Many of you keep sending me Levin links as if Levin’s words are magic. Yes, I’m a huge supporter of his. But no, his words are not gospel.
In the 2010 cycle, Levin backed TEA Party candidates and defended candidates like Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell when many others wouldn’t — when many others, in fact, were making the argument that such candidates, voted on by the primary voters of the respective states, weren’t electable, couldn’t win, and so became the targets of scorn from many on the right in the GOP establishment.
It was a neat self-fulfilling prophecy: these kinds of TEA Party candidates were going to cost us Senate seat pickups; therefore, it was okay to constantly run them down, to express embarrassment at their ascendencies — attitudes that in the end, if they weren’t directly responsible for the losses, at the very least contributed heavily to that effort.
And yet now, Levin — in full-throated indignation — wants to scream “shame on you!” to many of us who are disgusted at the way in which Todd Akin has been put upon not by the left, but by those in his own party. And this agitation to have Akin removed didn’t spring from some carefully considered decision, based on a single “gaffe” — but was rather very deliberately and sanctimoniously spearheaded by many on the right who were climbing over each other almost instantly to declare a man with a 12-year history of reliable conservative service in the House unfit as a candidate.
It has become yet another self-fulfilling prophecy — and it is the kind of thing that many of us no longer accept. Yes, the stakes are high. Yes, we want to win the Senate. But no, we’ll no longer accept being told who we can have as a candidate and who we cannot have, nor will we stand by and watch jackals tear the flesh off a decent man so that they can get him replaced with a candidate of their choosing who couldn’t win the primary.
I’m not from Missouri. Looking at the candidates in the primary race, had I endorsed anyone it likely would not have been Akin. But that’s beside the point. He won, and we owed it to the people of Missouri, who we are asking to help us elect a Republican to take back the Senate, to defend their chosen candidate and in so doing, honor their choice.
Todd Akin didn’t rape Juanita Broderick. He didn’t drown Mary Jo Kopechne in his car. He didn’t engage in shady land deals, hang out with domestic and foreign terrorists and anti-semites, or stuff money in his freezer. He expressed a dubious claim about the frequency of pregnancy after rape — a claim that is based in part at least on well-known and frequently detailed barriers to conception, such as chronic stress.
Whether he was wrong or not was beside the point. The merits of his claim were never argued. He’d said something the left won’t allow to be discussed, and many on the right — just as they did with John Derbyshire and a host of others who have introduced “controversial” propositions — rushed to condemn him rather than to patiently correct him.
We witnessed gross anti-intellectualism and the insidious politically correct chilling of speech through an aggressive, Twitter-fueled pique of competitive outrage. It was disgusting to watch frankly — with people actively trying to one-up each other in their purported bother over a minor point on the pro life continuum. The reasons for this I can only speculate upon: a desire to be seen as a “thinking” conservative, set apart from those kind, whose godbothery social conservatism has always made them suspect to the cognoscenti; a cynical opportunism to replace one candidate with a preferred candidate; an ostentatious sanctimony that seems very important to a large portion of the online right.
Whether Akin should have stepped down or not was never my concern. My concern — and my criticism — has always been aimed at the those who placed our Senate chances in Missouri in jeopardy by reacting to a gaffe as they did. And it wasn’t Todd Akin — who did the perfunctory apology tour almost immediately. Or rather, his contribution was minor, and his recovery would have been easy had it not been for the reaction from the right — from online calls for his removal, to press releases sent by GOP officials, and so on. In the end, this is what sunk Missouri for the Republicans: if you are going to publicly call for the removal of a candidate as a show that you, too, are FOR WOMEN!, you’d better first make sure he’s willing to step aside to give you your moment of cheap grace and social posturing.
Pragmatism, that is.
So no, Mark Levin. Try as you might, when you rail about the loss in Missouri that now is almost certainly coming, can Akin not recover (and isn’t so demoralized by the treachery of his own side that he doesn’t just mail it in from here on out), you won’t be able to blame those sick to death of taking marching orders from our inside the Beltway betters who presume to tell us what candidates we can and can’t run, or who is and isn’t “electable.”
Hugh Hewitt is not the boss of me. And as much as I’ve promoted you and respect you, in the end, neither are you. I won’t be shamed into standing up to such left-provoked wildings just because the sanctimonious GOP elite decided to play us too!
Yes, we want to win the Senate. But no, we won’t agree tp trample a man’s good name in our haste to do so. The ends don’t justify the means.
Levin used to know that. Maybe one day soon he will again.
. He’d said something the left won’t allow to be discussed
You’re not allowed to say
bomb on a planerape or abortion if you’re a Republican during an election season.Whether the popular right — AOSHQ, RSM, others — or some members of the PW commentariat, the twin arguments against Akin are sheer indignation and proofs by popular opinion.
With a third being that he can’t win if he can’t win.
All are utterly circular.
Yes, they were. And Akin quickly conceded that he was wrong.
We’ll get to the end of the PC rope soon enough, Jeff. Do you ever feel like your blog is turning into one big epitaph for the U.S.? I’m hanging in there til the end, or beginning. depending. Cocksucker. :)
At the same while nobody’s offered a shred of evidence — as you allude in the paragraph cataloging a tiny fraction of Democrat offenses — that harpooning Akin has or shall cost one Democrat vote, the Democrats being as genuinely righteous as they are.
Which assumes that at least one of the other three false proofs offered are not in fact false.
This is the single biggest and most destructive circular firing squad the right has inflicted on itself in months. Years. All for fear of the left.
To expand on this, he said something the left won’t allow to be discussed on terms other than their own. Which is more of the same ol’ same ol’, and I also am disappointed in the rush to get on the “right side” of this [according to ???] rather than be right.
Lots of folks on the dextrosphere talk about how the media isn’t in charge anymore, but they sure knuckle under quickly enough.
There seemed to be two things people didn’t like about Akin’s “gaffe”. The first was his use of the term “legitimate rape”, by which in context he clearly seemed to mean “forcible rape” which by definition includes off-the-charts levels of stress. Unfortunate choice of words, maybe, but nothing worth the uproar. The second related thing was his expression of the commonly heard theory that women seldom become pregnant as a result of a forcible rape (his presumed intended meaning). There was a time long ago when this theory was commonly stated. It seems a stretch to me, but I’m not a doctor, and I haven’t even played one since I was a kid.
Nevertheless, the whole thing seems to be on the level of saying “niggardly” or saying something was a “black moment” in our nation’s history, i.e. resulting in a fuss all out of proportion to the alleged offense.
And to what end?
The Missouri electorate is not “the left”.
But they are eating their kibble, Pablo.
Which well proves both that The Missouri electorate are subjecting themselves to the Press and that subjecting yourself to the Press — it being severely progressive — is the legitimate beef many of us have with this non-issue being made the issue.
I agree it was poorly handled by a lot of pundits and by the GOP. Yours is a well stated position (although the part about respecting the choice of the voters of Missouri is less persuasive given the margin that Akin won by in the primary). Rush also stated a position that is disagrees with your position. I only point out Rush’s comments because I think it was better made and delivered than Levin’s. And while I absolutely agree Akin’s “crime” was an awkward misstatement not an actual crime, I disagree with you on the harm Akin did initially by his comment (you underestimate that).
You are right, Levin is not our boss. Neither is Rush. Neither are you. And neither is Todd Akin. But you make a persuasive argument. I agree with you that way the GOP handled this could have been far better. The harm of Akin’s initial statement could have been mitigated–not compounded. And if there was going to be an arm wringing effort by the GOP for Akin to step aside, it should have all been private (certainly initially) and not through cable news interviews, radio shows, and press releases. In a situation like this, GOP politicians and pundits would be wise to remember the medical axiom “do no harm.” And a lot of harm was done in this case by the way it was handled.
Is it just me or do the people who keep telling us that we have to get away from social issues because they’re killing us never miss an opportunity to don social issues like a suicide vest —just to prove that social issues are killing us?
Isn’t that oversimplifying the situation, though? Akin’s primary win is at least partially tainted by McCaskill running ads for him and against his primary opponents. The democrats also ran an operation chaos in the open primary to help choose the weakest candidate out of the primary choices. Even then, Akin only won a plurality of the vote with no run-off. The people of Missouri may have chosen Akin, but it probably was not Missouri republicans who gave him his primary win.
re: Carin’s comment above. Republicans are certainly allowed to talk about rape and abortion, but why would they in this election? Obama and the democrats are desperate to talk about anything but the economy and their record. They are far more fluent in abortion than they are in math. Why give them that outlet?
he reasons for this I can only speculate upon: a desire to be seen as a “thinking” conservative, set apart from those kind, whose godbothery social conservatism has always made them suspect to the cogniscenti; a cynical opportunism to replace one candidate with a preferred candidate; an ostentatious sanctimony that seems very important to a large portion of the online right.
Or, possibly, because we think Akin is a moron.
Unless I am misunderstanding the first opinion polls since his gaffe, it’s not clear, at least as of yesterday, that Akin was being tagged by Missouri Republican’s for this. The 2% or so that have no opinion one way or another on this race might have legitimate questions about his grasp of certain obvious fact-sets, but it’s going to be close either way.
This fellow Hadlowe brings up some interesting points.
Since it is clear that the only thing that binds the plurality of Missourians together is their disdain for McCaskill, this gaffe probably doesn’t have enough strength to change that.
Shorter Roddy: He was already in a super close race, wasn’t a unanimous pick and was widely viewed as a borderline elderly social con whose calling card was that he was the opposite of the incumbent.
This country has already flunked math a hundred trillion times over.
Which makes the present topic partisan, diversionary, Press-cycle-led bullshit and anyone buying into it ignorant. Anyone identifying as a conservative who buys into it is a fool.
The establishment right supporting this inquisition and burning — including the hard-right talkers; and I’m looking at you Palin — should be slapped silly.
It doesn’t matter, Hadlowe. He’s been a loyal conservative in the House for years. How many Democrats may or may not have swung the election his way is not his fault. If they did so it’s probably because they thought they could capitalize on his extreme social conservatism. Which they wouldn’t have been able to do save for us allowing them to.
Again.
JHo, I don’t need the press or the left to form my opinion that Akin is an idiot. Akin does that for me just fine, all by himself. I doubt I’m alone in that.
The left? The Proggy press? They’re pretty quiet in all this. They want to keep him around. McCaskill wants to keep him around. It’s a bit premature to hang this on them.
Roddy, Akin’s unfavorable among moderates has gone from 29% to 72% in the wake of this. Oy.
Awesome Jeff, just awesome! Please don’t stop bitterly clinging to your guns on this. After all, it’s the truth.
Let me see if I understand this language stuff:
“Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.”
Now is the time:
Racist! The [Classic Liberal] is obviously referencing Obama’s time in office.
For all good men:
In other words, bad men need not apply. We [Classic Liberals] think all minorities are bad – and because we are sexist as well as racist, they don’t even bother to use the more gender-neutral term “people.” No, we only recognize men, and rich white ones at that. Men are the only ones who matter.
To come to the aid of their country:
In other words, to take back what [Classic Liberals] believe is their country, and only their country, from anyone who doesn’t look or think like they do.
Courtesy, The Peoples Cube
Also, for a pro-life candidate to be talking about abortion in addition to fiscal and economic matters, I addressed it in the post: Akin is pro life and has always run as such; McCaskill helped support a government mandate that requires the Catholic Church, among others, to pay for abortifacients. That creates a stark choice for voters who perhaps like the President’s manipulation of markets but doesn’t like his insinuation into religious issues.
Given Akin’s literal remarks, Pablo, and not some regurgitated spin put on them, climb into the MO voter’s mind and tell me why his unfavorability has doubled.
If everything I’ve said about the myths of that pop spin are untrue, then I surrender to the only remaining fact: That the right simply hasn’t either the stones or the reason to be right.
In which case, regardless of how they absolutely resemble what the left routinely projects onto them, we are all that 20% of us who are progressive. Which is to say that
Ad infinitum.
Hey, you know, it would be a great idea for Akin to be out talking about something like that! He could be out there drawing sharp distinctions like that for the Missouri electorate. It’s a shame he hasn’t done it, but that’s how it goes when you’re a political idiot, I suppose.
Look, now that the deadline has passed and Akin is the guy, I’m more than happy to forget his idiotic comments and pull for him to beat McCaskill. It’s possible that he can overcome this and pull it out, and unlike others I won’t be rooting for the guy’s demise. But when he had a chance to pull out in favor of another, pro-life conservative who almost certainly could beat McCaskill, he decided to put his personal political ambition ahead of the country’s needs.
Sorry, but I don’t see “OMG YOU ARE SO FUCKING WRONG EXTREMIST, YOU ARE UNFIT FOR OFFICE, QUICK LET’S GET A PETITION GOING!” an argument, or addressed on the merits.
I see more of what geoff B and Monster have been doing as trying to discuss on the merits.
Because he’s revealed himself to be an idiot by dropping trou and humping a political third rail without so much as the protection of some facts.
Mike Huckabee’s ears are burning.
An analogy, then. A captain is given the task of holding a key bridge. It is an easily defensible position and all he has to do is dig in on one side and wait for the enemy to come. After a few days, he sees an apparently unguarded enemy supply truck on the other side and orders half his men to cross the bridge and capture the truck. The men are ambushed and killed. He no longer has sufficient forces to hold the bridge.
Does it matter that he had a sterling record for the twelve years prior to this decision?
For crying out loud, Pablo, does that mean ORomney is all classically liberal now that he’s called for Akin to stand down? Humping political third rails is the Establican way of life.
The whole thing stinks of pre-packaged outrage, not unlike what happened to Rush over his Sandra Fluke comments. The group behind that already had things ready to go. They were just waiting for a chance to use it. In this case, it seems like our alleged betters in the Republican party establishment never liked Akin and were just waiting to pounce on his first misstep. Now having gotten something that could be rounded up to be considered that misstep, they want to sub in one of their preferred, “reasonable” Republicans.
for the drive-by troller:
I guess “good men” doesn’t include a guy who falls on the end of the pro-life spectrum that can be described as “idiotic” in the popular imagination.
And if he does, he’d better not let on about by answering a question honestly.
This is the most super duper critical election of our lifetimes where everything is at stake if don’t vote Obama out of office.
Which is why Todd Akin (R, MO) must go.
His views on rape conceptions or rape pregnancies or the need for a rape exception to an abortion ban are not the thread on which the future of the Republic hangs?
You haven’t seen a cogent argument against the “merits” of his now abandoned claim?
Clearly, I’ve been wasting my time here.
Pablo, please explain which is it that makes him unfit for office: the dubious claim, or the abandoning of the dubious claim?
If Mr. Akin got it wrong because of a study based on statistics (which I am sure everyone commenting on this whole sordid deal read) why do you care about polling in MO right now? Thats just another form of statistics isn’t it and if the statistics compiled for that study don’t count why should any statistic count?
I don’t even have a problem with the way Mr. Akin phrased it. It is indeed game over since most everyone seems to be willing to let the left control the meaning of every single word that is uttered and pile on to boot.
I’m also at a loss to understand how the now abandoned dubious claim is the single strand upon which the future of Republic in the most important election of our lifetimes which we absolutely must win hangs. Perhaps you could help me with that as well.
Maybe. Maybe he just decided that, since he was going to be blamed for the loss anyways, he ought just as well stay in and do the actual losing.
Maybe he just decided that, since he was going to be blamed for the loss anyways, he ought just as well stay in and do the actual losing.
But it’s doubtful that if he pulled out that this would have been a loss. Practically everyone with an -R next to his or her name was leading McCaskill, including Akin pre-snafu. That’s why there was so much outrage – there was still time to do something to make up for the mess he made.
Honestly, I hope I’m wrong about this, as I hope I’m wrong about expecting Romney to be a middling (at best) president.
The whole thing stinks of pre-packaged outrage, not unlike what happened to Rush over his Sandra Fluke comments. The group behind that already had things ready to go. They were just waiting for a chance to use it. I
Yes, this. I’m sure they were just waiting for something with which to hang their “Republicans are anti-women” charge.
Ernst, if that is directed at me then all I can say is once the meaning of what one says is ceded then there really is no hope for the future. Now that the GOP has shone that it will jump on the band wagon – even more forcefully than the left, well what more do you need to draw a conclusion? I was under the impression that is what PW has been about all these years.
Not a good analogy when the Captain had every reason to believe that he could expect artillery support before he ordered half his men across the bridge, and instead his superiors ordered an airstrike on the bridge the moment he weakened his position.
[…] Jeff Goldstein is worth quoting at length: Todd Akin didn’t rape Juanita Broderick. He didn’t drown Mary Jo Kopechne in his car. He didn’t engage in shady land deals, hang out with domestic terrorists and anti-semites, or stuff money in his freezer. He expressed a dubious claim about the frequency of pregnancy after rape — a claim that is based in part at least on well-known and frequently detailed barriers to conception, such as chronic stress. […]
You continue to condition Akin’s viability by the manufactured impression of that viability, which is to say that Akin is the victim of projection.
Before the fact of its occurring. That being the point of these threads.
In other words, you say he can’t win because he can’t win.
That might have been true prior to the public meltdown by nearly every public leader/opinion shaper on our side. After the OMIGODthisishorriblethere’snowayhecanpossiblywinnowthisissobad!, anybody who replaces him on the ballot is going to be tarred with the Akin shit. And that stuff just won’t wash out.
This isn’t about you offering proof in my comment section. It’s about the spontaneous wilding that was meant to drive him out of the race propelled by self-righteous and largely conditioned, phony outrage, that took place publicly.
Take a look at the linked piece in the trackback above.
Ok, he’s depraved. A few points:
1. It’s an issue for his constituents. It wasn’t a crime, at least not a career-ending crime.
2. Because he’s a Democrat, it won’t dominate the national news cycle. In fact it hasn’t already. I wager he will retain his seat.
3. What Gauthier did is far more repulsive than what Akin said. What Akin said is, however, deemed worthy to dominate the news cycle. Nationally. With a million RPM of spin on a metric ton of falsehod and misrepresentation.
4. The left doesn’t give a solitary shit about Gauthier. I mean, hello. The right is all wadded up in its short pants over Akin.
You figure it out. I already have and I mentioned Gauthier yesterday. He doesn’t bother me. What the right’s done to Akin bothers me.
Exactly. I mean, it’s not like there’s anything distracting him.
Everyone understands why this episode has made repealing Obamacare and real entitlement reform (as opposed to the usual spin-the-cylinder-and-hope-the-gun-goes-off-when-it’s-the-other-guy’s-turn-to-pull-the-trigger that passes for reform) all but impossible, right?
How is that at all what happened? Akin screwed up all on his own before the “party bosses” started calling for his head. Does a good record mitigate a mistake with potentially disastrous consequences? Would it save the captain from a court-martial?
Now, if you want to say that command should send in reinforcements to shore up the position, I would agree to that, but I would also say that they should relieve the captain of command along with those reinforcements.
How, precisely, did Akin screw up, Hadlowe?
JHoward: Gauthier is not up for national election and possibly a key vote to turn the senate republican.
Claire McCaskill is still a tax cheat though, so there’s that.
I think there’s a right not to expect your party elder’s to call for your head immediately upon the occassion of your first screw-up. Courtesy demands you at least be given time to rectify the screw-up.
If you want to stick with military analogies, this is like the WWI French High Command executing soldiers at random so as to inspire the others to fight harder.
Thats your opinion of what happened, likey fueled by either the lefts reaction or the “party bosses” reaction or the fact that he wasn’t your guy/gal in the first place or all of these things.
The military analogy does not match up to this as there are too many unstated possibilities as to the situation.
Mr. Akin said something, someone was offended, the GPO “party bosses” piled on.
He screwed up, apologized, and had it not been for the piling on, that would have been the end of it. Had the right instantly started talking about McCaskill’s abortion position vs that of Akin’s — that is, saying something along the lines of what I offered up yesterday — they would have recovered quickly and the subject dropped by the left.
The truth is, many on the right who keep telling us that this is the most important election ever and we have to win are the same ones whose first instinct is to help neuter conservative candidates.
Sorry, but that’s just what I see.
If the calendar is the only calculus for holding office, we’re screwed more ways than just fearing our opposition to the point we compete for his acceptance using his values.
But you haven’t answered my question, which alludes to my fear that Akins screwed up by putting himself into a position where he could be said to have screwed up. By making himself unfit by making himself unfit.
It’s all circular. Still. And you keep missing it.
Fucking purists! Can’t they show some pragmatism here? How do they expect to put their moderate in the White House without the support of conservatives?
The better analogy for Akin (immediately following that interview) was a pitcher in trouble in a tied playoff baseball game. It was not an issue of character but execution. But unlike a baseball club, the GOP does not have the control a manager has to pull a player and send in a reliever. And given how the GOP generally runs things, that is a good thing.
For the GOP establishment to do what they wanted to do they had to persuade Akin. Whether you agree or disagree with that decision, I think we all agree they would have been better off trying to do so in private (and living with the decision Akin might make).
It’s a damn shame that the powers-that-be cannot achieve this level of rapid unanimity over worthwhile, meaningful issues – I’ve never seen anything like this swarm / feeding frenzy that was whipped up in the course of a few hours.
Seems that Kirk Cameron has more balls than all the rest of Our Betters – he at least spoke out in favor of Rep. Akin.
And if saying something in an inartful way is the borderline between “We’re with you! and “OMG you MUST drop out IMMEDIATELY! how much are candidates going to want to articulate their beliefs when one or two words can mean a death sentence?
Rather a self-serving elevation of the venue, wouldn’t you say? I mean, local TV is not the GOP convention. This was more a Wednesday day game.
The truth is, this was very easy to recover from. Had it only been the left hissing, and had Akin known Republicans had his back, he could have shrugged it off.
No. I realize that the screechers are looking for a way to blame this on Akin, now that it’s clear he didn’t buckle to their fit, and their fit will be used to defeat him, but that won’t fly. They are going to have to accept that they themselves are responsible — far moreso than a politician sayng something “stupid” in an interview that could land him in temporary hot water from a disingenuous, cynically “outraged” left.
Not too long ago the remarks by Akin wouldn’t have created much of a fuss. They were part of the argument against late-term and partial-birth abortion and were promoted as scientific “fact” by many, many pro-life groups in response to the scientific “fact” that pro-abortion groups were trying to popularize at the time that 140% or some other bullshit number of late-term and partial birth abortions were the result of rape or incest and therefore the resultant baby should be punished by having its brain sucked out after having a scissors rammed into the back of its skull.
At some point, if the GOP, tea party, whatever, wants to keep winning, they will have to do what the other side does and school the candidates they favor in the latest bullshit. Because nothing, nothing will bring a campaign crashing down as fast as outdated bullshit. Professionals know what to do when shit like this happens. Look how often the Democrats manage to change sides on an issue.
TP types aren’t good at this type of professional bullshitting. The GOP is better at it, but not to the point of being able to dump some bespectacled fat girl on TV to talk about how the candidate was “just off message”. The Dems “message” is bigger than their candidates.
The “conservative faction” haven’t yet realized that whenever they pull the “denouncing” card they lose… and they lose big. Either conservatives are complete idiots (possible) or they simply don’t want to win the argument.
This incident is a good indicator that many on the right have not learned the lesson about controlling the narrative, or at least following their own narrative, rather than buckling under to the narrative created by the left. The progressives should feel very proud of themselves. The progressives have the right falling all over themselves to demonstrate their progressive credentials.
Unless it proves the opposite, cranky, and too many on the right simply refuse to accept that “our” side isn’t out side, because there is no our side.
The mere fact that the GOP fails to find the pattern here is deeply demoralizing on answers to questions of the nations’ prospects. Is there a filter barring entry to membership to anyone possessing the requisite characteristic of pattern recognition? Nah. There’s another element in play.
The people of Missouri will have their say on election day.
Call it a 21st century Missouri Compromise.
I haven’t declared him unfit for office and I don’t intend to. But if the MO electorate does so, I’d guess that will be because he’s an idiot. He could have recovered from sticking his foot in his mouth with the application of some political savvy, but apparently the fire from his right absolves him of all responsibility for running a competent campaign and/or failing to do so. A politician can’t be expected to be able to function in the face of adversity or distraction. He’ll make a lovely martyr though, so we’ve got that going for us. Plus, we’ve got all these media appearances where he does nothing but pick at the scab to keep us comforted with his suffering.
That works too, Ernst. Either way, we are more alone than it looks like on paper.
As far as pattern recognition and filtering goes, I think that even among intelligent people (and I’m not claiming the GOP is comprised of such) there is often a tendency to turn the filters off under some circumstances. I’m not sure if the cause is laziness, their assumption that the electorate expects them to behave in the way they do, or the acceptance of the notion that getting and maintaining power requires it of them. It may be a combination of all three factors I mentioned, plus many more I haven’t considered.
Of course not. But it does explain to a certain degree the missteps, does it not?
I mean, having your own side — from the Presidential candidate on down — calling for you to step aside, surrender your career, and take one for the team who just helped fuck you, that tends to focus the mind, leaving the polished bromides of typical campaign politics more difficult to carry off.
As for his being a lovely martyr. No. That belongs to those who told us he was unelectable, just like they did with Angle and O’Donnell. They’ll be proven right and we’ll fail to take the Senate. That’s the danger of running certain kinds of candidates.
We really should learn to listen to our betters and not get so uppity!
So saying or believing that the stress of a rape might reduce the chance that that one sex act would result in a pregnancy is crazy but believing that it will greatly increase the chance of a pregnancy occurring, SCIENCE!!
Did you all think that the hockey stick and Climate Science!! was some one off thing or do you realize it the norm in much of our academic research establishment. *
Who defaced the Hermae?
Someone should celebrate that the US has finally become a fully fledged Democracy, with the attendant sweepings. We can only guess the democrats will see to the arrangements.
He could have shrugged it off anyway and gotten back to thumping McCaskill. Or he could have turned the problem into an attack on McCaskill’s related record. he could have done a lot of things that would have helped him and aside from the retraction, he hasn’t done any of them.
Sure. Akin isn’t at all at fault here. He didn’t do anything to cause this or compound this problem. It’s entirely because of the rest of the world that he’s gotten fried by that third rail he grabbed. After all, he was only saying that raped women rarely get pregnant so there’s not much point in worrying about those that do.
You sound idiotic, geoff B. A moron. I cringe at your links. Were you running for public office I’d have every reason right now to conclude you are an irredeemable moron. That I’ve never thought you particularly grossly moronic and incapable of doing the job of public servant until now is beside the point.
Because, well, just listen to you! I sure as hell don’t want any of that sticking to me, when the people we don’t care about pass judgment on us.
So one mispoken word is failing to run a competent campaign. I suppose we learned this from the left.
Would that that were what he said. It isn’t.
No, 3 days of flopping around like a flounder on the deck is failing to run a competent campaign.
When your apology includes “The fact is, rape can lead to pregnancy.” it isn’t because you said such stress might reduce the chances of it happening.
Now you’re just being painfully stubborn. Yes. He probably just could have shrugged off the public call by his own party for his head on a “we don’t cotton to extremists” platter. But somehow he got distracted. Probably because he’s a moron.
I didn’t say Akin was “at all at fault.” I also didn’t say he “didn’t do anything to cause this or compound this.”
And no, it isn’t because of “the rest of the world” that he’s gotten fried. Mostly it’s because some on the right have a constant need to distance themselves from part of their base and even their party platform — and to do so very publicly and ostentatiously and with an increasing propensity to brook no dissent on matters that have been socially settled. It’s either sanctimony or intellectual hubris that drives it, but it’s there.
Or that they are outliers, and you don’t set public policy to accomodate all outliers — an argument Levin makes constantly on health care, interestingly enough.
Of course, I suppose you could be saying that he’s a fake Christian who doesn’t much care about rape victims. Which seems the more likely read of what he said, his being a Hater and all.
Ernst comes out as an Ent. S’okay, they play nice with Hobbits.
Right. It’s because up until the outcry, you thought a magic vagina stopped it. After all, you’re deeply religious. You probably think dinosaurs roamed the earth 6000 years ago.
Well if there were an analgy to fit this then it would be one where the platoon was advancing toward the enemy under fire and suddenly finds the artilery barrage they requested is falling on their position as well.
And you would expect complete control of their faculties under the circumstance I assume. Perhaps you should run for office Pablo since you obviously know how to react to anything that may come up.
Apparently, it squelches the political survival instinct too. Or, perhaps he’s just not very good at this. Adversity is part of politics. If you can’t operate under it, you lose.
That should read “hadn’t requested”.
I guess that remains to be seen. If he wins, it’s a big fuck you and he can’t be wrangled by the party. If he loses he’s toast.
Guess he didn’t want the consolation prize he knew he was being offered. Perhaps he’s figured he’d paid his dues, and that he may not get another shot. And he’s a big fan of 8 Mile.
No, this is painfully easy: “The people nominated me to run this race, and I’m not going to let them down. I misspoke and I’ve corrected it. There’s nothing to say about that that hasn’t been said. Now, how about that McCaskill and the economy crushing buddy Obama?”
“Some on the right” is damn near everybody on the right, many of whom bear no resemblance to what you’re describing.
It’s nice that you’re willing to do for Akin what he won’t do for himself – defend his comment. Since you put it that way, I’ve completely forgotten cringing when I heard him say it.
There should be something about dropping a live grenade in your pants in there.
Well, at least he won’t be getting pregnant.
Because pols are never the first casuality of the political correctness that wants them deposed?
I live within spitting distance of Missouri. Akin’s remarks aren’t creating any outrage that I’ve heard of.
I have a distinct impression that Akin wasn’t the guy you wanted to win Pablo. I imagine you would be full of Righteous Indignation if he was.
Pablo, you owe me a new monitor. Preferably one not covered with Diet Coke, k?
I don’t think Pablo’s real, TRH – I think he’s a character Jeff made up to demonstrate the traits described in Jeff’s post.
I don’t think Pablo’s real, TRH – I think he’s a character Jeff made up to demonstrate the traits described in Jeff’s post.
Hush yo’ mouf.
I realize that the screechers are looking for a way to blame this on Akin, now that it’s clear he didn’t buckle to their fit, and their fit will be used to defeat him, but that won’t fly.
It is what it is now. And you are right there will be screechers doing exactly that. We saw that with Christine O’Donnell and the shameless way the GOP and Castle sabotaged her in the general election. But we should be still striving to defeat McCaskill (who is a true disaster). Levin is said that yesterday. I am sure Rush will be saying that today. If Karl Rove has a Cartman moment and refuses to play, oh well, so much better for Akin and the people of Missouri.
Certainly we can all get on one another’s nerves around here and snark feeds snark but it’d be a shame if long-time friends and allies lost sight of “long-time”, “friends”, and “allies”.
(This is where I tend to insert the “Of course I’m not blameless with this sort of thing”.)
Well SVT that would make a bit of sense then considering Pablo was preaching that we all simply had to get behind Romney or the end was neigh. It’s really all about electability and Pablo obviously being one of our betters we must simply take what he tells us a gospel rather than what our lying ears might hear.
Hush yo’ mouf.
Damn straight, Carin. Them’s fightin’ worrds.
I’ve seen the assertion here and there that the hypothetical Republican loss of the Missouri senate seat to its current Democrat occupant would in effect mean the loss of the potential majority control of the Senate. But I don’t understand this.
That is, I had thought the higher goal of the Republican effort was to near a 60 vote majority, if not entirely achieve it? Anyhow, if anyone can show that Republican failure in Missouri means Republican failure to gain a Senate majority, I’d appreciate the instruction.
Until he became the nominee, I couldn’t have cared less. Since then, I’ve wanted him to win. But my confidence that he’ll do it has taken a serious hit from the revelation that he’s an idiot. Yes, he’s our idiot. But he’s still an idiot.
I don’t see it either, sdferr. Nor do I see them getting 60. But mid to low 50’s seems likely to me.
Yeah, it’s like I just fell off the truck and into pw yesterday. Idiot.
Extrapolating that out then anyone who didn’t hear the bad juju must also be an idiot. The word of our betters is spoken.
What was it again? Ds are defending 21 and Rs are defending 10? Have no idea on how many of those are competitive or easy flips. I was thinking low 50s seemed a safe-ish assumption but I don’t really recall why I was thinking that.
Not exactly on topic but: gobsmacked?
sdferr, there is still a very good chance for a Senate GOP majority even if McCaskill wins. I hope she does not win.
Additionally, if anyone could explain what modern mathematical science has to say about its own verity or usefulness in matters of politics as such, I’d be grateful for the pointers. Somewhere along the way I’d gotten the — perhaps mistaken — impression that natural science had disavowed any knowledge of “values” at all, so had set itself entirely apart from political acts and deliberation. Or so the consensus had gone (but could that consensus have been in error?).
You just love putting words in my mouth, don’t you? Quote me saying that or anything like it ONCE. I’ll wait.
This is a game you’re not going to win, child.
Because this has happened in stages. Remember, on day I I mostly agreed with Levin’s take. He was just as angry with the cowards on the right as I was.
Where he’s taken it I don’t agree with. That most people have joined the preference cascade — and don’t resemble the types who started the cascade a goin’ — doesn’t matter to me. What I’ve been describing was who was initially behind this, and I simply won’t be told yet again that I don’t want to win simply because I won’t do it their way and provide them with ever more power and control over me. Even if damn near everybody on the right says I should.
As for Akin not defending his comment, of course not. He probably realized at that point that he shouldn’t have been getting into the weeds on a small point of his pro life position, and so instead he did what most politicians do: say he misspoke, apologize, and hope to move on.
Only this time his own side worked to make sure that couldn’t happen.
Yep. If CT is in play, anything is possible.
So that was you Pablo making all those comments regarding not voting for Romney was a vote for Obama?
Being a bit loose with who you think I may be as well.
Linda McMahon is gonna suplex the shit out of Connecticut.
Maybe. Just wanted to say that mainly.
Maine is in play, I hear.
Hoping to move on is not enough. He needed to actively do it, change the subject, change the narrative, get to talking about something…anything else. All he came up with was “Elite media!” and even his staunchest supporters began to fall away.
If he could have gone swinging through yesterday’s deadline, it could have forced the establishment back behind him. Instead, he was limping, bleeding and pointing fingers. That’s not a strong campaign stance.
No, it wasn’t.
The guy who’s tried playing this game with me before.
Jeff commented on wrong thread:
But he’s a functioning retard who wouldn’t have voted to nationalize health care. Unlike the really bright Ivy Leaguers who either want to grow the government or manage the masses — and, in the case of our side, continue to believe that if they just show that they, too, are part of an educated elite, despite their political leanings, they’ll be accepte
Yes, this.
He also has never said that Guam was going to flip over if we stationed too many Marines on it. Which, imho, is a MUCH stupider thing to say.
Yes, hoping is not enough. You expect the support of your party and cover from your allies.
He wasn’t really allowed to change the subject. Strangely, when your own party is howling for your ouster, that’s all the media seems to want to talk about!
Oh. And showing me how bloody someone is after you’ve blindsided and beaten him to prove that he’s vulnerable isn’t as convincing as some people seem to hope it is.
Connecticut? Holy Cow? I added her to that Senate “dig deep” post with a credit to Pablo.
Scratch, that. That was SVT, not TR. Until now.
Changing the subject is Politics 101. As is talking about what you want to talk about instead of what your interviewer wants to. Have we not seen this a million times?
He also has never said that Guam was going to flip over if we stationed too many Marines on it. Which, imho, is a MUCH stupider thing to say.
Yeah but he is a Black Democrat where an IQ of about 60 makes you an expert. If you are a Black Republican you have to have an IQ greater than140 just to be called a moron. And a Black Conservative? The left would institutionalize you if they could get away with it. It’s the Political Bell Curve.
While your own party is issuing press releases and Tweet amalgamations calling for your ouster? No.
Pablo, I rarely comment on PW, no I haven’t tried playing this game with you before. And I do remeber your saying we needed to get behind whomever the candidate was.
If we are going to play a preception game regarding how you feel a particular candidate is responding to whatever may be happening during an election cycle then I should be able to characterize what I see as your comments meaning. Thats what we’re doing here no? Everything is perception now and it is those who force their perception the best who win isn’t it? That is how I read your comments regarding this and the related posts.
If you’re still here, I consider you one of my boys / girls. So no worries from me.
We can tell each other that we’re ignorant sacks of ferret shit. But nobody else had better try it.
Who lost China? [Who won?]
Who lost Egypt? [Who won?]
Who lost Missouri? [Who won?]
Pattern much?
Actually he did say Guam would “tip over and capsize”
I’m take a nap while the baby is doing the same.
Have at it.
[Quietly saves “ignorant sacks of ferret shit” for future use.]
Ready, aim, Republican
EBL, I can’t watch that clip any more because I feel so sorry for that military fellow trying to answer the question with respect.
That guy deserves a medal.
OT: Here’s an interesting read on the effects of all those different gas formulations.
[Quietly saves “ignorant sacks of ferret shit” for future use]
You would.
/longs for days when we had a ‘bot and thorazine to punch upon, but only for a second until I remember what a pain in the ass they both were.
No, you don’t. See, I’m not voting for Romney.
To drag us back to a happier bit of speculation, how would the various Senate contests be going in y’alls particular locales?
Like, say, in Wisco (Hey Tommy, GOProud says hooowah!) ? Or Ohio (Oh how fine a thing to see that bastard Brown gone, eh)? Is Taxachusetts Brown on track?
Connie Mack, I’m sorry but not surprised to have to report, isn’t making much headway against dullard Bill Nelson as yet.
If there is some sooper sekret playbook out there that the Dems are all working from and all the old heads on the Team R are well aware of how they always, always, always use a quarterback sneak (insert sports analogy of your preference) doesn’t that presume that the Rs should be in the know and have a counter-manoeuver?
Or is more satisfying, if you are a fat little pundit like Bill Kristal, et al, to lace your fingers together over your belly, lean back in your chair and harumph, “I knew this would happen.”
Connie Mack, I’m sorry but not surprised to have to report, isn’t making much headway against dullard Bill Nelson as yet.
The latest poll had Mack in the lead, though that was the same poll that had Romney up by 14. So maybe that’s not entirely accurate.
Well, Dan Bongino is running against Ben Cardin in Maryland. Bongino is an upright, decent man, who served his country in the Secret Service. He’s an outstanding, well-spoken, conservative. In other words he doesn’t have a prayer here in the People’s Republic.
Sigh.
By the way, just so we’re clear, assholes like Drew Magary are going to make me root for Akin to pull a victory out.
I’ve been looking a Bongino’s youtube vids and yowser, find him awesome. Yeah, Maryland seems to have replaced Mass. as the most dependably socialist state. But then, mere proximity to the seat of power and funds would tend to do that to a people, wouldn’t it?
Maryland spawned both Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer.
“I can’t think because of the press releases!”
Yeah, no. Also, the big guns weren’t firing at him until midday yesterday. He had the better part of 2 days to get his legs under him and he couldn’t do it.
In Wisco, I don’t see Tammy Baldwin successfully taking her voting record statewide. It would have taken them someone like Ron Kind this year, I think.
Tommy will take the seat.
But then, mere proximity to the seat of power and funds would tend to do that to a people, wouldn’t it?
Look at Virginia, my neighbors to the southwest. They’re being pulled left just by the sheer force of northern Virginia and the DC suburbs alone.
“Look at Virginia, my neighbors to the southwest.”
Yep. I left there shortly before the migration in the northern burbs began, and watched it from afar.
Ach, I mean the ideological migration, not a physical one.
“Changing the subject is Politics 101. As is talking about what you want to talk about instead of what your interviewer wants to. Have we not seen this a million times?”
Okay then. The bright lights of the republican party and movement are now performing in a high energy way at a sub- Politics 101 levels of expertise. This shit is junior high school level.
The “bright lights” of the Republican Party are so used to being bashed for no good reason that they burst into orangey tears whenever someone inadvertently reminds them that MSNBC is still on the air.
Well, yes I do however that does not mean that my memory of the comments on the topic is 100% accurate. Since you say you are not voting for Romney then I am likely mistaken.
That however doesn’t change the perception that you are just as adament about Mr. Akin being “stupid” as that person was about not voting for Romney. Would that we could find the pure candidate who has no skeletons and can weather the worst assult thrown at them. There is no such politician.
If you think you could then run for office, if you think you could advise a candidate better then become a political consultant. If you don’t want to do that then that’s up to you however while armchair quartbacking or after the fact critiques are fine, beating the subject of your derision to death figuratively can be grating especially to those who don’t or didn’t see the initial problem as that big a deal. You said as much yourself. It seems though to me that you want to hold others to your own personal “this is what I would do” standard.
You along with quite a few commenters here are smart and you don’t condone stupidity but not everyone is blessed with smart, certainly not I, but I do have common sense. There is likely more that should go in this spot but I am going to excerise that common sense now and get some sleep as I am too ired to put it more coherently.
Sigh. Yeah… I agree with you Jeff.
But in the current political climate of America, I really think he should have stepped down. And yes, that includes (and probably especially includes) how much the GOP sucks these days.
But then, we don’t stick around here cause we’re part of the “GOP cocksuckers for America!!” club.
Hmmmm.
Niall Ferguson’s three points also seem to be part of the GOP Establishment playbook…
Car in says August 22, 2012 at 12:23 pm
EBL, I can’t watch that clip any more because I feel so sorry for that military fellow trying to answer the question with respect.
That guy deserves a medal.
Yes. It is frankly conduct above and beyond the call of duty that he restrained himself from bursting out laughing.
Stupid Townhall columnist, celebrating rank IDIOCY like that.
When we lose Missouri, I call dibs on blaming her.
Akin on GMA today.
Been AFK, so sorry if this is all non sequitur at this point.
Yes, the stakes are high. Yes, we want to win the Senate. But
No need for caveats.
“The stakes are high and we want to win the Senate, therefore and thus we’ll no longer accept being told who we can have as a candidate and who we cannot have, nor will we stand by and watch jackals tear the flesh off a decent man… nor will we be shamed into standing up to such left-provoked wildings just because the sanctimonious GOP elite decided to play us too!”
FTFY
in favor of another, pro-life conservative who almost certainly could beat McCaskill
Name?
Akin screwed up all on his own
How ’bout we STOP LOOKING at moronic public statements as career-killing screw-ups no matter how embarrassing and inaccurate and ripe-for-MSM-fodder they are and start insisting that the only standard our representatives must meet IS THAT THEY VOTE THE WAY WE WANT THEM TO and not engage in criminal or unethical behavior at the same time.
This is what I mean about the battered wife stubbing out cigarettes on her own arm, to save her drunken abuser the trouble.
HOW’S ABOUT WE QUESTION THE VERY PREMISE OF STUBBING OUT CIGS ON HUMAN FLESH?
Just so bh can quit worrying that all the shouting means mommy and daddy don’t luv each other anymore,
I’d gladly share my scotch and cigars with Pablo (or charles or lamont); just so I could call him a sackless wonder (and listen to him call me a brainless moron) to his face.
and start insisting that the only standard our representatives must meet IS THAT THEY VOTE THE WAY WE WANT THEM TO
<slow clap!>
It’s okay, I’d forgotten all about it after running through the sprinkler for awhile. Now if someone would just make me some beans and wieners and pour me some apple juice, all would be right with the world.
(For what it’s worth, referring to specific people and comments just makes a bigger deal of things than is necessary but I wasn’t particularly worried Pablo and you were gonna shiv each other.)
JHoward:
First: Akin screwed up by engaging the media in the first place. How big was Akin’s lead in the race last week? If he had any sort of inkling that he was as weak a candidate as he’s proven himself to be, he could have cruised to a win by just making stump appearances and running milquetoast campaign commercials. Instead, he goes into the lair of the beast and proceeds to throw up on himself when asked an unfair but predictable question.
Second: He was unprepared for the interview. The guy is a social con who is on the record as being on an extreme end of the pro-life continuum. He should have been able to address the question in nine words. “I believe in punishing the rapist, not the child.” Instead he meandered around to that statement, but not before invoking God’s little shield in talking about “legitimate rape.”
And, after all that, he has continued to show that he is a lousy politician. After all of this blew up around him, he starts blaming the party and the liberal media. The problem is that he was the one seeking out the media, and Akin is not some new to politics Tea Party outsider fighting the establishment. That was Sarah Steelman. The guy rode Bush’s compassionate conservative coattails into congress in 2000 and has been a lockstep republican ever since. For him to cast himself now as some victim of the republican machine ganging up on an outsider is disingenuous at best. What happened is that the republican machine came down hard on an insider who hand-delivered a rhetorical gift to a progressive movement desperately searching to demagogue any sort of social issue instead of talking about the economy.
Jeff takes issue with the Republicans failing to stand up for their guy. He’s not wrong. The stupid party is that for a reason.
However, the way I see it, Romney, Ryan, Reince and the Republicans have been working their butts off to keep the media from chasing every shiny object that the Obama camp throws at them, trying to keep the message on the lousy economy. Then, some doofus in their ranks stands up and yells “Hey, let’s talk about rape and abortion instead.” That’s a firing offense right there.
bh, I hear the ice cream man and I have two dimes! Let’s go!
Sweet. I could really go for an orange push up.
I’ve heard it intimated that how, former [D], Akin won the primary over the Tea-Party candidate was that he got funding and votes from democrats (small d). Would they (the big D ones) go so far as to screw with the primary to get someone they knew they could use just like this? Ever since “Macaca” I wouldn’t say that the Party of [D] would never do any such thing.
Besides it’s a two-fer for them they rid themselves of another bluedog and pull McCaskill’s ass across the finish line one more time.
I’ve heard it intimated that how, former [D], Akin
wiki
“William Todd Akin (born July 5, 1947) is the U.S. Representative for Missouri’s 2nd congressional district, serving since 2001. He is a member of the Republican Party.”
It simply remains for the people to resist the stupid machinations. That shouldn’t be too hard.
Thank you nr. Strange that I’ve come across references that said he was a former Dem.
i think mccaskill was running ads during the primaries saying akin was severely conservative
Rick Perry is a former democrat too. So was Mitt Romney.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedpolitics/mitt-romney-was-a-democrat
Rick Perry is a former democrat too. So was Mitt Romney.
And Reagan.
Hell, if I can count the years before I was actually old enough to vote, I used to be a Democrat too. Then Jerry Brown and Jimmy Carter showed me the error of my ways and I turned 18 just in time to help nominate and elect Ronald Reagan.
I voted for Carter.
I am hoping saying it out loud often enough will some day alleviate the shame.
Sounds like a family reunion! I’m in.
That would be easier to do if he wasn’t yakking about it into any and every microphone he can find 24/7. The FYNQ formulation would go a long way here.
I was too young, thankfully. But I was listening to the Allman Brothers and how he wanted to legalize pot…
The good professor is unusually verbose in his take on this particular tempest in a teapot.
I was old enough and the pot thing was what got me to pull the lever. Jimmah was the last Dem I voted for.
Nixon – McGovern geoffb?
Nixon.
It was close though.
“legitimate rape” part because it distracts from the very issue Akin himself was trying to hide from: What about pregnancy that results from rape? Akin doesn’t want to confront that this happens, which is why he put forth his dumb rape-doesn’t-cause-pregnancy theory.
mr. insty be putting on the straw man
I turned 18 just in time to help nominate and elect Ronald Reagan.
I was 19 and I voted for John Anderson. The one and only time I went third party.
I voted for Carter also. Did canvassing work for him when he ran for Governor the first time. He lost to Lester Maddox, who lost the popular vote to (R) Bo Callaway, but there was no majority, so the GA House selected Maddox. And so it goes.
The “pot thing” is one of the reasons I loath Democrats now.
When “we” took over we were going to free the weed. Instead we are outlawing snack cakes and Big Gulps.
Fuck ’em all.
Hi, BT —
Thanks for the Blogad purchase. I had to figure out how to login. That’s how many blogads I’ve sold. Time was, I was sold out always. Back in the day.
Well I do what I can. I understand your frustration. DG has been around 10 years also. Place used to hum. Good mix of the political spectrum. 4-500 posts a day on average in a forum with 40 active members. Never made money off of it, but i think it filled a void in a lot of peoples lives, because i think they would pull up a chair and spent time with their internet friends and almost feel like they were at the local pub with them, hanging out, having a laugh and a beer. It was their second home.
Oh well. Maybe places like this or that keep people from going crazy. I’m pretty sure that is the product DebateGate provides.
And i like the idea of starting a GOP Deathwatch site.
After the election.
Romney, Ryan, Reince and the Republicans have been working their butts off to keep the media from chasing every shiny object that the Obama camp throws at them, trying to keep the message on the lousy economy. Then, some doofus in their ranks stands up and yells “Hey, let’s talk about rape and abortion instead.” That’s a firing offense right there.
RRRRR and R should have a better strategy for dealing with the inevitable “bimbo eruptions.”
Here it is:
Every time some doofus on our side biffs it, and the Left tries to make off with the prize, stuff it down their throats so hard they’ll be gagging for weeks.
Akin is obviously too stupid to defend himself (as are most politicians), so RRRRRR and R should have a macro at the ready wherein they point out that whatever awful thing the idiot republican did, the left is ten times worse and has been for decades.
hand-delivered a rhetorical gift
See, here’s the problem: There’s no reason we can’t turn every single lemon into lemon merengue pie with a side of sparkling lemonade and a handful of lemon drops. RRRRRR and R only had to say, “Excuse me, but you people are cool with state-funded infanticide and have managed to enact it into law.”
Or something to that effect. The past few threads on this blog alone provide a motherlode of Ways To Stuff This Back Down Their Throats.
What alien planet have RRRRRR and R been living on that they don’t know exactly what the Left will say about any given issue? We morons in our pajamas can predict how they’ll react down to the ALL CAPS and the number of exclamation points.
Why can’t they?
Time to abandon the learned helplessness, folks. Time to stop believing that the Left is omnipotent.
Sometimes, your lemon is also an inept idiot. Pie full of stupid is hard to sell.
McGovern, personally I blame the acid and it was my first presidential election as I was 6 months too young in ’68. There, those are the only Democrats I’ve ever voted for to my everlasting shame.
“Sometimes, your lemon is also an inept idiot. Pie full of stupid is hard to sell.”
Yep and sometimes the people in their rush condemn the inept idiot before the other party does reveal that they are no smarter and prone to cause even more damage. Then the idiots all point fingers at each other and cause even more damage.
If you aren’t willing to vote for inept idiots there is no reason to even leave the house for most folks.
Right. He admits that and admits being mistaken about it.
He hasn’t said anything that stupid. If he fesses up to it, let me know.
Pie full of stupid is hard to sell.
because claire “effin'” mccaskill is a wonderful snake oil.
Have we come to the place where we can’t recognize that one of ours is a fucking moron? How is that different from proclaiming the righteousness of Joe Biden?
And because blue shoe bologna platform heel. Thanks for your input.
“Have we come to the place where we can’t recognize that one of ours is a fucking moron?”
Wait, I thought the Republicans nominated John McCain the last time out?
McCaskill is benefiting from the diligent work of a great many morons who can’t seem to stop making things worse.
I believe the line is “Keep fucking that chicken!”
How is that different from proclaiming the righteousness of Joe Biden?
tanned ready and rested: hairplugs #occupy tampa
Mainly Todd Akin, who can’t seem to get back on message.
Have we come to the place where we can’t recognize that one of ours is a fucking moron?
I recognize that damn near all of ours are fucking morons.
On the bright side, do you realize we might get to hear Shep Smith breathlessly regal us with stories of cannibalism from GOP delegates trapped in the Tampa Convention Center?
And this time he might even be right.
I recall that “we” saw that one coming. I’m hoping we haven’t gotten dumber.
If anyone has a clip of Akin helping himself, I’d LOVE to see it. God knows there’s plenty of material out there.
“Mainly Todd Akin, who can’t seem to get back on message.”
And Krauthammer, Coulter, Limbaugh, Loesch, NRO…
And Krauthammer, Coulter, Limbaugh, Loesch, NRO…
coulter on hannity radio says we are doomed. no mention of the choomed
yo pablo how’s come we ain’t talking about “being on the choom/chain gang”?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK3uf5V0pDA
Don’t forget Malkin, Palin, Blunt, Danforth, Ashcroft, Bond, Talent and a sloo of others I can’t be bothered to remember at the moment who have deigned to weigh in on this shitstorm. Just remember the poor victim. Todd Akin. And in deference to his victimhood, let’s not mention how he’s booting what should have been a slam dunk win. It isn’t his fault.
Because The Pretenders haven’t been relevant since the 80’s, nr.
Don’t forget Malkin, Palin,
you mean the palin who can see russia from her bath room? yea play that game.
The Pretenders haven’t been relevant since the 80?s, nr.
neither has the bushy rethuglicans. go team r.
“Just remember the poor victim. Todd Akin. ”
Yup. Remember him over and over and over again as loud as you can. Keep it going. Make it even bigger news than it was. Winning!
The important thing is to repeat over and over again that the man is stupid in public and imply that we all need to chant it together and make a sort of sub culture based on it. Because doing that makes us look good (to who?) and brings our issues to the fore. Somehow that’s going to turn into a winning issue for the Republicans. And if it doesn’t then we’ll remember the Akin stupidity and forget the everybody else constantly reminding voters how stupid a pro life republican in critical race is stupidity.
One guys said something stupid and the republican punditry is apparently far too stupid to know what to do about it so they add to it and make it worse and remind everybody of how stupid it was and help to make it sound even stupider for DAYS and do the work that should be left to the democrat punditry. It is so stupid as to be pathetic. And the worst thing is that the idiots want a cookie now for making this mess five times bigger than it was.
The “B’ side to that is Rush’s theme song.
My city was gone!
Thought experiment:
You are a political party backing a candidate and have limited ad money. So you have to choose. You have two commercials you can run. You are down in the polls and desperate, and the people of your state who have put you in that spot know it.
1) Soundbite footage of your opponent using the phrase “legitimate rape” blah blah blah — a phrase for which he apologized and said he misspoke — in an economy that’s in the shitter, with everyone in your state aware that you are not what you sold yourself to be as the incumbent.
2) Blurb after blurb appearing on the screen from the opposition party calling your opponent, who is in that party, a moron, a fallen Christian, an extremist, calling on him to step down, claiming that he thinks himself “bigger than the cause,” images of copies of official Party memos sent calling on him to drop out of the race — all before a black screen appears and in big white letters, no sound, “TOO EXTREME FOR THEM, TOO EXTREME FOR MISSOURI”.
Which do you run? Why?
The prosecution rests.
Silliness. They are a force of nature. They are fate.
We must learn not to anger the gods.
The “B’ side to that is Rush’s theme song.
oiho
i went back to oiho and showed the idiot baracky pic
i do that 57 times for teresa heinz and baracky
We shall go on to the end, we shall mock them
fightin France, we shall mock themfighton the seas and oceans, we shall mock themfightwith growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall mock themfighton the beaches, we shall mock themfighton the landing grounds, we shall mock themfightin the fields and in the streets, we shall mock themfightin the hills; we shall never surrenderAdmittedly, there’s a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face—that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand—the ultimatum. And what then—when Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we’re retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he’s heard voices pleading for “peace at any price” or “better Red than dead,” or as one commentator put it, he’d rather “live on his knees than die on his feet.” And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don’t speak for the rest of us.
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/reference/timechoosing.html
back on the choom gang
Ah, so now Mark Levin is a dirty RINO too. Come on. Being a reliable conservative in a tiny house district is FAR different from becoming Senator. This isn’t just one gaffe, it is clear evidence of RETARDATION, frankly.
Oh, and I suppose you were also at the front making not that DEMOCRATS were spending money in support of Akin for this very reason.
So the Democrats set the trap, you stepped in it, and now we are the idiots for not playing along.
Right.
Oh, and FYI, the reason Akin’s negatives have doubled is because he believed that a woman’s cooch had some magical power to resist pregnancy under rape. Just to be clear.
Second, whether or not pregnancy due to rape is rare or not (all pregnancy is fairly rare, also FYI) does not in any way, shape, or form result in support of ANY kind of causal relationship to any magical way for the female uterus or other parts to repel incoming rape sperm.
DO NOT try the kind retarded moron thinking that the left relies on to support such idiocy as climate change where correlation is proof positive of causation.
Women who are raped DO INDEED become pregnant, regardless of how rare it may be.
The fact is that his retarded belief by Akin was a convenient dodge for him to be able to say “no abortion ever” without having to use his feeble brain to justify why there can be no abortion even for rape. That is the kind of nonsense the left is famous for.
Yeah, THIS is the guy you should die on the hill for.
Its not about dying on a hill for him, its about throwing wood on a bonfire on your own back porch.
“Legitimate rape” vs. “rape rape.”
Compare and contrast.
And let’s not forget that Barack Obama hired as one of his top Department of Education officials a gay-rights activist named Kevin Jennings, who once glibly counseled a “15-year-old” student thought to have been statutorily raped by an older man: “I hope you knew to use a condom.” Jennings is also known for having been “inspired” by Harry Hay, a supporter of the North American Man Boy Love Association.
Don’t expect Obama to receive any questions from the press about these views of his first “Safe Schools Czar.” No, outrage in this culture is restricted to those deemed unenlightened in the nuances of avant-garde morality. According to its porous scorecard, Christianity is bad for women while Islam is good for them. Pro-life countries receive scoldings from Hillary Clinton, while the one-child policy of China, which kills female infants, isn’t “second-guessed” by this administration, as Joe Biden put it on a visit.
In a culture that panders to pro-abortion feminists like Sandra Fluke, thought crimes always rank higher than real ones. Words, not deeds, drive pols from public life. So Akin has to go. He simply harbors the wrong thoughts and no apology will be sufficient from him until he changes his position on abortion. Beneath all the hysterical extrapolations from his remark, which grew wilder and wilder as the days passed, lay that essential demand: approve of killing unborn children conceived under circumstances of rape or be deemed “anti-woman.”
link
Oh, and FYI, deadrody, I’m not fighting for Akin.
But then, as a complete and utter relativist and political pragmatist who, from you armchair, have the convenience of treating actual people as game pieces, I wouldn’t expect you to see that.
?
So I take this to mean you think I’m something of a moron, too, BMoe?
He is? Because I haven’t said that. I said I agreed with him on day one and disagreed with him on day two.
US Senate candidate vs. whatever it is Whoopi Goldberg is.
Got it.
heh, yeah, Whoopi doesn’t have the power to remove Akin from the ballot either.
Nobody’s called Levin a dirty RINO. The fact that Levin, Limbaugh et. al. and the RINOS agree no more makes the former RINOs than it makes the latter right.
And if this election is damn vitally, critically, irreversibly, undeniably IMPORTANT!, it shouldn’t matter what his views are about rape babies or dinosaurs and man living together or any other that other crap. If he’s at least as functional as Robert Byrd was in his last term, that makes him twice the Senator Joe Biden was.
And if we all understand how important it is to keep the House and win back the Senate and White House, presumably the voters of Missouri do as well.
And if they don’t, perhaps that’s because the brain trust which purports to speak for the right isn’t behaving as if it were.
good post jeff.
Good point: if we’re all obligated (more-or-less) to vote for Mitt Romney for the good of the country, despite our early-and-often objections to doing exactly that…
…then why shouldn’t the good voters of MO be obligated to vote for an “ignorant” “retard” (according to Everybody That Counts) against their will, again, for the good of the country. Everyone has to take a bite, as they say.
Or are National Level issues too complicated for those flyover rubes to understand? Poll Question!
Sure he’d be a better Senator than Barbara Boxer and Barbara Mikulski and Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer and Al Franken. If he gets elected.
You know what’s magical thinking?
magical thinking is believing that saying over and over that
means Akin said he believes in the magical powers of the uterus to ward off rape sperm.
He’s not the one who said that. I don’t know who started that particular meme, but since it’s almost certainly a proggtard, I’d hesitate before repeating it.
John, I’m saying that if the issues at stake are so important, Akin’s views on legitmate rape and probabilities of rape resulting in pregnancy aren’t an issue at all.
And if Akin’s views are an issue, then the other issues can’t be that important.
If Republicans don’t want to be distracted by this, then Romney et. al. shouldn’t have made it a distraction.
Sure, this is all Romney’s fault. Akin is merely a bit actor (pending confirmation): According to the latest Rasmussen Reports survey for the Senate race in Missouri, Claire McCaskill (D) is dusting Todd Akin (R) by ten points, 48 percent to 38 percent.
Stupid squish RINO Missouri electorate just doesn’t understand what’s important, which is ignoring the profoundly stupid rape comments Akin made for the good of America. Why won’t they just move on?
I think your link is broken, Pablo.
The Democrats set the trap, and everybody from Mitt Romney on down did play along by jumping into it. So yeah, that makes the Republicans idiots.
It seems to me the people who fed the bonfire are the people who pronounced Akin UNELECTABLE. Largely because they felt Akin’s answer to a question about an exception to an abortion ban for cases of rape embarrassed them.
Akin didn’t attribute his opinion to or otherwise associate it with Mitt Romney, so there was no reason for Romney to call on Akin to get out, was there?
I can’t remember the exact source or inspiration, but somebody once said that some of the most vicious arguments are those in which the stakes are vanishingly small.
The Akin thing obviously qualifies. It started as a distraction, has been kept alive as a distraction, and its ultimate effect will be as a distraction.
The election is two and a half months away. What the polls say today isn’t necessarily what will pan out in early November. The people of Missouri will vote as they please and will pay us non-Missourians exactly as much attention as we deserve.
The heat generated on this “issue” would serve us all better in about December when we’re all piling on the sweaters and snuggies and blankets because our fuel prices have been sent skyrocketing by Obama’s lame-duck vengeance.
Anybody still arguing either side of this Akin bullshit today is an idiot.
Linda Lingle, former Gov., is down 13 pts in Hi., averaging seven polls at RealClearPolitics. She must have sucked as a Gov., eh?
Somebody should try and poll how many Missourans decided to abandon Akin after the entire official and semi-official (i.e. conservative media) Republican party structure abandoned Akin.
I’m seriously begining to question just how many people really understand the damage the GOP did to itself here. And I don’t mean it’s electoral prospects going into November. I mean it’s prospects for governing successfully should they have the Congress and the White House.
True. But what else is there to do on a Thursday?
It’s working for me, leigh. Akin was up by 3, before he even won the nomination. I’ll post the Rasmussen link when it’s up, but here’s the same thing at TPM and Ace.
Boy, Missouri voters sure are putting a lot of stock in that sentence Romney said about Akin. Or maybe they saw him humping that third rail.
Here is the source: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2012/election_2012_senate_elections/missouri/election_2012_missouri_senate
Beyond the blame pointing, the poll is what it is (and given it is from Rasmussen I assume it is a fair snap shot for now). Akin can try to drop out, Akin loses to McCaskill, or Akin figures a way to win.
But what else is there to do on a Thursday?
We can talk about Debbie Wasserman Shultz not letting Paul Ryan use “We’re Not Gonna Take It”
We should draw up a list of things Republican Can’t Speak About. Just so everybody’s clear about what’s been conceded to the left forever and what we’re still willing to negotiate away.
There’s already a list of things campaigning politicians ought not talk about and this is on it. Anal warts and saggy old lady boobs are too.
You know, it doesn’t matter which side you’re on when you say really stupid things, you’re going to pay for them with the public. Yeah, the left will defend absolutely anything, but I don’t count that as a good thing.
I’m going to assume, Pablo, that you are just dug in, and that’s why you dismiss the Whoopie Goldberg thing so easily. Because I highlighted it to note just how easy it would have been for the GOP to trot that out and stymie this thing right away.
Instead, they turned it into what it now is.
Whoopie doesn’t need to get elected. Her raggedy ass boat is going to float on the sea of progg bullshit no matter what she does. Akin and Akin alone blew a big fucking hole in the bottom of his. I don’t need anyone but Akin to see that and I’m sure I’m not alone in that. With the media more than willing to make it a wall to wall shitstorm, and Akin more than willing to play right along with that it is what it is: He’s going to get his ass kicked.
That everybody, right and left, could see that coming is a simple matter of observation and drawing a logical conclusion. The GOP did not turn this into what it is. Todd Akin turned it into what it is.
Not at all, I am trying to agree with you. Like McGehee said above, this seems to me to be a conflagration as more because of Rs fanning the flames than Ds.
Circular firing squad, etc.
Okay, Pablo. You’re dug in, and this has become about the argument. I don’t think there’s anything left to say.
Well, that’s convenient.
I don’t think there’s anything left to say.
That’ll be the day.
What is? You mean I haven’t made my position clear enough already? The mistake was made. Once that happened it was over. Sure, the GOP helped make it worse, but the fact is, Akin showed himself to be bad at rape science and perhaps biology, and if you aren’t an expert at everything, and if you show yourself dumb on certain points, why you’re clearly not fit to hold office in a profession filled with people we call morons while demanding they know everything about everything always.
QED.
Pointing out that the GOP compounded his mistake to the point where they poisoned the race, why, that’s me taking up for Akin. Analyzing how the reaction was worse than the gaffe is me calling people who hate hate hate the dumb Christer for expressing his dumb Christerness publicly RINOs.
Whatever I say is met with links to polls, without the taking into account that the polls are where they are perhaps — I know, it’s crazy, but hang with me here — perhaps, because the entire GOP establishment, followed by nearly everyone else, has decided we simply must scapegoat a moron (who also happens to be an engineer, but forget that: he got this wrong, and we’re going to be made to suffer for it, because he speaks for all of us, even though he doesn’t, AND WE DON’T ACCEPT THAT HE DOES!, even though we really kinda do) for the good of us all.
So it’s not “convenient.” It’s that I made my case — not just in the comments, I have to write actual posts, as well — and there’s really nothing left to say.
You win. The dirty Christer fucked us. Burn him. For freedom.
I shall disagree with, but still support Todd Akins, because I *hate* the LeftLibProggs who’ve aligned against him for purely partisan gain. Democrats have supported abortion for years; have built #LegitimateMurder camps (Planned ‘Parenthood’ ‘Clinics’) around killing babies; and have the attitude that allows them to attack a decent man because he misspoke?
Fuck them with a school of swordfish