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The Spectacle Blog
Todd Akin’s statement on rape, etcetera, are wrong on at least three fronts at once — and so wrong as to be politically disqualifying. Rather than belabor the points about why they are so wrong, let’s just cut to the chase: Akin needs to get the bleep out of the race. Now.
Look, everybody makes mistakes. His statement doesn’t make Akin a bad man. It makes him an incredibly ignorant one. Ignorant, and horribly insensitive. While ignorance and insensitivity are, in the long run, fixable, they are not acceptably, especially on such a sensitive topic, for somebody currently running for high office.
Akin should step aside and let the Missouri Republican Party replace him on the ballot.
View all comments (14) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Quin Hillyer
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/08/20/not-just-hurt-but-akin-from-se
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JD| 8.20.12 @ 1:02PM
I've not heard one Republican attempt to spin or defend Akin's comments, a la Joe Biden.
Another difference between the sides reveals itself. Too bad liberals lack the introspection to see it.
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.20.12 @ 1:13PM
Akin did not get stupid over night. Hasn't qnyone being paying attention?
JmsA| 8.20.12 @ 2:01PM
Maybe so, but the folks from the Great State of Missouri still voted for him in the primaries.
Butch| 8.20.12 @ 2:33PM
I need more information. To JD: Romney has already denounced the remarks, but apparently stopped short of calling for his withdrawl, as Quin has. So . . . Romney remained mum in re Chick-Fil-A, but jumped right in here.
To JmsA or others: was Akin a Tea Party candidate? What is the alternative to him? Would his withdrawl result in a concession to McKaskill (sp?)? What would be the likely effect on his staying or leaving mean to Romney's chances in MO, and how good are those, anyway? I would guess good, but I don't know for sure.
To anybody: I have always considered the rape and incest business to be a "foot-in-the-door" polemic: from rape to birth defect to wrong sex to too much trouble and too expensive. So . . . what percentage of rapes result in pregnancy? Anybody know? And how are these statistics (if they exist) arrived at? Reporting by the victim? It seems to me that the guy has a point when he says we are talking about a very small number of cases, but I don't know.
I'm not really expressing any opinion here, just doubts at this point because I don't know.
PS: Was Akin ahead or favored? Don't know that either.
JD| 8.20.12 @ 2:43PM
I hadn't heard of Akin before today, but it does look like he had been likely to win. Also, in context, his comment was basically a reference to statistics saying pregnancy results from only 5% of rapes.
Still a dubious argument, and poorly stated. Fact is, there's only one reason anyone opposes abortion, and it's not woman-hating, contrary to what the Liars of the Left say. It's belief in the personhood of that which is killed. Given that, the position of opposing abortion except in cases of rape or incest is much more absurd than blanket opposition or blanket support. It's saying "I believe it's murder, but it's ok to murder if the person's existence causes sufficient emotional pain." In short, we might as well legalize drowning your children if they cry too much!
Bottom line - negative points for Romney for taking the politically expedient but morally indefensible position. Positive points for denouncing Akin instead of playing party politics. Negative for Akin for big-time foot-in-mouth, though he'll probably suffer more than he deserves, especially given Biden as a comparable. His career is over.
And finally, negatives for all the Democrats who so quickly pivot from defending Biden's "chains" comment to lambasting anyone who's not a Democrat for tenuous guilt-by-association with Akin.
Jake| 8.20.12 @ 2:51PM
Akin was backed by the Tea Party and their silence on him now is very troubling.
Polls before the primary showed McCaskill to be very vulnerable.
Small businessman John Brunner was beating McCaskill by double digits , if memory serves.
Brunner's biography is compelling - successful businessman , former Marine , very conservative , etc.
He appeared to be the strongest candidate with the best organization to defeat McCaskill.
Sarah Steelman was running second to McCaskill in the polls.
Akin ran a distant third and his support over McCaskill was much softer and within the MOE.
Akin was the weakest candidate which McCaskill recognized so she ran many ads depicting Akin as
" too conservative " which naturally rallied the base to Akin.
She played savvy politics and may have saved her seat and the Senate for the Democrats.
Akin makes Biden look like a genius and he's the topic du jour for all Democrats now.
The Tea Party should be leading the charge to run this guy out of town.
Unless they don't care about actually winning back the Senate.
Indy| 8.20.12 @ 3:23PM
Palin endorsed Sarah Steelman as did many in the Tea Party and there was also support for Brunner, I thought Akin had the least of the TP support? Remember the TP has no one leader and is made up of many different groups.
Crassus| 8.20.12 @ 4:07PM
One item that I read was that Akin won because it was an open primary and the Democrats encouraged their people to vote in it and cast their ballots for Akin whom they perceived to be the weakest of the three candidates lined up to oppose McCaskill.
Occam's Tool| 8.20.12 @ 2:16PM
JmsA: before he said something irretreviably stupid.
We don't coddle "Shakes the Clown" in the VEEP slot, like the Dhimmis do.
JmsA| 8.20.12 @ 7:44PM
I understand the sequence of events, OT, but my comment was in reference to the Missouri primary voters relative to the comment by Ken (Old Texican) about Akin not getting to be stupid overnight.
JmsA| 8.20.12 @ 8:42PM
Anyone who would commit such a grievous mistake regarding such a volatile issue in the middle of a senate campaign quite possibly, if not probably had a bit of practice. Maybe there is good reason to wonder why, despite the current political climate and his ACU (American Conservative Union) rating of 100% in 2010, Mr. Akin has been described as the worst of the three republican candidates, and the one the democrats wanted to face come election time. No matter what, he's thrown a lifesaver to McCaskill, who today looked like the cat that ate the canary. The mere thought of re-electing McCaskill, let alone losing the Senate--just because someone did not think before speaking, just makes my skin crawl.
Ross Kaminsky| 8.20.12 @ 2:29PM
Hard to imagine anyone running for senate has an ego manageable enough to let him get out of the race and be replaced.
Oldefarte| 8.20.12 @ 2:38PM
You know that it's said that.....IGNORANCE IS BLISS!!!!!!
Al Adab| 8.20.12 @ 4:12PM
Akin should be out. Doesn't the party have the huevos to make it so? This is a perfect example of why we should welcome the double standard, embrace it and then point fingers when those like Biden make such egregious comments of their own.
The GOP should be above reproach and not subject itself to the "well you do it too" argument. We should expect better from our elected officials.