Why Conservatives Ask Akin to Go
While every notable pundit who lives in the real world has agreed that Akin must go, there are apparently some not fitting that description who think the GOP has turned on its own — and that if Akin loses, it’s our fault and not his (!). It’s a convenient position that allows these pundits to blame Akins’s all-but-inevitable loss on those trying to get him out of the race. Why, oh why, would conservatives turn on him like that? Because we want him to get out of the race — because he compounded an initial gaffe with dumb interview after dumb interview, stomping repeatedly on his own junk, blaming the liberal media, and generally fumbling and stumbling his way through. Because he’s an idiot. Former supporters like William Jacobson, Dana Loesch, and others are now urging him to go. Will it work? Maybe not . . . but maybe. And it’s probably our only chance.
He’s not unfit for office, but the voters will probably find him so. We keep hearing about how we should sing an anthem to the fact that the Voters Have Spoken (well, 36% of them, anyway) — but when they speak in November, it will be our fault, apparently, and not the incompetent moron politician’s fault.
That said, I agree with Paul Mirengoff entirely (h/t daleyrocks):
The problem with Akin’s statement – and it is a very big problem – lies in his view that the female body has ways to shut down its reproductive process in response to rape, such that pregnancies resulting from rape are “really rare.” The evidence strongly contradicts this assertion. Akin’s embrace of junk science not supported by data represents the same kind of triumph of ideology over facts that, as noted above, some feminists are guilty of.
. . . .
Was Akin’s comment stupid and offensive? Yes, in the sense I just described, though not in the sense that some have claimed.
Does Akin’s continued candidacy jeopardize the chance to defeat Claire McCaskill? Yes, if we’re lucky. If we’re unlucky, it destroys that chance.
Do the Republicans deserve a better candidate than Akin, even apart from concerns over electability? Yes.
Is Akin unfit to be a U.S. Senator because of his remark? No, in my opinion, provided that he repudiates his view that pregnancies caused by rape are really rare.
Would Akin be a better Senator than Claire McCaskill? Yes, just compare their voting records in Congress.
Meanwhile, Ace explains the meaning of forcible rape in the guise of Detective Munch.
P.S. It’s worth remembering that Barack would apparently allow women and their doctors to kill their babies at any moment until they’re born — and perhaps (through medical neglect) even after birth. I would venture to say that’s a bigger deal than a dumb gaffe about “legitimate rape.” Too bad Akin couldn’t, say, effectively make that point?
