Todd Akins basically destroyed his political campaign by saying one of the dumbest things spouted by a would-be politician:
Asked if he would like abortion to be banned even if a pregnancy was the result of rape, the 65-year-old replied: “It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that is really rare.
“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.
“But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.”
I’m not sure if Akins is legitimately stupid enough to believe woman rarely get pregnant from “legitimate” rape (I wonder what “illegitimate” rape is), mentally deranged, or so invested in his moral crusade that he’s willing to outright lie. Since he’s a politician I’m betting the latter is most likely the case but I digress.
After being handed this on a silver platter what do you think Obama does? Makes a hypocritical statement:
Mr. Obama tried to tie the comments more broadly to views of the Republican Party.
“Rape is rape,” Mr. Obama said. “And the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of rape we’re talking about doesn’t make sense to the American people and doesn’t make sense to me. What I think these comments do underscore is why we shouldn’t have a bunch of politicians – the majority of whom are men – making decisions” about women’s health.
Emphasis mine. All Obama had to say was, “Akins is a fucking idiot.” He could have used those exact words and nobody would have held it against him. Instead he comes out and rightly condemns Akins but then makes a hypocrite of himself by saying politicians shouldn’t be making decisions about women’s health even though he wants the government to control the healthcare market.
Obviously Obama’s statement wasn’t nearly as offense as Akins’s but you would think the president would be smart enough to condemn Akins without also arguing against his own political beliefs. Oh well, it’s just another pointless drama-filled episode of Politics: The Reality Television Show for Suckers.
As someone who used to consider voting in Missouri just to vote against Claire McCaskill I am no longer going to bother getting an absentee ballot. I mean anybody would have received my vote for just not fucking up too much, sadly Akins saw the line and leaped beyond it, far beyond it.
“I wonder what “illegitimate” rape is”
Presumably, he was referring to instances where rape is claimed, but didn’t actually happen.
But, seriously? “[T]he female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down”? Did he never take a biology class?
He had a point – if abortion is considered killing a human life, then in the case of rape it would be punishing an innocent for the sins of his father (literally). But then he went and fucked it all up with completely insensitive and nonsensical statements about things he should never have been talking about.
Obama’s fumble, on the other hand, will be remembered by no one who buys in to the left-right paradigm.
Akin is a total caveman. There is a cause to remove him spreading across the Web – http://www.youstand.com/cause/82112/remove-todd-akin-from-the-house-science-committee