One problem with that: What Rush said made perfect sense.
No different here: if Akin’s wrong, we say why we disagree with him and point him to different facts in an effort to perhaps change his view, or at least force him to find better facts. Shows how we are nuanced and open to intellectual discussion. Also could have shown how even EXTREMISTS are open to reasoning. Had a chance to demolish every caricature and cartoon.
The precise opposite of what we showed. Namely, that we can be just as OUTRAGED as the left, preemptively so, too, if it’s one of ours. So see? It’s okay to vote for us because we, too, will enforce political correctness and anti-intellectualism disguised by a progressive-driven cultural consensus! Hell, we’ll force any candidate out who deviates!
Rush was expressing his opinion, his desire and a prognostication. Akin was attempting to state a fact. How anyone reacts to either of those two things does not change the fundamental difference between them.
No different here: if Akin’s wrong, we say why we disagree with him and point him to different facts in an effort to perhaps change his view, or at least force him to find better facts.
That has happened, apart from the mob trying to shove him over the cliff. Again, he’s abandoned the argument and accepted the counter-argument which has been stated every way from gracefully to hysterically.
I’m not going to support the lynch mob, nor am I going to endorse Akin’s idiocy. I didn’t need anyone but Akin to make me cringe when I heard his remarks.
I’m not going to support the lynch mob, nor am I going to endorse Akin’s idiocy. I didn’t need anyone but Akin to make me cringe when I heard his remarks.
And that takes us back to Jeff’s question in the previous post.
Regardless of how stupid or nuanced something a conservative (or even Republican) says, they will be open to the manipulation of what they’ve said by the press.
This is where the fight has to go. If not this time, soon.
We are in the state we’re in and the atmosphere surrounding it almost solely because the press has joined with one side and refuses to report or distorts what facts there are to convince others that that position or mode of thought is the correct one.
Combined with the coercive effect of the majority of academe being liberal down even to kindergarten levels ensures that few who hear this constant propaganda are ill equipped to counteract it’s effects for themselves let alone convince others of it’s falsity.
We must, I repeat MUST defund the lying propagandist’s of the current media infotainment industry.
To send them or their fronts money in any form is unconscionable. It means sacrifice and a reversion to less exciting and interesting modes of entertainment that will not be pleasant but can be more healthful and will help dry up at least some of the Media’s source of sustenance.
Yes they’ll still get some money from the lazy the ignorant and the zealot, but that’s less than 35% and could become less. They are hurting now because of the changes in technology. If they recover somehow, they’ll be entrenched and very difficult to root out in the future.
Drive them all into bankruptcy or consolidation.
At the same time, we must at every opportunity (and we must make that opportunity obvious) to applaud and fund those who tell the truth, who report the facts and report all of the facts regardless of what the particular effect might be.
Fight the Power and the power lies with the Media. We should start picketing them instead of abortion clinics and particular politicians or other left wing demonstrations.
Then the possibility may be that Akin sees something other people — particularly the establishment types and those who unthinkingly follow them like sheep — simply do not. I don’t know what he thinks along those lines however. On the other hand, I’ve been decided against the republican party for some time now, so perhaps there are more people thinking along those lines than I know and Akin has some insight into their numbers which gives him reason to believe he will succeed.
– Maybe. But on an interesting side note, Akin is still leading by a comfortable margin, so perhaps this little ploy to effect the Senate race won’t pay off for the Democrats.
I haven’t yet listened to Akin’s full interview with Huckabee, but from the little I have heard it sounds to me as though he does in fact have the politically dispossessed in mind, albeit thus far he seems to be predominantly concerned with antiabortion views. So as he moves on he may expand the reach of his embrace of these people, and in the process move his rhetorical thrust on to the broader, more pressing issues confronting liberty in America.
That poll may have been monkeyed with to encourage him to stay in. Something like R+9 and they also sequenced the questions to elicit a positive result for Akin.
– That, and I have a feeling the countless millions of Americans struggling financially at every turn probably don’t give a fuck about Akin, or all the Akins in the country for that matter.
– Theres just not enough nuance in the entire world to save Obama’s ass at this point.
Oops. Had it in the other thread, Pablo. My bad. Reprinted here, now, with the prompt, what do they do now:
But really? They don’t put out press releases of prominent conservatives calling for his ouster unless they know they can secure it.
Having already done that, it will now require some walk back. They need to show that McCaskill’s stance on abortion is equally as “extreme” — and that her side actually has succeeded into getting it into law. And all else being equal, at least the GOP candidate will help stop our fiscal ruin and not act as a rubber stamp for Reid and Obama.
TAMPA — Chiropractor Joseph Papia climbed the stairs to his downtown business’ roof Friday. He was making plans to fence off the route to the flat-topped structure — and he noticed a pile of bricks and a stenciled painting of Guy Fawkes and the number “99.”
Police believe the bricks — and a pipe discovered later on Monday — likely would have been used as weapons during next week’s Republican National Convention.
I was just listening to Rush an hour ago and he basically said Akin should drop out. We do not need another Biden. It is not about right or wrong, the system is rigged, but we expect more from our Republican candidates and the overall issues are bigger than any one man.
Akin declared his intentions to stay in the race much earlier today, yet the forces arrayed against him and his intention continue to insist the race is too important to the party, but not so important that the party won’t do everything it can between the time of Akin’s declaration and the fabled 5 o’clock hour to see to it that his prospects are as ruined as the party fathers can make them. That’s evidently what the party fathers believe must be done now, and it doesn’t look like competition but something closer to surrender.
The thing most disturbing to me about this is the notion that what he was trying to say was indefensible.
While it isn’t accurate to say a woman’s body shuts down and can’t get pregnant during a rape, I don’t think it is indefensible to say that severe stress and trauma certainly lowers the odds of a pregnancy. Unfortunately, we apparently aren’t even allowed to discuss such things now.
Regardless of how stupid or nuanced something a conservative (or even Republican) says, they will be open to the manipulation of what they’ve said by the press.
This is where the fight has to go. If not this time, soon.
If not this time, never.
I missed most of the third hour of Rush today, but the first two and one-third were the most depressing mix of intellectual segregation and double-think I’ve ever heard from him.
I know what Akin was trying to say, but the way he said it was so stupid that he has to go/it’s unfair that we have this awful double standard where brain-dead uncle joe can blurt out any bit of mental diarrhea that enters his fool head without consequences and our guys have to be perfect or else/it is what it is & too much is at stake —Akin has to go
Listening to Rush today was what inspired my post, Ernst. He had a great line with “they circle the wagons, we circle a firing squad”, then he proceeded to lift his gun and pull the trigger.
While it isn’t accurate to say a woman’s body shuts down and can’t get pregnant during a rape, I don’t think it is indefensible to say that severe stress and trauma certainly lowers the odds of a pregnancy.
That’s not the suggestion on offer. It was that rape resulting in pregnancy is extremely rare, which is not so, and which Akin is saying himself right now.
[T]he forces arrayed against him and his intention continue to insist the race is too important to the party, but not so important that the party won’t do everything it can […] to see to it that his prospects are … ruined[.] That’s evidently what the party fathers believe must be done now
And that’s why I’m done with the GOP. Seriously. I’m thinking about voting straight Democrat.
It was that rape resulting in pregnancy is extremely rare, which is not so
Again a cite would help. The Guttmacher paper isn’t a good one to use as they were only looking at the reasons women who sought abortions “said” they were doing so and multiple reasons were allowed. The left has taken that study and blown it into a rape (any kind, but they don’t say) pregnancy rate of 62 pregnancies per 1000 attempts at intercourse. At that rate ever woman of every age or condition should get pregnant once for every 15 times they have sex.
From what I saw Rush was trying to talk the two sides down, mollify their anger a bit, and get them to drop their jagged broken bottles. Then he calmly told us what side he was on and why. He was attempting to pick the winner in this fight (the die Akin side) while discouraging further melee on the topic and telling the anti Akin people that they could have handled it better and that they are a HUGE part of the problem.
I don’t disagree with that palaeomerus. It seems to me that Rush spends a lot of time in election years trying to keep the conserative movement wedded to the GOP.
But in this instance (well, since 2006 really), that just makes him a tragic figure.
I left a comment on a NYT hates-us-all post this morning. Seems apropos.
On Todd Akin, Legitimate Rape and Legitimate Murder
As are all the far-Left Democrats, you’re furiously spinning Todd Akin’s misspoken phrase, ‘legitimate rape’, to mean things you’d like to see it believed he meant for naught but pure political gain.
What Todd Akins meant by ‘legitimate rape’ was ‘violent rape’; as in ‘First Degree’ rape. As you know, there are several legal degrees describing murder: First, Second, Third, and Manslaughter, but all murders whatever the legal degree resulted in a death; therefore all degrees of murder are just…murder, right? Legally speaking, no they aren’t. When Todd Akins used the phrase ‘legitimate rape’ what Todd Akins really meant to say was ‘First Degree rape’. A distinction of legal nuance; a violent rape that once deserved the death penalty (and still does AFAIC).
The Left considers abortion to be well and good: Democrat’s publicly-supported abortion mill Planned Parenthood is an acceptable industry that’s supported, even encouraged, by all good Party Democrats (and yes, Democrats DID build that business). But it is an undeniable fact that abortion does result in the death of a human. An unnatural death; a legal degree of murder. Let’s call abortion, as conducted by Democrats, ‘legitimate murders’.
To those of you who embrace abortion, I say to you without misspeaking that abortion of a human resulting in the death of that human is your acceptance of legitimate murder. Legitimized by the Democratic Party; a once-proud institution now ruined by absorption of far-Left ideology, including but not limited to legitimate murder.
There’s a cross (or shall we say an albatross?) you’ll forever bear.
The problem that I have with those statistics Pablo is there is no attempt to correct for the oh my God I’m pregnant Daddies gonna kill me“I couldn’t help it he raped me! factor.
A phenomenon that is going to get several orders of magnitude worse if you only allow abortion in case of rape.
34 cases of rape related pregnancy among 4008 women studied for 3 years. That is 11.33 cases per year and they then conclude that there are 32,101 cases per year of rape caused pregnancy. So 11.33 over 4008 is equal to 32,101 over the number of rapes per year. Solve for x gives 4008 * 32,101/11.33 = the number of rapes per year they are using. 11,355,764 rapes per year using their own figures.
The Willke estimate was around 2 per thousand per year though he rounded it up to 2.5 when he said 500 total per year. 4.008 * 2.5 = 10.02 which is quite close to the 11.33 they found.
Sorry I take that last back. I’d thought they had studied 4008 women who were raped but they do not say how many were raped among those studied so this is impossible to figure from the numbers given. My mistake.
Mistaken again. If 32,101 is 5% of all rapes then they are figuring 642,o2o per year. This means in their study they had 226.6 rapes per year for the 4008 women so 5.65% were raped per year. 680 during the 3 year course of the study. That is astounding and frightening.
B Moe, I don’t know that that shows up in the research, what with the researchers not being Daddy and all. Thing is, arguing against a rape exception by professing the rarity of it occurring is a stupid argument on it’s face. If it almost never happens, it will almost never be a problem, so what’s the point? There are better arguments to be made if you’re looking to make that case.
If it almost never happens, it will almost never be a problem, so what’s the point?
Ask the kid facing charges because it is the only way his former girlfriend can get an abortion.
And I agree it was a dumbass, poorly worded argument. What I don’t agree is it was so ridiculous, unfounded and totally indefensible that a man should lose his damn career over it.
Remember, prospective GOPers: you can run for office, but every argument you make had better be the best one, or else when the left comes after you, we have no choice but to holler along with them, and one-up their outrage with our own HIGHER STANDARD outrage.
Because we’re sanctimonious pussies addicted to losing.
680 during the 3 year course of the study. That is astounding and frightening.
Yes. This is why this issue, which really hadn’t been on the table, is a political third rail. Which Akin grabbed with both hands. And then started licking.
Remember, prospective GOPers: you can run for office, but every argument you make had better be the best one, or else when the left comes after you, we have no choice but to holler along with them, and one-up their outrage with our own HIGHER STANDARD outrage.
No, every argument you make had better not be asinine, because that’s how you lose. But who doesn’t love caricatures, right?
Conservatives and Republicans, in order to be elected, must avoid topics that the left owns. That includes all of them. Except for, on occasion, debt reduction and lower taxes. And flag pins for your suit lapel. And maybe freedom fries.
The rest of your beliefs it’s best to keep hidden. Or you will be punished by moderates and independents. Who evidently will find your opinions so terribly offensive that they’ll vote for the party with the guy who says its okay to kill a birthed baby after a botched abortion by either stabbing it in the skull with scissors, or leaving it in a room to die.
Oh, I’m sorry, Pablo. Is this citation of some study the only argument Mr Akin has ever made? Or is that a single argument on a single sticky point in a narrow subsection of on a very emotionally and morally charged issue?
As for caricatures, I don’t love when we buy into the ones that are drawn about “us” in order to distinguish ourselves from those kinds. Who are we distinguishing ourselves for?
What I don’t agree is it was so ridiculous, unfounded and totally indefensible that a man should lose his damn career over it.
I don’t either, and properly handled he could save himself from the blowback. But that would require some political skill, which strangely enough is also a qualification for the job he’s seeking, and he doesn’t seem to have much of it.
Is this citation of some study the only argument Mr Akin has ever made?
It is not a citation of a study. It’s basically a citation of an Op-Ed.
Or is that a single argument on a single sticky point in a narrow subsection of on a very emotionally and morally charged issue?
That’s exactly what it is, and it was utterly unnecessary. While the GOP freakout is abhorrent, it isn’t nearly the only reason that he’s looking like Wile E. Coyote right now. This was a completely unforced error and the GOP’s reaction to it doesn’t absolve him from the political idiocy of it, and his mishandling of a recovery from it.
Mind you, I’m still not saying he’s got to get out. But I’m beginning to believe he can’t win.
It is not a citation of a study. It’s basically a citation of an Op-Ed.
And who has ever done that?
This was a completely unforced error and the GOP’s reaction to it doesn’t absolve him from the political idiocy of it, and his mishandling of a recovery from it.
You mean, apologizing as the mishandled recovery, or refusing to have the graciousness to step down because some people on Twitter and the GOP Establishment want you to as the mishandled recovery? Or is it the getting critical of people telling you to step down mishandled recovery?
BTW, there used to be a link at the top of this page that led to this. Now in it’s place is a link to this. Which isn’t much of a defense of the argument previously on offer and strays a long, long way from its 1 or 2 in a 1000 conclusion.
If, during a campaign, you’re going to hump a third rail regarding an issue that’s not even in play, you at least ought to know what the fuck you’re talking about. Because you’re going to get fried. Or does recognizing that make me a squish?
Am I the only one thinking that we’re all but guaranteed that part of the ObamaCare repeal and replace bits is going to be no money for abortion except for cases of rape and rape rape?
You mean, apologizing as the mishandled recovery, or refusing to have the graciousness to step down because some people on Twitter and the GOP Establishment want you to as the mishandled recovery?
First, you retract and apologize to anyone who was offended, blah, blah, blah. Then, you change the fucking subject, you go on the attack. If you’re mewling in the corner, you’ve already lost, and this is less than 2 weeks into his general election campaign.
Akin may be a wonderful guy, but he sucks at politics. You can’t bring your wonderful values to bear if you can’t get elected.
This entire episode is an object lesson in why the GOP could have a three-fourths majority in both chambers of Congress and the White House to boot, and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would still be in charge. Nothing would change.
Well, almost nothing. The only change I can think of is that it would no longer be possible to keep pretending that there is in fact an “our” side.
But he did apologize. And they piled on him anyway. Over and over and over.
And if he truly sucked at politics, chances are he wouldn’t have won that primary.
Have it your way, though. These are all unforced errors? Outside pressures? Why, none! And most certainly he should have handled his Two Minutes of National Hate, with the loudest chorus coming from his own side, after a spell, with more icy coolness.
That way we know we had a real good politician who could win!
Here’s the fun part. 226.6 rapes per year for 4008 adult women. That says 5.65% of all adult women are raped per year. There are about 100,000,000 adult women in the US. 5.65% means 5,650,000 of them are raped each year not the 642,020 they used as their number.
You were able to recognize that holding a view (that he later said he didn’t even hold) that marks one as the EXTREMISTY of the EXTREME within the EXTREMIST CHRISTIAN RIGHT HATE GROUP PRO-LIFERS might be a political liability?
Handling it effectively? His fucking own side has abandoned him, even after he apologized. They’ve been calling for his ouster since they knew that he would get pilloried by the left and that some might rub off on them.
And now you’re using his inability to navigate this minefield as proof he can’t handle fire? What, is this the new litmus test for voting conservative as a legislator?
No, I was able to notice that offering a nonsensical view from which you couldn’t possibly have derived a political benefit is really bad politicking.
Nonsensical to believe increased stress can cause a decreased chance of conceiving. Settled science!
And of course, it’s all about presentation. The less we know about what you actually think the better. Just follow the script. American needs that now more than ever!
I’m asking you how Akin is performing and you’re talking about the party. Two questions, again: Would you like to argue that it isn’t [an unforced error?] Or that he’s handling it effectively?
What, is this the new litmus test for voting conservative as a legislator?
You can’t vote conservatively as a legislator unless you can win election. This is a campaigning question, not a legislating question.
I was able to notice that offering a nonsensical view from which you couldn’t possibly have derived a political benefit is really bad politicking.
Ohmigod! A politician so impolitic as to tell us what he honestly (however erroneously) believes instead of offering us a formula of carefully and exactingly calculated pablum and bromides!
We can’t have that!
No fucking way can we have that!
. “First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,”
So he got some bad info from doctors?
Holy shit. And he believed it? Even worse.
This dick has got to go.
Incidentally, rare compared to what? And even if he’s wrong, again, we’re back to, well, why don’t we just point out the competing facts, confront him with them, and see if that affects his views?
Instead, we get “BURN HIM.” And now I’ve spent all day trying to explain how that’s not particularly good politics, either. Surreal.
Ohmigod! A politician so impolitic as to tell us what he honestly (however erroneously) believes instead of offering us a formula of carefully and exactingly calculated pablum and bromides!
For what purpose, again? That was an argument that didn’t need making, and he made it anyway, booting it all the way. Pablum and bromides aren’t necessary. Idiocy isn’t either, but that’s what he went with, for no purpose whatsoever.
As far as I’m concerned there’s no argument to make. The right engaged in an horrific show of anti-intellectualism and cowardice. And I won’t defend them because it’s now become politically expedient after the fact of their initial outrage, which is why we’re here in the first place.
So I’m not making arguments. Like a few others, I’m watching surreal become the new normal.
Serious question and not trying to antagonize or disagree for the sake of being disagreeable.
But, I’d like to know, what’s the bigger unforced error, Akin’s original statement or the party-wide reaction to it? Does that reaction count as a forced error, seeing how there’s media intervention involved?
That was an argument that didn’t need making, and he made it anyway, booting it all the way.
It seems to me that he was asked a question and answered it. Nobody seems to like the way he answered it, but plenty of people (Rush, to give one instance) say they understand what he was trying to say.
Usually right before they demand he be ousted for saying what he said (which they say they understand, despite the way he said it).
BTW, tell that [i.e. they can’t win without party support] to Rand Paul, Pat Toomey, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, Richard Murdoch, etc…
Unlike with, e.g. O’Donnell and Angle, those people didn’t have the party apparatchik and commentariat actively saying they couldn’t win either.
Palin opines that Akin needs to get out.
Palin isn’t perfect. She endorsed Emmers over Seifert in MN, for instance.
But, I’d like to know, what’s the bigger unforced error, Akin’s original statement or the party-wide reaction to it?
I’d suggest that those aren’t both unforced errors. The party wants to win the seat and sees a liability in Akin. Yes, they were waaaaaay too quick in throwing him under the bus. But they weren’t reacting to absolutely nothing, they’re making a calculation based on political input. I’d say they’ve handled it about as badly as he has, but he threw it in their lap. Akin dropped a turd in the punch bowl without any particular provocation.
By the way, I’d be surprised (haven’t heard it) if Palin’s opinion wasn’t the kind Levin made: the GOP is full of cowards, but now that they’ve helped irrevocably damage this guy, he’s got to go, because we have to win.
It’s like Levin’s Romney defense.
My problem with which is that if we do win, we give power to the very cowards he has earlier decried. And? That’ll show ’em.
“I’d say they’ve handled it about as badly as he has, but he threw it in their lap.”
I say they handled it MUCH worse than he did. They have publicly (as opposed to privately) demanded that he back out for two days siding with Akin’s opponents thus reinforcing their outrage. Their actions have damaged him and their chances of winning the Missouri senate seat FAR worse than Akin’s have. They are discussing not funding or supporting their loyal primary winner. Do republican pundits and such get a veto and do over on any primaries they don’t like? They have gained the GOP nothing whatsoever but strife with this. They have materially benefited Akin’s opponent.
Akin started the fire. But they came along and mishandled the fire about as badly as is possible. They made demands they had no right to expect. Then they tried to go to the public with it. They poured gasoline on the fire and then said “fuck it” and tossed some magnesium foil on there too so the fire could be seen from orbit.
Now they are patting themselves on the back for coming together to do what they thought had to be done and trying to pin the whole thing including their mob scene on Akin. Akin’s still in.
Nobody is talking about anything but how Akin gave a bad answer and that somehow justifies the six-ring clown party that followed and continues to follow and grow.
I thought it was interesting that Palin was calling for Akin to quit. Basically treating him the way she herself was treated after the failed campaign of 08: as a liability to the Party.
The fuck? I thought she was all about the TEA Party? Suddenly she’s a closet GOPer?
What could I have to gain by telling you a falsehood? She was emphatic that Akin needs to quit so that a more suitable candidate could run in his stead.
She was suggesting the others who ran and also suggesting a Third Party might be the answer.
The Levin defense is not about the GOP Party. It’s about getting control of the Senate to defeat ObamaCare.
Honestly, I’m to the point where I’m not sure the GOP establishment, who doesn’t want to have to battle to repeal such a glorious revenue generating and power-generating bit of legislation that they may one day control, isn’t more interested in controlling it eventually with the right types than they are winning the Senate just now with reformers in tow.
” I just can’t imagine what possessed him to say it.”
I can’t imagine what good anyone thought surrounding him and chanting “shame shame shame” like the mean kids in the musical Carousel was going to accomplish. It seems to me that that “strategy” is a sure route to a big dumb, public, ugly fight, and a much harder uphill struggle to winning the Missouri Senate seat from the unpopular democrat who SHOULD outrage the Republicans much more than anything Akin said but some how does not.
As a hobbit I cannot help but stare in horror at Gandalf’s old pal Saruman as he says “Guys guys! Check it out! I just bought us a whole butt-load of orcs! And these guys are the latest model! They can fight during the day! All we gotta do to keep them is burn Rohan to the ground! Pretty awesome right? Right? Guys? What’s the hell is your problem? You do want to beat Sauron and save the West right? “
I say they handled it MUCH worse than he did. They have publicly (as opposed to privately) demanded that he back out for two days siding with Akin’s opponents thus reinforcing their outrage. Their actions have damaged him and their chances of winning the Missouri senate seat FAR worse than Akin’s have. They are discussing not funding or supporting their loyal primary winner. Do republican pundits and such get a veto and do over on any primaries they don’t like? They have gained the GOP nothing whatsoever but strife with this. They have materially benefited Akin’s opponent.
I’d go further than that. I’d say they’ve made Missouri unwinable for any Republican.
Seriously, Priebus and McConnell and Romney and the rest of the chicken-shit rat bastards ought to just go ahead and endorse McCaskill.
What could I have to gain by telling you a falsehood? She was emphatic that Akin needs to quit so that a more suitable candidate could run in his stead.
She was suggesting the others who ran and also suggesting a Third Party might be the answer.
You wrote,
Basically treating him the way she herself was treated after the failed campaign of 08: as a liability to the Party.
The fuck? I thought she was all about the TEA Party? Suddenly she’s a closet GOPer?
First, she isn’t treating him like she was treated. She’s saying he was treated poorly and is now damaged and we have to win in November if we’re going to have any chance of repealing ObamaCare. That is the opposite of being a closet GOPer. That’s doing the math.
I imagine like Levin she suspects that Akin can’t win now, for good reasons: the GOP won’t back him, and the left has considerable shit to throw out there now about how even the GOP disavows this “extremist.”
It’s sad that they’ve taken this position, in my view, but I understand why they are doing it. And it has nothing to do with Akin. I’m sure both came to this very very reluctantly.
I’m to the point where I’m not sure the GOP establishment, who doesn’t want to have to battle to repeal such a glorious revenue generating and power-generating bit of legislation that they may one day control, isn’t more interested in controlling it eventually with the right types than they are winning the Senate just now with reformers in tow.
That’s easily resolved. If it’s a battle, that means you’re going to have to fight. And if you’re going to have to fight, that means you might get hurt. And if you get hurt, why, you might even lose. So it’s better not to have the battle.
After all, we have to pick and choose our battles. We don’t want to die on just any ol’ hill.
Handling it effectively? His fucking own side has abandoned him, even after he apologized. They’ve been calling for his ouster since they knew that he would get pilloried by the left and that some might rub off on them.
And now you’re using his inability to navigate this minefield as proof he can’t handle fire?
Hey, that sounds kinda familiar. Wasn’t there this really likable black guy running for President (as a Republican, if you can imagine!) about 9 months ago…?
To tell you guys the truth I’m a bit concerned that we’re throwing a few too many elbows amongst ourselves here. Don’t mean that in the joking “hall monitor” way. Mean that as myself.
I can’t always read tone and emphasis perfectly but I remember the general history of folks, recognize the overwhelming good to be found there, and suggest we drink a bit of bourbon and listen to music at this point.
When it was against Cain or Bachmann it was completely valid. When it was against Rick Perry that was the purists doing their puristy dance. Here, it’s valid again.
After all, we have to pick and choose our battles. We don’t want to die on just any ol’ hill.
The left gets to pick the hills. They even get to design and manufacture them to order. We get to choose to fight on their hill/terms, surrender and join them in the fight, or not accept either horn and hit the bull[shit] right between the eyes.
It is a hard slog when many, ostensibly on your side, think Vichy and Quisling are role models.
Jeff, I think John B. was talking about Herman Cain being fitted with the ” Yo, LAW DE DAW Gotta grab me soma’ them sweet white titty-ass titties fo sho ’cause I be a black rich horn dog jes’ like in de ol’ minstral show ‘” press template complete with a cheesy Gloria Allred moment.
The non-establishment “just” Republicans all begged him to get out then too. they acted like it was SUCH a natural fit that it could not be a put on. It was really sickening. And strange I thought. But it worked.
And then we were down to just Rick “the J-freak So-con condom-slayer THEOCRAT” Santorum, Newt” Moon Base cancer/divorce” Gingrich, and old ‘inevitable’ himself.
(Not busting anyone’s balls here, Ernst. I’ve gone much farther than forcefully disagreeing myself in the past so I’d be too embarrassed to play it that way. I’ve also said very dumb things that people never really killed me over.
Just encouraging the consumption of bourbon and rock n’ roll maybe. I’m entirely comfortable with that position.)
There once was a young man from Leeds
Who swallowed a packet of seeds
Great tufts of grass
Grew out of his ass
And his cock was all covered with weeds.
Obviously not a scientific journal, but the implication is that the odds are less than 5% for a single act of intercourse. Which makes me wonder about the study to which Pablo linked. (I’m too cheap to pay to read the details.)
Obviously, gang rapes ups the odds (which is pretty much what happened when the conquering army rolled through the AO). Being raped by someone who sees you every day also ups the odds.
Oh, and if you look at this (PDF file!) you’ll find that there were ~62M women of childbearing age in 2002. According to this 14% of women taking the pill numbers 1.4 million (2011 number, alas). I should think that in any random sample, you’d expect to have no more than one-sixth of them taking the pill which would reduce their chances of pregnancy to close to nil.
It’s sad that they’ve taken this position, in my view, but I understand why they are doing it. And it has nothing to do with Akin. I’m sure both came to this very very reluctantly.
Then why not come to the other side? What does it cost them to say, “I’m going to defend this guy, even if he is ‘damaged goods,’ because the ones what damaged him need to be called out on their cowardly bullying.”
Then why not come to the other side? What does it cost them to say, “I’m going to defend this guy, even if he is ‘damaged goods,’ because the ones what damaged him need to be called out on their cowardly bullying.”
I believe they both think this is the only chance to repeal ObamaCare, that Missouri is a winnable state, and that Akin has been too damaged (intentionally so, I think) to win.
And they haven’t given up.
I think they’re wrong. We’ve already lost.
In fact, poetic justice would be to shout Akin off, put on the GOP establishment’s preferred candidate, and that candidate goes to DC and sides with the Dems.
About the most useful table in that pdf is #56 on page 107 which shows that 41.1% of women of childbearing age are using some form of contraception which operates in all circumstances like the pill 19% or sterilization 16.7%. Even the most fecund group 15-19 year olds have a 21.5 % using some form that works all the time.
It is also good to have a number for those women between the ages of 15 and 44 which they put at 61,561,000.
First, she isn’t treating him like she was treated. She’s saying he was treated poorly and is now damaged and we have to win in November if we’re going to have any chance of repealing ObamaCare. That is the opposite of being a closet GOPer. That’s doing the math.
Can’t say I blame you.
Better to keep your head down and not be noticed anyway.
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU
One problem with that: What Rush said made perfect sense.
Yeah Pablo? If that were the case, then why did so many people shit themselves?
No different here: if Akin’s wrong, we say why we disagree with him and point him to different facts in an effort to perhaps change his view, or at least force him to find better facts. Shows how we are nuanced and open to intellectual discussion. Also could have shown how even EXTREMISTS are open to reasoning. Had a chance to demolish every caricature and cartoon.
The precise opposite of what we showed. Namely, that we can be just as OUTRAGED as the left, preemptively so, too, if it’s one of ours. So see? It’s okay to vote for us because we, too, will enforce political correctness and anti-intellectualism disguised by a progressive-driven cultural consensus! Hell, we’ll force any candidate out who deviates!
US TOO!
Rush was expressing his opinion, his desire and a prognostication. Akin was attempting to state a fact. How anyone reacts to either of those two things does not change the fundamental difference between them.
That has happened, apart from the mob trying to shove him over the cliff. Again, he’s abandoned the argument and accepted the counter-argument which has been stated every way from gracefully to hysterically.
I’m not going to support the lynch mob, nor am I going to endorse Akin’s idiocy. I didn’t need anyone but Akin to make me cringe when I heard his remarks.
The big “apart” being the big part.
And that takes us back to Jeff’s question in the previous post.
Because they’re fucking cowards.
Akin says he staying in. So what does the establishment do tomorrow? Concede to McCaskill?
The establishment should have thought about the possibility he’d stay in before they helped drag him down.
At this point they have no choice but to demand his ouster. But how we got there matters.
Regardless of how stupid or nuanced something a conservative (or even Republican) says, they will be open to the manipulation of what they’ve said by the press.
This is where the fight has to go. If not this time, soon.
We are in the state we’re in and the atmosphere surrounding it almost solely because the press has joined with one side and refuses to report or distorts what facts there are to convince others that that position or mode of thought is the correct one.
Combined with the coercive effect of the majority of academe being liberal down even to kindergarten levels ensures that few who hear this constant propaganda are ill equipped to counteract it’s effects for themselves let alone convince others of it’s falsity.
We must, I repeat MUST defund the lying propagandist’s of the current media infotainment industry.
To send them or their fronts money in any form is unconscionable. It means sacrifice and a reversion to less exciting and interesting modes of entertainment that will not be pleasant but can be more healthful and will help dry up at least some of the Media’s source of sustenance.
Yes they’ll still get some money from the lazy the ignorant and the zealot, but that’s less than 35% and could become less. They are hurting now because of the changes in technology. If they recover somehow, they’ll be entrenched and very difficult to root out in the future.
Drive them all into bankruptcy or consolidation.
At the same time, we must at every opportunity (and we must make that opportunity obvious) to applaud and fund those who tell the truth, who report the facts and report all of the facts regardless of what the particular effect might be.
Fight the Power and the power lies with the Media. We should start picketing them instead of abortion clinics and particular politicians or other left wing demonstrations.
“Akin says he staying in.”
Then the possibility may be that Akin sees something other people — particularly the establishment types and those who unthinkingly follow them like sheep — simply do not. I don’t know what he thinks along those lines however. On the other hand, I’ve been decided against the republican party for some time now, so perhaps there are more people thinking along those lines than I know and Akin has some insight into their numbers which gives him reason to believe he will succeed.
They can demand all they like, but they can’t enforce. The call is Akin’s to make and he seems to have made it. So now what?
So now they have a new Angle, O’Donnell, et al.
It’s never their fault. It’s the stupid candidates they rush to demonize who then don’t win. Stupid, demonized, losing candidates.
What do they do from here to November, is my question. Blame is for later. Now it’s either compete or concede.
This may become an object lesson for The Establishment™.
Scroll. I think I answered it. Just posting over each other, I fear.
– Maybe. But on an interesting side note, Akin is still leading by a comfortable margin, so perhaps this little ploy to effect the Senate race won’t pay off for the Democrats.
I haven’t yet listened to Akin’s full interview with Huckabee, but from the little I have heard it sounds to me as though he does in fact have the politically dispossessed in mind, albeit thus far he seems to be predominantly concerned with antiabortion views. So as he moves on he may expand the reach of his embrace of these people, and in the process move his rhetorical thrust on to the broader, more pressing issues confronting liberty in America.
That poll may have been monkeyed with to encourage him to stay in. Something like R+9 and they also sequenced the questions to elicit a positive result for Akin.
Demand his ouster? Tried and apparently failed. Blame him? If that’s all of it, that’s conceding the race to McCaskill. And if he wins it anyway? Heh.
Akin really needs to start talking about something else.
– That, and I have a feeling the countless millions of Americans struggling financially at every turn probably don’t give a fuck about Akin, or all the Akins in the country for that matter.
– Theres just not enough nuance in the entire world to save Obama’s ass at this point.
– On Drudge there’s a lede with no link talking about Biden at the Republican convention in Tampa….WTF?
Tampa, yes. The convention, not so much. The GOP should send a camera crew over, though.
Oops. Had it in the other thread, Pablo. My bad. Reprinted here, now, with the prompt, what do they do now:
Apart from Biden, apparent prepping has been going on:
Police recover ‘suspicious items’ from Tampa rooftop
– Maybe Biden will say something about “the GOP putting Y’alls vagina’s in chains”, or some such.
– That would be my guess as an extension of the phony ‘war-on-women’ ploy that started with yesterday’s staged ‘surprise’ presser by Jug ears.
So they compete. They really have no choice, do they?
I was just listening to Rush an hour ago and he basically said Akin should drop out. We do not need another Biden. It is not about right or wrong, the system is rigged, but we expect more from our Republican candidates and the overall issues are bigger than any one man.
Akin says he is staying in.
So it is what it is (at least for now). We will see if Akin changes his mind, but I damn well hope there are no more GOP press conferences.
– I would also submit that Biden is being sent to stir up the local crazies as much as possible.
Akin declared his intentions to stay in the race much earlier today, yet the forces arrayed against him and his intention continue to insist the race is too important to the party, but not so important that the party won’t do everything it can between the time of Akin’s declaration and the fabled 5 o’clock hour to see to it that his prospects are as ruined as the party fathers can make them. That’s evidently what the party fathers believe must be done now, and it doesn’t look like competition but something closer to surrender.
The thing most disturbing to me about this is the notion that what he was trying to say was indefensible.
While it isn’t accurate to say a woman’s body shuts down and can’t get pregnant during a rape, I don’t think it is indefensible to say that severe stress and trauma certainly lowers the odds of a pregnancy. Unfortunately, we apparently aren’t even allowed to discuss such things now.
If not this time, never.
I missed most of the third hour of Rush today, but the first two and one-third were the most depressing mix of intellectual segregation and double-think I’ve ever heard from him.
I know what Akin was trying to say, but the way he said it was so stupid that he has to go/it’s unfair that we have this awful double standard where brain-dead uncle joe can blurt out any bit of mental diarrhea that enters his fool head without consequences and our guys have to be perfect or else/it is what it is & too much is at stake —Akin has to go
Good God are we fucked.
Listening to Rush today was what inspired my post, Ernst. He had a great line with “they circle the wagons, we circle a firing squad”, then he proceeded to lift his gun and pull the trigger.
What the fuck?
That’s not the suggestion on offer. It was that rape resulting in pregnancy is extremely rare, which is not so, and which Akin is saying himself right now.
And that’s why I’m done with the GOP. Seriously. I’m thinking about voting straight Democrat.
Again a cite would help. The Guttmacher paper isn’t a good one to use as they were only looking at the reasons women who sought abortions “said” they were doing so and multiple reasons were allowed. The left has taken that study and blown it into a rape (any kind, but they don’t say) pregnancy rate of 62 pregnancies per 1000 attempts at intercourse. At that rate ever woman of every age or condition should get pregnant once for every 15 times they have sex.
It’s doublethink. Pure unadulterated doublethink.
The double standard is wrong. We must insist upon the double standard.
When Republicans win, it’s by accident. And everybody knows it, and acts accordingly.
” It is not about right or wrong,”
Then I’m out I guess. It needs to be about ‘right and wrong’ more than about ‘you’ve got IT!’.
“What the fuck?”
From what I saw Rush was trying to talk the two sides down, mollify their anger a bit, and get them to drop their jagged broken bottles. Then he calmly told us what side he was on and why. He was attempting to pick the winner in this fight (the die Akin side) while discouraging further melee on the topic and telling the anti Akin people that they could have handled it better and that they are a HUGE part of the problem.
He was trying to arbitrate.
He was trying to arbitrate.
I don’t disagree with that palaeomerus. It seems to me that Rush spends a lot of time in election years trying to keep the conserative movement wedded to the GOP.
But in this instance (well, since 2006 really), that just makes him a tragic figure.
Or a fool.
I left a comment on a NYT hates-us-all post this morning. Seems apropos.
On Todd Akin, Legitimate Rape and Legitimate Murder
As are all the far-Left Democrats, you’re furiously spinning Todd Akin’s misspoken phrase, ‘legitimate rape’, to mean things you’d like to see it believed he meant for naught but pure political gain.
What Todd Akins meant by ‘legitimate rape’ was ‘violent rape’; as in ‘First Degree’ rape. As you know, there are several legal degrees describing murder: First, Second, Third, and Manslaughter, but all murders whatever the legal degree resulted in a death; therefore all degrees of murder are just…murder, right? Legally speaking, no they aren’t. When Todd Akins used the phrase ‘legitimate rape’ what Todd Akins really meant to say was ‘First Degree rape’. A distinction of legal nuance; a violent rape that once deserved the death penalty (and still does AFAIC).
The Left considers abortion to be well and good: Democrat’s publicly-supported abortion mill Planned Parenthood is an acceptable industry that’s supported, even encouraged, by all good Party Democrats (and yes, Democrats DID build that business). But it is an undeniable fact that abortion does result in the death of a human. An unnatural death; a legal degree of murder. Let’s call abortion, as conducted by Democrats, ‘legitimate murders’.
To those of you who embrace abortion, I say to you without misspeaking that abortion of a human resulting in the death of that human is your acceptance of legitimate murder. Legitimized by the Democratic Party; a once-proud institution now ruined by absorption of far-Left ideology, including but not limited to legitimate murder.
There’s a cross (or shall we say an albatross?) you’ll forever bear.
Here. 5%
The problem that I have with those statistics Pablo is there is no attempt to correct for the oh my God I’m pregnant Daddies gonna kill me “I couldn’t help it he raped me! factor.
A phenomenon that is going to get several orders of magnitude worse if you only allow abortion in case of rape.
Ok.
34 cases of rape related pregnancy among 4008 women studied for 3 years. That is 11.33 cases per year and they then conclude that there are 32,101 cases per year of rape caused pregnancy. So 11.33 over 4008 is equal to 32,101 over the number of rapes per year. Solve for x gives 4008 * 32,101/11.33 = the number of rapes per year they are using. 11,355,764 rapes per year using their own figures.
The Willke estimate was around 2 per thousand per year though he rounded it up to 2.5 when he said 500 total per year. 4.008 * 2.5 = 10.02 which is quite close to the 11.33 they found.
Sorry I take that last back. I’d thought they had studied 4008 women who were raped but they do not say how many were raped among those studied so this is impossible to figure from the numbers given. My mistake.
Mistaken again. If 32,101 is 5% of all rapes then they are figuring 642,o2o per year. This means in their study they had 226.6 rapes per year for the 4008 women so 5.65% were raped per year. 680 during the 3 year course of the study. That is astounding and frightening.
B Moe, I don’t know that that shows up in the research, what with the researchers not being Daddy and all. Thing is, arguing against a rape exception by professing the rarity of it occurring is a stupid argument on it’s face. If it almost never happens, it will almost never be a problem, so what’s the point? There are better arguments to be made if you’re looking to make that case.
I watched the Superbowl and I learned that like, 1 in 3 women were either abused or raped.
SCIENCE!
If it almost never happens, it will almost never be a problem, so what’s the point?
Ask the kid facing charges because it is the only way his former girlfriend can get an abortion.
And I agree it was a dumbass, poorly worded argument. What I don’t agree is it was so ridiculous, unfounded and totally indefensible that a man should lose his damn career over it.
Remember, prospective GOPers: you can run for office, but every argument you make had better be the best one, or else when the left comes after you, we have no choice but to holler along with them, and one-up their outrage with our own HIGHER STANDARD outrage.
Because we’re sanctimonious pussies addicted to losing.
Yes. This is why this issue, which really hadn’t been on the table, is a political third rail. Which Akin grabbed with both hands. And then started licking.
No, every argument you make had better not be asinine, because that’s how you lose. But who doesn’t love caricatures, right?
Conservatives and Republicans, in order to be elected, must avoid topics that the left owns. That includes all of them. Except for, on occasion, debt reduction and lower taxes. And flag pins for your suit lapel. And maybe freedom fries.
The rest of your beliefs it’s best to keep hidden. Or you will be punished by moderates and independents. Who evidently will find your opinions so terribly offensive that they’ll vote for the party with the guy who says its okay to kill a birthed baby after a botched abortion by either stabbing it in the skull with scissors, or leaving it in a room to die.
WINNING!
In any of those studies do they make a distinction between whether the woman claimed rape before or after she discovered she was pregnant?
Oh, I’m sorry, Pablo. Is this citation of some study the only argument Mr Akin has ever made? Or is that a single argument on a single sticky point in a narrow subsection of on a very emotionally and morally charged issue?
As for caricatures, I don’t love when we buy into the ones that are drawn about “us” in order to distinguish ourselves from those kinds. Who are we distinguishing ourselves for?
I don’t either, and properly handled he could save himself from the blowback. But that would require some political skill, which strangely enough is also a qualification for the job he’s seeking, and he doesn’t seem to have much of it.
And what distinctions do they make between statutory rape, serial domestic abuse, and violent stranger rape?
It is not a citation of a study. It’s basically a citation of an Op-Ed.
That’s exactly what it is, and it was utterly unnecessary. While the GOP freakout is abhorrent, it isn’t nearly the only reason that he’s looking like Wile E. Coyote right now. This was a completely unforced error and the GOP’s reaction to it doesn’t absolve him from the political idiocy of it, and his mishandling of a recovery from it.
Mind you, I’m still not saying he’s got to get out. But I’m beginning to believe he can’t win.
Can’t tell from the abstract. But do you want to run for office on making those distinctions?
And who has ever done that?
You mean, apologizing as the mishandled recovery, or refusing to have the graciousness to step down because some people on Twitter and the GOP Establishment want you to as the mishandled recovery? Or is it the getting critical of people telling you to step down mishandled recovery?
No. I also don’t want to destroy a political ally.
Through no fault of anyone else’s but his own, too! I mean, with all the GOP support he received, he should have been able to pull this off easy.
BTW, there used to be a link at the top of this page that led to this. Now in it’s place is a link to this. Which isn’t much of a defense of the argument previously on offer and strays a long, long way from its 1 or 2 in a 1000 conclusion.
If, during a campaign, you’re going to hump a third rail regarding an issue that’s not even in play, you at least ought to know what the fuck you’re talking about. Because you’re going to get fried. Or does recognizing that make me a squish?
I’d appreciate it if you’d not attribute things to me when I’ve said exactly the opposite of them.
Am I the only one thinking that we’re all but guaranteed that part of the ObamaCare
repeal andreplace bits is going to be no money for abortion except for cases of rape and rape rape?No, I mean this. And this. And this.
First, you retract and apologize to anyone who was offended, blah, blah, blah. Then, you change the fucking subject, you go on the attack. If you’re mewling in the corner, you’ve already lost, and this is less than 2 weeks into his general election campaign.
Akin may be a wonderful guy, but he sucks at politics. You can’t bring your wonderful values to bear if you can’t get elected.
This entire episode is an object lesson in why the GOP could have a three-fourths majority in both chambers of Congress and the White House to boot, and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would still be in charge. Nothing would change.
Well, almost nothing. The only change I can think of is that it would no longer be possible to keep pretending that there is in fact an “our” side.
That’s already passed the House, Ernst. Sadly, rape-rape is not mentioned.
But he did apologize. And they piled on him anyway. Over and over and over.
And if he truly sucked at politics, chances are he wouldn’t have won that primary.
Have it your way, though. These are all unforced errors? Outside pressures? Why, none! And most certainly he should have handled his Two Minutes of National Hate, with the loudest chorus coming from his own side, after a spell, with more icy coolness.
That way we know we had a real good politician who could win!
Here’s the fun part. 226.6 rapes per year for 4008 adult women. That says 5.65% of all adult women are raped per year. There are about 100,000,000 adult women in the US. 5.65% means 5,650,000 of them are raped each year not the 642,020 they used as their number.
Then it’s a good thing women never lie about rape
or rape rape for that matter.
Otherwise, this idiot who can’t put three words together might be vindicated.
No, we’re talking about this one. Would you like to argue that it isn’t one? Or that he’s handling it effectively?
He’s in the political gunfight of his life and he’s busted out a can of Silly String.
You were able to recognize that holding a view (that he later said he didn’t even hold) that marks one as the EXTREMISTY of the EXTREME within the EXTREMIST CHRISTIAN RIGHT HATE GROUP PRO-LIFERS might be a political liability?
How?
Right. I totally said that. WTF, dude?
Todd Akin didn’t lose that senate race. Somebody else did that.
No, I was able to notice that offering a nonsensical view from which you couldn’t possibly have derived a political benefit is really bad politicking.
Handling it effectively? His fucking own side has abandoned him, even after he apologized. They’ve been calling for his ouster since they knew that he would get pilloried by the left and that some might rub off on them.
And now you’re using his inability to navigate this minefield as proof he can’t handle fire? What, is this the new litmus test for voting conservative as a legislator?
Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.
Nonsensical to believe increased stress can cause a decreased chance of conceiving. Settled science!
And of course, it’s all about presentation. The less we know about what you actually think the better. Just follow the script. American needs that now more than ever!
How do you shoot your way out of the center of a circular firing squad?
I’m asking you how Akin is performing and you’re talking about the party. Two questions, again: Would you like to argue that it isn’t [an unforced error?] Or that he’s handling it effectively?
You can’t vote conservatively as a legislator unless you can win election. This is a campaigning question, not a legislating question.
No, that’s not what he said. “First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,”
Intention matters, or so I’ve heard.
Ohmigod! A politician so impolitic as to tell us what he honestly (however erroneously) believes instead of offering us a formula of carefully and exactingly calculated pablum and bromides!
We can’t have that!
No fucking way can we have that!
And I’m telling you Akin can’t be judged on his “performance” outside the parameters of what’s happening with the Party with respect to him.
And you can’t win an election when your side won’t support you.
They will support Romney, though. Who gave Mass state-run health care. Because, electable.
Interesting.
Actually, no it isn’t.
So he got some bad info from doctors?
Holy shit. And he believed it? Even worse.
This dick has got to go.
Incidentally, rare compared to what? And even if he’s wrong, again, we’re back to, well, why don’t we just point out the competing facts, confront him with them, and see if that affects his views?
Instead, we get “BURN HIM.” And now I’ve spent all day trying to explain how that’s not particularly good politics, either. Surreal.
Fucking bullshit. You might as well take that up with the Pablo you’ve constructed in your head. It’s no longer me you’re arguing with.
Surreal is the new normal.
For what purpose, again? That was an argument that didn’t need making, and he made it anyway, booting it all the way. Pablum and bromides aren’t necessary. Idiocy isn’t either, but that’s what he went with, for no purpose whatsoever.
I haven’t been arguing with you.
As far as I’m concerned there’s no argument to make. The right engaged in an horrific show of anti-intellectualism and cowardice. And I won’t defend them because it’s now become politically expedient after the fact of their initial outrage, which is why we’re here in the first place.
So I’m not making arguments. Like a few others, I’m watching surreal become the new normal.
BTW, tell that to Rand Paul, Pat Toomey, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, Richard Murdoch, etc…
La Palin opines that Akin needs to get out.
Right now on Greta.
Serious question and not trying to antagonize or disagree for the sake of being disagreeable.
But, I’d like to know, what’s the bigger unforced error, Akin’s original statement or the party-wide reaction to it? Does that reaction count as a forced error, seeing how there’s media intervention involved?
BURN THE GOP WITCH!! IMPURE!!
It seems to me that he was asked a question and answered it. Nobody seems to like the way he answered it, but plenty of people (Rush, to give one instance) say they understand what he was trying to say.
Usually right before they demand he be ousted for saying what he said (which they say they understand, despite the way he said it).
Unlike with, e.g. O’Donnell and Angle, those people didn’t have the party apparatchik and commentariat actively saying they couldn’t win either.
Palin isn’t perfect. She endorsed Emmers over Seifert in MN, for instance.
CUE JEOPARDY MUSIC
Nope.
DING DING DING YEP! DING DING
I’d suggest that those aren’t both unforced errors. The party wants to win the seat and sees a liability in Akin. Yes, they were waaaaaay too quick in throwing him under the bus. But they weren’t reacting to absolutely nothing, they’re making a calculation based on political input. I’d say they’ve handled it about as badly as he has, but he threw it in their lap. Akin dropped a turd in the punch bowl without any particular provocation.
I understand what he was trying to say. I just can’t imagine what possessed him to say it.
Second serious question offered up generally:
Does anybody have a fucking clue what the real damage is that the GOP has done to itself here?
Because it isn’t putting at risk the GOP prospects for controlling the White House, the Senate or the House.
The GOP handled it way worse. You don’t call for a step down unless you know you can get it.
Had they backed him, and he apologized, this goes away and he wins the seat. They didn’t. The Roveans and the Gillespies saw an opportunity.
Fuck them.
That’s right. Oh wait, they already did!
Best not to talk about Rape Babies. Rape Babies are icky and make people uncomfortable.
And besides, they’e Rape Babies, not Baby Babies.
By the way, I’d be surprised (haven’t heard it) if Palin’s opinion wasn’t the kind Levin made: the GOP is full of cowards, but now that they’ve helped irrevocably damage this guy, he’s got to go, because we have to win.
It’s like Levin’s Romney defense.
My problem with which is that if we do win, we give power to the very cowards he has earlier decried. And? That’ll show ’em.
“I’d say they’ve handled it about as badly as he has, but he threw it in their lap.”
I say they handled it MUCH worse than he did. They have publicly (as opposed to privately) demanded that he back out for two days siding with Akin’s opponents thus reinforcing their outrage. Their actions have damaged him and their chances of winning the Missouri senate seat FAR worse than Akin’s have. They are discussing not funding or supporting their loyal primary winner. Do republican pundits and such get a veto and do over on any primaries they don’t like? They have gained the GOP nothing whatsoever but strife with this. They have materially benefited Akin’s opponent.
Akin started the fire. But they came along and mishandled the fire about as badly as is possible. They made demands they had no right to expect. Then they tried to go to the public with it. They poured gasoline on the fire and then said “fuck it” and tossed some magnesium foil on there too so the fire could be seen from orbit.
Now they are patting themselves on the back for coming together to do what they thought had to be done and trying to pin the whole thing including their mob scene on Akin. Akin’s still in.
Nobody is talking about anything but how Akin gave a bad answer and that somehow justifies the six-ring clown party that followed and continues to follow and grow.
I thought it was interesting that Palin was calling for Akin to quit. Basically treating him the way she herself was treated after the failed campaign of 08: as a liability to the Party.
The fuck? I thought she was all about the TEA Party? Suddenly she’s a closet GOPer?
I’m starting to hate politics.
Yes Jeff. She was making the Levin defense.
I have no faith that you’ve honestly portrayed that, leigh. None.
“And?” Jeff?
And the Last Man Jeff, that’s what.
Fukuyama Nietzsche-san will out!
What could I have to gain by telling you a falsehood? She was emphatic that Akin needs to quit so that a more suitable candidate could run in his stead.
She was suggesting the others who ran and also suggesting a Third Party might be the answer.
The Levin defense is not about the GOP Party. It’s about getting control of the Senate to defeat ObamaCare.
Honestly, I’m to the point where I’m not sure the GOP establishment, who doesn’t want to have to battle to repeal such a glorious revenue generating and power-generating bit of legislation that they may one day control, isn’t more interested in controlling it eventually with the right types than they are winning the Senate just now with reformers in tow.
You crack me up, Ernst.
” I just can’t imagine what possessed him to say it.”
I can’t imagine what good anyone thought surrounding him and chanting “shame shame shame” like the mean kids in the musical Carousel was going to accomplish. It seems to me that that “strategy” is a sure route to a big dumb, public, ugly fight, and a much harder uphill struggle to winning the Missouri Senate seat from the unpopular democrat who SHOULD outrage the Republicans much more than anything Akin said but some how does not.
As a hobbit I cannot help but stare in horror at Gandalf’s old pal Saruman as he says “Guys guys! Check it out! I just bought us a whole butt-load of orcs! And these guys are the latest model! They can fight during the day! All we gotta do to keep them is burn Rohan to the ground! Pretty awesome right? Right? Guys? What’s the hell is your problem? You do want to beat Sauron and save the West right? “
I’d go further than that. I’d say they’ve made Missouri unwinable for any Republican.
Seriously, Priebus and McConnell and Romney and the rest of the chicken-shit rat bastards ought to just go ahead and endorse McCaskill.
I can’t get Levin here so I go by your Cliff’s Notes versions of his show.
It’s how I register defeat bh.
You wrote,
First, she isn’t treating him like she was treated. She’s saying he was treated poorly and is now damaged and we have to win in November if we’re going to have any chance of repealing ObamaCare. That is the opposite of being a closet GOPer. That’s doing the math.
I imagine like Levin she suspects that Akin can’t win now, for good reasons: the GOP won’t back him, and the left has considerable shit to throw out there now about how even the GOP disavows this “extremist.”
It’s sad that they’ve taken this position, in my view, but I understand why they are doing it. And it has nothing to do with Akin. I’m sure both came to this very very reluctantly.
BURN THE GOP WITCH!! IMPURE!!
nah lazy bitch wants to be a player
That’s easily resolved. If it’s a battle, that means you’re going to have to fight. And if you’re going to have to fight, that means you might get hurt. And if you get hurt, why, you might even lose. So it’s better not to have the battle.
After all, we have to pick and choose our battles. We don’t want to die on just any ol’ hill.
Okay. Thanks for explicating.
I’m not sure about anything anymore.
yes let’s keep pounding akin so we can win. hey moosehunter point your gun over there.
justa reminder: AKIN AIN’T THE FUCKING ENEMY!!11!!
Hey, that sounds kinda familiar. Wasn’t there this really likable black guy running for President (as a Republican, if you can imagine!) about 9 months ago…?
also about rsm: HE’S A FUCKING REPORTER LOOKING FOR A STORY.
To tell you guys the truth I’m a bit concerned that we’re throwing a few too many elbows amongst ourselves here. Don’t mean that in the joking “hall monitor” way. Mean that as myself.
I can’t always read tone and emphasis perfectly but I remember the general history of folks, recognize the overwhelming good to be found there, and suggest we drink a bit of bourbon and listen to music at this point.
John B —
When it was against Cain or Bachmann it was completely valid. When it was against Rick Perry that was the purists doing their puristy dance. Here, it’s valid again.
The left gets to pick the hills. They even get to design and manufacture them to order. We get to choose to fight on their hill/terms, surrender and join them in the fight, or not accept either horn and hit the bull[shit] right between the eyes.
It is a hard slog when many, ostensibly on your side, think Vichy and Quisling are role models.
Jeff, I think John B. was talking about Herman Cain being fitted with the ” Yo, LAW DE DAW Gotta grab me soma’ them sweet white titty-ass titties fo sho ’cause I be a black rich horn dog jes’ like in de ol’ minstral show ‘” press template complete with a cheesy Gloria Allred moment.
The non-establishment “just” Republicans all begged him to get out then too. they acted like it was SUCH a natural fit that it could not be a put on. It was really sickening. And strange I thought. But it worked.
And then we were down to just Rick “the J-freak So-con condom-slayer THEOCRAT” Santorum, Newt” Moon Base cancer/divorce” Gingrich, and old ‘inevitable’ himself.
bh, I’m arguing pointedly and forcefully and I recognize Pablo is doing the same. I respect him, however strongly we happen to disagree on this.
Leigh and EBL, on the other hand. Well, what can you expect from the weaker sex?
[smirk]
Hey now. I haven’t agreed with EBL once.
Jokes!
Jokes are good.
(Not busting anyone’s balls here, Ernst. I’ve gone much farther than forcefully disagreeing myself in the past so I’d be too embarrassed to play it that way. I’ve also said very dumb things that people never really killed me over.
Just encouraging the consumption of bourbon and rock n’ roll maybe. I’m entirely comfortable with that position.)
There once was a young man from Leeds
Who swallowed a packet of seeds
Great tufts of grass
Grew out of his ass
And his cock was all covered with weeds.
Then there is this.
Obviously not a scientific journal, but the implication is that the odds are less than 5% for a single act of intercourse. Which makes me wonder about the study to which Pablo linked. (I’m too cheap to pay to read the details.)
Obviously, gang rapes ups the odds (which is pretty much what happened when the conquering army rolled through the AO). Being raped by someone who sees you every day also ups the odds.
didn’t think you were bh
But that didn’t stop me from getting my Eric Cartmann on with leigh, did it?
Oh, and if you look at this (PDF file!) you’ll find that there were ~62M women of childbearing age in 2002. According to this 14% of women taking the pill numbers 1.4 million (2011 number, alas). I should think that in any random sample, you’d expect to have no more than one-sixth of them taking the pill which would reduce their chances of pregnancy to close to nil.
It’s sad that they’ve taken this position, in my view, but I understand why they are doing it. And it has nothing to do with Akin. I’m sure both came to this very very reluctantly.
Then why not come to the other side? What does it cost them to say, “I’m going to defend this guy, even if he is ‘damaged goods,’ because the ones what damaged him need to be called out on their cowardly bullying.”
I believe they both think this is the only chance to repeal ObamaCare, that Missouri is a winnable state, and that Akin has been too damaged (intentionally so, I think) to win.
And they haven’t given up.
I think they’re wrong. We’ve already lost.
In fact, poetic justice would be to shout Akin off, put on the GOP establishment’s preferred candidate, and that candidate goes to DC and sides with the Dems.
Re: RichardCranium @ 10:26
About the most useful table in that pdf is #56 on page 107 which shows that 41.1% of women of childbearing age are using some form of contraception which operates in all circumstances like the pill 19% or sterilization 16.7%. Even the most fecund group 15-19 year olds have a 21.5 % using some form that works all the time.
It is also good to have a number for those women between the ages of 15 and 44 which they put at 61,561,000.
No shit? I wonder if anyone else can do math.