake, but a closely-held belief within the Anti-Choice-at-all-costs crowd, and now the Romney/Ryan campaign has a whole new problem to contend with.

Their immediate response to Akin's statement should be a first-ballot entrant into the Vapid Dishwater Statement Hall Of Fame: "Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan disagree with Mr. Akin's statement. A Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape." Perhaps realizing how spectacularly inadequate that response was, the Romney campaign followed up by calling Akin's words "insulting, inexcusable and, frankly, wrong."

Not nearly good enough. Mr. Romney has spent his entire political career being for choice before he was against choice before he was for it before he was against it before he was for it before he was against it, and if the American people are going to cast a vote for him, they deserve to hear a better response from him to Mr. Akin's gibberish than what has thus far been provided. "Nah, that's not me" does not nearly make the nut, especially since he has anointed himself as the standard-bearer for a GOP base that, in large part, wants to outlaw abortion in all instances, including in cases of rape and incest.

The real problem here for the Republican campaign, however, is Paul Ryan. Mr. Ryan joined forces with Mr. Akin in 2011, co-sponsoring a bill with him to redefine the definition of rape through legislation aimed at changing the working term to "forcible rape," as a means of annihilating the rape and incest exemptions that currently exist in abortion law. The attempt died a swift death in Congress, but the intention could not be more clear...and the driving force behind it was the Dynamic Duo of Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin and Paul "Forcible Rape" Ryan.

The rest: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/11006-romney-ryan-and-rape-a-todd-akin-special-delivery

[WilliamPitt]

1. Up

[madinmaryland]

2. This gang is unbelieveable. I'm surprised they have any feet left after all the gaffes.

[hifiguy]

3. This is what happens when you make deals with devils.

The far right fringe is an exploding cigar the Repuke powers that be willingly chose to smoke. They have nothing to complain about now that the bomb in the cigar is going off.