Plumbing The Depths: Is the Stupid Party Becoming the Moron Party

Another Republican politician - this time Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and no I've never heard of him before - is going through the media wringer after daring to put the words "abortion" and "rape" into the same sentence. He actually had good reason to as all he was trying to say was that the incidence of abortions resulting from rape were low. Not that this matters. Outrageous outrage is going down as we speak, but that's not really my concern. I'm more exorcised by the likes of ostensible center-right commentator Jonathon S. Tobin* who declares Cong. Franks to be an unfortunate manifestation of the "moron factor" sapping the GOP of it manly essence.

Republicans have spent the last several months arguing about the lessons of the 2012 election with both establishment types and grass roots activists mixing it up on a variety of issues. But if there was one conclusion that surely everyone in the party agreed upon it was that GOP candidates and officials needed to avoid mentioning rape, especially when discussing their opposition to abortion. The spectacular idiocy of Missouri senatorial candidate Todd Akin—who publicly doubted that women could become pregnant as a result of rape—didn’t just transform his opponent Claire McCaskill from a certain loser to an easy winner and sink Indiana Republican Richard Mourdock, when the latter said something not quite as foolish. It also allowed Democrats to trash all Republicans as Neanderthal nitwits seeking to abuse women. 

But apparently Arizonan Republican Representative Trent Franks didn’t get the memo. Franks demonstrated that yesterday when he claimed during a Judiciary Committee debate that the incidence of pregnancy from rape is “very low.” But Franks had to repeat the assertion even in a later clarification before he realized what he had done. With a single phrase, Franks had handed Democrats on the committee and elsewhere a chance to revive their fake “War on Women” theme that helped mobilize the Democratic base in 2012. Though it can be asserted that they didn’t need any new excuses to try the same tactic in 2014, Franks has made it a lot easier. Just as was the case in 2012, Republicans are learning the hard way that foolish statements—even if they are ripped out of their context or unfairly characterized—allow Democrats to change the subject from serious moral issues to a topic they’d rather talk about: why some Republicans are morons.

Oh, come on. Republicans will always suffer for their abortion related "gaffes" because the pro-abortion crowd only wants to discuss baby killing in the context of these sorts of meltdowns. There was nothing factually incorrect in Franks' statement. (although we don't know what the exact percentage of abortions arise from rape). I can't imagine there is a huge number of rapes resulting in pregnancy. (statutory rape is another matter, of course). And, the point he was trying to make is an important one. He's trying pass a bill outlawing abortions after 20 weeks - at this point, a six month preemie can easily survive outside the womb - and responding to NARAL types wailing about rape:

After the committee meeting, Franks told POLITICO: “My bill does nothing to restrict abortion even before the first five months, so all issues related to rape are long since dealt with.” 

He said that Democrats are the ones who “constantly want to inject” rape into the abortion debate and have done so ever since the original Roe v Wade case. By focusing on rape instead on “the child that was being killed” they try to change the dynamics of the debate, he said. “So sometimes Republicans get beat up for having to respond to it, but it’s always the left that brings it up because it results in Republicans getting beat up by it.”

Agreed that pro-life Republicans probably need a seminar to practice their lines for moments like this, but what are they supposed to say? The rape question always comes up, and it needs to be batted away, only it can't be batted away because the left brings up rape precisely to strike the sort of gaffe gold they found in Todd Akin.

Democrats make all sorts of moronic, not to mention evil, claims re: abortion. Just today Nancy Pelosi made some crazy comment that late-term abortions are "sacred ground." (ugh!) She also responded to questions about the murderous abuses of Kermit Gosnell by saying she deplored them, but, no, did not plan to work to pass any legislation that would make Gosnell's practices illegal. Give me the "moron" Trent Franks any day over this.

* can't forget the "S." Jonathon Sssssssssssssss. Tobin, ladies and gentlemen!

Night of the Living Todd Akin: A Big Comeback In Missouri

I asked the rhetorical question several weeks ago, "Should conservatives donate money to Todd Akin when the national GOP funding sources were starving his campaign of funds?" My answer was, essentially, Akin needs to prove he can solve his problems himself:

The drop-dead date for him to withdraw from the race is 9/25. I don't think anyone should donate money to him until after that date. If he really is a great/smart guy who slipped up one time (not the case, as he has a list of gaffes as long as my arm, but let's assume that he is great/smart), then he should be able to recover from his "shut the whole thing down" comment without the help of anyone outside of MO. My feeling is he made this mess and he needs to clean it up.

Well, a funny thing happened. Akin is running strong, successfully attacking Claire McCaskell as an Obama-ite who campaigned to the right and then voted to the left in her term in the Senate. Crazy as it might sound, Akin might pull this thing out:

None of this changes the basic fact that Akin is a dangerous gaffe machine. The only reason he's pacing McCaskill is the strong anti-Obama wave in MO, a once-purple state that has gone decidedly red. McCaskill is good at playing a tough-talking moderate, but she voted as a liberal and was Barack Obama's first Senate ally to support him as president. That's not going to work in Missouri under optimal (for a liberal) conditions.

(btw, up until very recently, you heard all about how Missouri was a "bellwether" state whose electoral votes and voters were eagerly sought out in presidential contests. The stat you always heard was that Missourians had voted for the winners in virtually every presidential election since The Compromise. This year, Obama is running 11% behind. He's not contesting the state at all. And, magically we're not hearing about how that might a bellwether.of anything)

Akin is still running a few points behind due to his own grievous self-inflicted wounds. But, as he's close, and no Missouri Republican has come forward to run a write-in campaign, the time has come to send Akin the funds to replace the funds the national organizations have withdrawn. A brain-dead Todd Akin is still superior to a Claire McCaskill operating at the height of her powers. Ideally, he will win and, after a few years of service, receive some sort of Executive Branch appointment he can't refuse, at which point a Missourian who can better articulate conservative principals can be appointed to his seat.

Should Republicans Donate To Todd Akin's Senate Campaign

The Free Will Mother wrote to me with a dilemma: she is being asked to donate money to a number of Republican candidates, including MO Senate candidate Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin. At least one of the Akin appeals came from the Tea Party, so someone besides the earstwhile Akin is out there raising money for him. But should Republicans support him when the RNC and most national conservatives have essentially written Akin off?

First of all, I agree that a brain-dead Todd Akin is superior to a fully engaged Clare McCaskill.
 
I also think that, after my/our thunderous denunciations of Akin, it's too early to greenlight donations to him. The drop-dead date for him to withdraw from the race is 9/25. I don't think anyone should donate money to him until after that date. If he really is a great/smart guy who slipped up one time (not the case, as he has a list of gaffes as long as my arm, but let's assume that he is great/smart), then he should be able to recover from his "shut the whole thing down" comment without the help of anyone outside of MO. My feeling is he made this mess and he needs to clean it up. Ideally, he will see the light sometime in the next three weeks; will realize he is hurting, not helping; and will head back to the House.
 
If 9/26 rolls around, and he's still neck and neck with McCaskill, then, yeah, I say send him some $$, especially if the RNC follows through on his threat to starve him of funds.
 
I have a funny feeling, tho', that the polls on 9/24 will be: 40% McCaskill, 30% Akin & 30% unnamed GOP savior, giving Akin a reason to stay in and giving the GOP reason to support an independent who is really running as the Republican (this happened in the last CO governors race when the GOP nominee flamed out immediately after winning the nomination and Tom Tancredo nearly won running as a late-added third party candidate). If that happens, I say send your $$ to the unnamed GOP savior.

There's also the matter of other candidates running for Senate who also have a shot, but don't have a sure thing to piss away like Akin. I'm thinking of people like Linda McMahon in CT, Josh Mandel in OH (who is running against the odious Sherrod Brown), Connie Mack in FL, and the guy running to defeat fake moderate Jim Tester in MT. Before activists start donating to Akin, I would like to see them max out on these folks first as (1) they need the help; (2) they are demonstrably superior to Akin.

Sotto Voce: Random Mutterings Under My Breath

Does the USADA really have the power to vacate Lance Armstrong's Tour De France victories? I thought USADA was there to test Olympic athletes. I could see taking away the 2000 bronze medal, but anything else looks like overreach. 

If USADA had a failed drug test in its possession, it would be case closed; but that is the one thing they don't have. What they apparently do have are 10 affidavits from Armstrong's former teammates. Want to bet there are 10 failed drug tests (and offers of amnesty) to go along with those affidavits?

Guilty or innocent, it's clear Armstrong doesn't inspire loyalty. Barry Bonds had people going to jail for him, after all. Armstrong couldn't even get people to lie for him (or, alternatively, are willing to lie to hurt him). 

This didn't make it into MSM coverage of the Apple-Samsung trial, but there was a lot of courtroom gossip (and legal media reporting) about how Samsung's lead attorney, John Quinn, made an ass of himself throughout the trial; earning repeated rebukes and threatening sanctions from the judge. The spin is that he was highlighting issues for the (inevitable) appeal, and indeed most of his theatrics related to evidentiery issues that the judge had resolved outside the presence of the jury. Still, strutting around the courtroom, calling attention to matters you are not supposed to discuss, is not the behavior of someone who thinks he has a good case. The appeal will be decided on the pleadings anyway, not based on the court reporter's transcript. 

Mike Huckabee still doesn't get it. He thinks he must defend Todd Akin for the sake of social conservatives everywhere, but the root of Akin's problem is that he would rather spout junk science  about "shutting that whole thing down" than answer a question about the rape exception to a pro-life amendment. He's a weasel on the issue that supposedly animates his political career, and not worth a second of Huckabee's semi-valuable time. 

I am getting mighty tired of of hearing Christine O'Donnell's name mentioned in the same breath as Todd Akin's. O'Donnell is fun and feisty. She is also a warrior who really did take on the political establishment in her state and the GOP establishment nationwide. Her "notorious" comment about dabbling in witchcraft was not made during the campaign, but years earlier between breaks on a crappy TV show. She was too conservative for Delaware, true, but she took the full weight of a classic MSM assault - short sales! one-night stands! college diplomas! - on behalf of Tea Party candidates everywhere. Every minute the MSM spent talking about O'Donnell was time they didn't spend tearing down Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and a dozen others. She's a martyr to the cause, not a loser destroying it. 

Is the Syrian Civil War over yet?

Inga Barks was on Levin last night. I know from listening to her that she lives in Bakersfield and that she has three teen-aged sons, but a little googling also told me that her husband recently died after a long illness and that she sued her one-time radio co-host for sexual harassment. Life is not easy for some of us, no matter how much the gov't promises to soothe all our ills. 

Some early AM Free Association: this Dan Mitchell piece about how Paul Ryan's proposed cuts to social spending will be good for the poor reminded me of PJ O'Rourke's line about growing up poor in Toledo, OH and how he felt lucky to escape being helped by the gov't. That in turn reminded me that O'Rourke had attended Miami University, which further reminded me of a piece he wrote back in the mid-1990's about how earnest and square the MU College Republicans were, which lead to the forehead-slapping realization that one of those earnest CR's may have been (gulp) Paul Ryan!

Todd Akin & The Stupid Party

Todd Akin looks to be with us for a little while longer (he says he's waiting to see if there's an unexpected surge of support that can carry him through a statewide race with no money and no support from two of the three legs of the conservative stool) so while he lingers it would do well to examine what his campaign says, not about him, but about the Republican Party.

Remember that Akin won the primary, in part, because Democrats ran a million dollars worth of ads attacking Akin's primary opponents and propping up Akin because the MO left correctly concluded that Akin would self-combust and be readily defeated. This, of course, leads to a number of questions, among which are:

1. who are these thick-headed Republican primary voters who view, or hear, a Democrat ad attacking a Republican and then vote based on said ad?

And, more important:

2. WHY AREN'T REPUBLICANS DOING THE SAME SORT OF THING IN DEMOCRAT PRIMARIES?????

It's been forgotten now, but California's 2002 Republican gubernatorial primary featured LA mayor Richard Riordan, who was widely viewed as presenting the greatest threat to the incumbent Gray Davis. Riordan was running against a couple relative unknowns: the conservative Bill Simon and another guy whose name escapes me. The Gray Davis campaign famously ran ads attacking Riordan and drove his negatives through the roof. This was no underground campaign either. California Dems were up front about what they were doing, and California Republicans were up front in whining about it all the way to the end when Bill Simon won the primary and then lost the general by something like 20 points. The same questions occurred to me back then:

1. Democrats are running ads intended to influence the outcome of the Republican primary. They are being quite open in saying they wanted Simon or the other guy to face them in the general, not Riordan. And, by some magical process, Republican voters acted on those ads and delivered to Gray Davis his chosen opponent. Why?

And more important:

2. WHY HAVEN'T REPUBLICANS DONE THE SAME SORT OF THING????

Still, now we have Akin as the official Republican candidate for Senate in Missouri, a state that has been trending red, but still has enough swing voters to make Akin's uninformed views about "shutting that whole thing down" (as I said yesterday, "WTF??????") a killer for his electoral prospects. Akin says he's going to see if it looks like he can survive the next few weeks, but in the meantime GOP leaders are groaning at the thought of all of the ads Claire McCaskill will be running in October. I guess it hasn't occurred to the GOP brain trust that MAYBE THEY SHOULD BE THE ONES RUNNING ANTI-AKIN ADS, AND SHOULD START RUNNING THEM YESTERDAY!!!! I thought we were the guys with the "noise machines" and the corporate money and all that. Would it be too hard to ask some shadowy PAC to start running McCaskill style ads that utterly destroy what's left of the Akin candidacy? I don't think so.

Akin has made it clear he will leave only if he sees absolutely no prospect for winning. Given his mule-headedness and his demonstrable slow wit, his numbers will need to be south of 10% before he will grasp that the jig is up. If Democrats can create the Akin Senate campaign, shouldn't Republicans be the ones to destroy it?

Finally, and a little more seriously, let's discuss what got Akin in trouble: abortion. I have no doubt that Akin is sincere in his pro-life views, but let's get real. When he starting rambling about some quack medical theory that women can shut off the fallopian tubes while being raped, he wasn't just displaying his ignorance and credulity, he was also avoiding the vexing question of whether there should be an exception for rape. In other words, Mr. Pro-Life Social Con was trying to have it both ways on the issue that supposedly animates his candidacy and inspired his constituents to vote for him. Way to defend the unborn, a**hole!

I'm no social conservative, but I am pro-life and even believe that rape and incest are not good reasons for an abortion for the simple reason that, regardless of the circumstances of the conception, you are still dealing with an innocent and defenseless life. Why abort a life when that life can be born and given a chance to live? To me, the issue of abortion is just that simple and easy to understand. It's liberals who try to make it needlessly complex with all their talk of "choice" and trimesters and privacy and everything else. And it's thick-headed Republicans like Todd Akin who become fumble-tongued when they try to thread the abortion needle like a Democrat, rather than stick to first principles. Akin can point to all of the pro-life votes he has cast, but he has done the pro-life cause no favors because he can't sit in front of a camera and defend life. His 97% ACU rating hasn't stopped a single abortion. All it's done is given him cover.

If we want to avoid more Akin moments, we need to change the way we talk about abortion. Democrats prefer to treat the issue legalistically, with a little "choice" rhetoric thrown in. This lets them discuss the issue dispassionately even while they support horror shows like late-term and partial-birth abortions, not to mention Barack Obama's post-birth abortions. We shouldn't let them set the debate on those terms. The pro-life cause succeeds when it forces voters to confront the realities of abortion, not the legal niceties. Remember how overwrought liberals got over partial-birth abortion? For you older folks, remember The Silent Scream? Abortion should be an emotional issue, not a legal one. That doesn't mean a lot of hysterics and Randall Terry-style barricades. Look at how Ron and Rand Paul discuss abortion. Both of them are deeply pro-life, but I'll bet many of their hipster followers have no idea, and if they did have an idea, they would likely find the Pauls' arguments persuasive, not repellant.

Todd Akin ruined his chances to run for Senate because he couldn't do the one thing expected of any conservative politician: answer a question about abortion. But, Akin is the latest in the long line of GOP pols who have treated abortion as a tripwire, rather than as a simple issue whose basic tenets are easily stated and impossible to refute: namely that life begins at conception and that a defenseless life is not one that can be taken lightly.

Akin To Be: What To Do With the Republican Nominee in the Missouri Senate Race

I'm late to the Todd Akin "legitimate rape" story, and at this point, everyone of consequence has asked that he step aside for the good of the party, but I think it's important that the whole of the Vast Right-wing Conspiracy make their feelings clear. Akin needs to leave the race for numerous reasons:

1. the idea that a woman being raped can somehow avoid pregnancy by "shutting that whole thing down" (WTF???????) is beyond stupid. It's deeply offensive and no better than the old "advice" about lying back and enjoying it. We are in real James Watt territory here.  

2. To quote Charles Krauthammer, we already have enough idiots in the Senate (and everywhere else).

3. Newsflash to aspiring GOP pols: the media is going to ask you about abortion, so you might want to practice your lines ahead of time. If you haven't, you have demonstrated that you are not, and never will be, ready for national prominence.

4. Any answer to a media question about abortion must begin from the premise that abortion involves the taking of a human life. You can argue whether the "rape" exception is, or is not, a necessary evil, but no one's going to accuse you of being a member of the lunatic fringe if you adhere to it. On the other hand, yapping about "legitimate rape" is real "Gardasil causes mental retardation" stuff.

5. For some mysterious reason, Democrats poured a million + dollars into the Republican primary with the intent of electing Akin as the nominee. No doubt they saw something that the rest of the GOP establishment missed, namely that he is an idiot.

Most important, I am tired of seeing Republican electoral prospects hobbled, even temporarily, by fumble tongued conservatives who can't manage to discuss abortion, or list the three cabinet departments they would close, or what have you, without turning into a gaffe machine. Maybe Akin is great behind the scenes. If that's the case, he should stay there.