“The Akin Plank”: Talking About The Party’s Platform Is The GOP’s New Fireable Offense
At the rate prominent Republicans are turning on Todd Akin this week, you’d think he actually said something to offend them.
When Akin told an interviewer that rape victims don’t need abortion rights because victims of “legitimate rape” don’t get pregnant, he wasn’t going rogue. Instead, he was simply repeating the GOP’s official position on reproductive rights in a really, really tasteless way. If Akin’s example is any guide, straying from right-wing orthodoxy in today’s Republican party is less of a crime than simply calling attention to it.
It’s true that Akin’s bizarre belief that rape victims have ways to “shut that whole thing down” is common only among the fringe of the fringe Right. But the anti-abortion orthodoxy that is now part of the official Republican platform is a direct result of that sort of magical thinking. It helps, when denying reproductive choice to all women, to imagine it only benefits a certain type of abortion-craving bogey-woman who brought this on herself. Sometimes that requires some helpful mythology and weird science to smooth over the reality of women’s lives.
It’s the reality of real people that Republican leaders are desperately trying to avoid. As soon as Akin’s comments hit the national news, prominent Republicans starting calling for him to step out of the Senate race in Missouri. Par for the course, once it became clear that that was the thing to do, Mitt Romney eventually joined the onslaught.
What’s puzzling is that Romney and the others aren’t criticizing the substance of Akin’s remarks. They’re just really angry that he’s making them look bad.
It’s strange, but you almost have to admire the right-wingers who are standing up for Akin. At least they’re being honest about what their real position is. Akin’s fellow unhinged congressman Steve King of Iowa backed up his friend’s comments, saying he had never “heard of” someone getting pregnant through statutory rape or incest. Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh said Akin was “wrong” but that he couldn’t understand why his fellow Republicans were in a “rush to pile on.”
Here is what Romney and his fellow Republicans need to do if they want to actually convince Americans that they respect women: stop catering to the wishes of anti-choice extremists and start listening to women.
But I wouldn’t hold my breath. Two days into this controversy the GOP platform committee approved the “Akin plank” codifying the no-exception policy that Republicans up for election were trying to sweep under the rug. Two weeks after the Akin plank is officially endorsed by the party, vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, an unflinching supporter of the policy, will speak at the Values Voter Summit, an annual confab supported by some of the most extreme anti-choice groups out there. Two of those groups, the American Family Association and the Family Research Council, were among the first to defend Akin. AFA spokesman Bryan Fischer even went as far as to compare Akin himself to a victim of rape.
Romney and his party are trying to run from Akin while holding on to everything he stands for. It’s a tough trick to pull off. So far, they aren’t getting away with it.
By: Michael B. Keegan, The Huffington Post Blog, August 23, 2012
“Pandering To The Stupid”: Why The GOP Breeds Politicians Like Todd Akin
The embarrassing fall of Todd Akin should induce Republicans to confront their own responsibility for the low quality of politicians they are inflicting on us (and themselves). Having developed an extremist culture that encourages figures such as Akin to seek legislative office, GOP leaders should hardly be surprised when idiotic and reprehensible remarks spill from the mouths of their candidates. (Candidates who insist, by the way, that English should be our official language when their own diction is often incomprehensible.)
Yet those same leaders insist they were shocked – yes, shocked and appalled – by Akin’s “legitimate rape” utterance, as if other Republican figures don’t blurt bizarre, nonsensical, and dumb comments as regularly as cows pass gas. Memories dim from cycle to cycle, but how can they forget Christine O’Donnell, the Tea Party queen whose defeat of an intelligent moderate Republican legislator sparked celebrations among “conservatives” across the country?
She had accused “American scientific companies” of cross-breeding animals with humans to produce “mice with fully functioning human brains,” and warned that co-educational colleges would lead to “orgy rooms.” Regarding evolution, she said the scientific theory is “a myth,” asking “Why aren’t monkeys still evolving into humans?” But her shaky grip on reality didn’t matter because she eagerly adopted the party line on economic and social issues.
O’Donnell was colorful but hardly unique. Across the country in Nevada, Sharron Angle became the party’s standard-bearer against Senator Harry Reid, proceeding to disqualify herself with calls for armed insurrection and ugly, racially charged remarks to Hispanic students. In Kentucky, Rand Paul easily won a Senate seat, whereupon he let the nation know that the Supreme Court doesn’t decide the constitutionality of laws in this country. Evidently he thinks that he does.
Cretinism of the same caliber can be found in news archives under the names of candidates failed and elected, from Carl Paladino in New York and Ken Buck in Colorado to Ron Johnson in Wisconsin and — topping any such list – Michele Bachmann in Minnesota, who once suggested that Democratic presidencies coincided with swine flu outbreaks because they had occurred under Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. (Actually, the 1976 epidemic occurred under Gerald Ford, a Republican, but Bachmann is almost always confused about dates, places, and history.)
Dim politicians of all stripes have always been with us as an unfortunate byproduct of democracy. In that vein, it must be noted that there are plenty of bright conservatives and some not-so-bright liberals, too. But have there ever been so many nominated nimrods, so concentrated within a single major party, and so enthusiastically encouraged in their ambition by powerful people who should know better?
The most famous and damning example, of course, is Sarah Palin, the blindingly ignorant vice-presidential nominee in 2008, brought to the brink of executive power by neoconservative leader William Kristol and the seasoned campaign veterans advising John McCain, notably Steve Schmidt.
We are meant to assume that the Palin episode was a freakish accident, but the irresponsibility of Ivy-educated right-wing intellectuals like Kristol and sophisticated operatives like Schmidt in promoting her was symptomatic of a broader ailment. Major financial and media powers, including the Club for Growth, the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, Rush Limbaugh, the National Review and a host of other forces within the GOP have aggressively supported candidates whose extremist views only emphasize their feeble intellect and lack of basic knowledge. For the party of the right, no standards need be imposed on those who are supposed to write laws, negotiate budgets, and oversee executive and judicial authorities. Like in the old Soviet Union, anybody who parrots the party line will do.
Don’t expect the Akin incident – or last year’s gong-show presidential primary — to provoke introspection among the top operatives and financiers of the right. Their style of politics is a daily insult to their country, but they will continue to believe that pandering to stupid is the shortest path to power.
By: The National Memo, August 23, 2012
“Celebrity Avenging Hero”: Todd Akin, The Embodiment Of The Christian Right
So the big question in Politicsland this afternoon is how and why Todd Akin was able to convince himself to defy the entire GOP establishment of his state, the GOP presidential nominee, the major national campaign funders, and nearly the entire Right-Wing commentariat, and stay on the ballot in Missouri. Is he crazy? Is he bluffing?
I can’t answer those questions, but I can see how Akin might be strongly tempted in this direction. Very few if any of the people calling for him to step down supported his very recent primary candidacy; most either backed someone else or hoped he’d lose as the weakest of the potential Republican candidates. He represents a very self-conscious hard-core Christian Right segment of the GOP “base” in his state that undoubtedly feels underrepresented, undervalued, and perhaps even dissed. His candidacy is now indelibly connected with a debate over an issue—legalized abortion, and more generally, the need to rebuild America as a “Christian Nation”—about which he feels very passionately; it may very well be what made him run for office in the first place.
And thanks to the scorn and mockery he has now attracted, this relatively obscure congressman whom I’d bet half the pundits discussing his fate today had barely heard of before his primary win, is a National Superstar, the very embodiment of the Christian Right’s all-too-often abandoned determination to stand up to GOP pols who forever pay them lip service but rarely deliver the goods.
Is he worried about money? Maybe not. Recent political history is littered with relatively minor pols (Michele Bachmann and Allen West on the Right; Alan Grayson on the Left) who have built vast national small-donor fundraising networks on the heels of national notoriety and perceived victimization.
Is he worried about losing? Well, practically the first words out of his mouth before announcing he’d stay in the race on Mike Huckabee’s radio show today were to boast of a snap poll from PPP showing him still ahead of Claire McCaskill.
His family is reportedly running his campaign, so he didn’t have to worry about his staff quitting in disgust or fear of professional consequences. It’s too late for him to reassume his House seat. What does he have to lose, other than the opportunistic support of people who don’t know or like him and would probably have taken credit for his victory had he won without this latest incident?
And if he does win, he will enter the Senate next year not as some random wingnut dude from Missouri who was swept into office on a conservative wave in Missouri, but as Todd Akin, celebrity and Avenging Hero, who owes nothing to anyone other than his God, his family, and his loyal base.
Makes sense, when you look at it from his very unusual point of view.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, August 21, 2012
“Fear And Deference To Conservatives”: What A Romney Presidency Would Look Like
Late yesterday afternoon, Mitt Romney released a statement explicitly calling on Todd Akin to withdraw from Missouri’s Senate race.
“Today, his fellow Missourians urged him to step aside, and I think he should accept their counsel and exit the Senate race,” the statement read.
Akin, of course, ignored this. A few hours later, the statutory deadline for a no-questions-asked candidate switch passed and Akin remained the Republican nominee. That doesn’t guarantee he’ll still be around in November; in a series of morning show interviews today, he indicated that he might still reconsider his candidacy. But for now, he’s defied his party’s soon-to-be presidential nominee, who also apparently enlisted his running mate in the effort to push Akin out.
In and of itself, this doesn’t say much about Romney’s clout within his party. After all, literally dozens of leading Republicans have publicly and privately pleaded with Akin to withdraw, urgings that have been backed by threats from the GOP’s national Senate campaign committee and its top outside money group to withhold critical financial support. If Akin is willing to thumb his nose at all of this, then it’s hardly surprising he’d do the same to Romney.
What’s noteworthy, though, is the timing of Romney’s withdrawal call, and the evolution of his public comments on Akin. Here we see further evidence of a phenomenon that has defined Romney’s candidacy and would define a Romney presidency: fear of and deference to conservative leaders.
When news of Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment broke Sunday, the Romney campaign’s initial response was this very tepid statement: “Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan disagree with Mr. Akin’s statement, and a Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape.”
It was only the next day, when outrage began building and Republicans with more credibility with the party’s conservative base began rebuking Akin, that Romney made a more forceful statement to National Review, calling Akin’s words “insulting, inexcusable and, frankly, wrong.” And it was only when just about everyone who’s anyone in the Republican Party had called on Akin to quit that Romney finally did the same late yesterday.
You could argue that this was mainly a case of a campaign trying to protect its candidate from undue embarrassment. By yesterday afternoon, the lack of a withdrawal call from Romney was becoming noticeable, since just about every other Republican had issued one. So he had little choice but to speak up. But before then, maybe it made sense for him to stay quiet, rather than risk looking weak by having Akin ignore his request.
The problem with this theory is that public opinion is so overwhelmingly against Akin and his remarks that there was a clear political incentive for Romney to speak up early – especially when you consider his low personal favorable score and the widespread perception that he lives in terror of offending his party’s base. Here was an opportunity to look like a leader. And if Akin had ignored him, well, that would have said more about him than Romney.
Instead, it looks like Romney chose to take the temperature of conservative leaders first, then adjusted his behavior accordingly. So we went from a weak initial statement Sunday night to a stronger rebuke Monday to a call for withdrawal Tuesday afternoon. This is classic Romney behavior. He’s well aware that conservatives are deeply suspicious of him, and capable of inflicting serious political damage on him if he alienates them. This was obviously true during the GOP primaries and remains true today, with heavy conservative turnout key to Romney’s November hopes. And it would be even more true if he’s elected president; the threat of a conservative activist/media-inspired revolt would hover over every critical Romney decision.
His response to the Akin drama shows that Romney is willing to stand up to a member of his own party – but only if just about everyone else in his party is already doing it.
By: Steve Kornacki, Salon, August 22, 2012
“The GOP’s Crazy Core”: The Media Cuts The Far Right Too Much Slack
Does the across-the-board denunciation of Representative Todd Akin’s comments mean that other Tea Party platforms are ready for dismantling?
The pragmatic Republican establishment (despite the Tea Party, there still is one) is frantic to jettison Representative Todd Akin’s toxic comments on conception and rape, and to quarantine the scientifically-challenged congressman.
Much of the commentary has been about how Akin’s clumsiness connects to Republican vulnerability on other issues important to women. But this raises a larger question: Why is the Republican lunatic position politically toxic only on this particular issue?
The Tea Party position, after all, has become (or already was) the “mainstream” Republican position on at least a dozen other issues—denying climate change, rejecting evolution, embracing bogus science on homosexuality, destroying regulation of palpable harm to consumers, defending the right of assassins to bring AK-47s to schools, and on and on.
So why is this lunatic fringe position different from all other lunatic positions? Here are some conjectures:
Almost everyone is a feminist on the subject of rape. A politician can’t appear to be condoning it, even indirectly. It’s this, and not the ignorance of how women’s bodies work, that makes the congressman radioactive.
And why is almost everyone a feminist on the subject of rape? Because the basic gains of the women’s movement on core issues, despite its supposed recent eclipse, were durable. The political scientist Jane Mansbridge of Harvard, in her research on “everyday feminism,” found that most women, even they did not use the label, have attitudes on a wide range of issues from work to sexuality, that by any measure are feminist.
So why do the several other lunatic positions of the Republican Party not turn out to be politically radioactive?
Because the media cuts the far right too much slack—just look at the respectful coverage of climate change deniers and anti-evolution nuts rebranded as “Intelligent Design.”
Because Democrats have no guts on such issues as gun control.
Because the women’s movement was a movement, while many of the other issues where Republicans embrace insane views do not have movements on the other side.
This leaves two intriguing other questions:
Are enough crazies on the rape issue, (like those who see the rape exemption in anti-abortion legislation as a “loophole”), that this whole affair smokes out latent animosities between the Tea Party base and the pragmatic (though equally lunatic) party elite?
One thing the Tea Party base hates is being dictated to by party professionals. That’s why they delight in taking out incumbents. That’s why they’d rather be right than win. Akin shows every sign of becoming a martyr for this faction. The dust-up just confirms that Romney is nothing but a pragmatist.
And will the connections between Akin’s comments on legitimate rape and Republican vulnerability on other women’s issues lead Democrats and the press to make some of these other connections to the broader range of extremist views that now pass as the Republican mainstream?
Akin was no accident. When true crazies take over your party, they eventually display their true colors—and yours.
By: Robert Kuttner, The American Prospect, August 21, 2012
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