But he’s willing to consider it — BECAUSE HE IS JUST THAT GRACIOUS.
“Well I just haven’t heard of that being a circumstance that’s been brought to me in any personal way,” King told KMEG-TV Monday, “and I’d be open to discussion about that subject matter.”
~snip~
Contacted by TPM, King’s office denied that King was saying he’d never heard of pregnancy resulting from statutory rape or incest. Rather, he had no direct, personal knowledge of such circumstances. “What he was saying was, he personally does not know a girl who was raped,” Brittany Lesser, a spokesperson for King said. “He never says, ‘I’ve never heard of that.’ There’s a fine line between ‘I’ve never heard of that’ and ‘I don’t know personally anybody who’s been raped. There’s a difference. There is a difference.”
Hey Steve? You do personally know a girl who was raped. You just don’t know that she was raped.
[via TPM]
***if you are suffering, there is help at RAINN. 1.800.656.HOPE.
[cross-posted at ABLC]
Felinious Wench
“Hey Steve? You do personally know a girl who was raped. You just don’t know that she was raped.”
My exact thought. Because we don’t tend to walk around in t-shirts that say “I Was Raped.”
Gex
Let’s all take note: They are going out of their way to point out that he did NOT say that this never happens. He’s just never known someone who’s had it happen to them. It’s tantamount to an admission that they DO know this happens.
Now can we ask him the next question? He hold national office. Does he decide all our policy based on personal first hand knowledge? What DOES Aunt Tilly think of nuclear Iran? What the fuck.
This is not a defense. This is to say that he is deliberately ignorant and closed minded about policies he has opinions on. But the right not only doesn’t care that this is what he is saying, they prefer it.
jl
Steve King is in House, right? If so, then up for re-election.
Maybe he should step down from his race.
I think so.
scav
pfft. easy game. Sane, kindly and honorable Republicans? “Well I just haven’t heard of that being a circumstance that’s been brought to me in any personal way,and I’d be open to discussion about that subject matter.”
red dog
ABL, your last sentence was true of me too and I am 70 so don’t me subject me to that sort of scrutiny either. I have never met anyone who was or admitted to being raped. I grew up in rural towns but was in the military, went to college, raised a family and have lived in six states.
joes527
Yes, this comes to mind. Immediately followed by WTF was your point in the first place Steve?
You think that your job it to legislate your personal experience, and anything that you don’t have personal experience with should be banned?
Srsly? WTF were you saying, Steve?
(some days I fantasize about a MSM that asks follow-up questions, but fantasizing about that that gets pointless, so I go back to fantasizing about my future super-model wife)
GregB
It’s typical right wing know nothing idiocy.
I have a wing nut pal who says he doesn’t know anyone who got work from the stimulus therefore it is proof no one got work from stimulus.
Just Some Fuckhead
These are the same clowns who thought Terri Schiavo was a couple of daiquiris away from dancing the macarena.
Violet
Typical Republican. If something doesn’t affect them personally it must not be true/really exist. Zero ability to empathize with anyone about anything they’ve got no personal experience with.
gelfling545
@Felinious Wench: And of course Steve King is just the person one would confide in.
mainsailset
Poor Steve, doesn’t he know that the reason only 39,000 women get pregnant from rape each year is because rapists shoot blanks?
Keith G
Gotta love this iteration of the GOP. Pissing away advantage after advantage at a truly historic level. It seems all they have left is the huge imbalance in money – still a big problem for us.
Robin G.
Some version of this needs to be shoved it the face of every one of these fuckers.
Ben Lehman
You know a girl who was raped. You know a boy who was raped.
If you have any social life at all, you know far more than one of each.
eric
Isn’t it proper GOP form to say something like “i have friends that have been raped” or “I have friends that have raped not gotten the ‘girl’ pregnant”?
I think we have to revisit the scientific conclusion that homo sapiens survived to the exclusion of the Neanderthal. This folks are prim-a-tive.
JGabriel
__
__
TPM:
Ask him who Adam & Eve’s kids married.
(*Changed lower case I to lower case L due to moderation.)
.
SatanicPanic
I don’t know anyone who went to the moon, but maybe I will meet an astronaut someday. In the meantime, if I am ever elected to Congress, I will legislate in the stupidest possible manner on the subject of space flight.
Linda Featheringill
Re-posting from thread below:
Steve King is up for reelection this year. His Dem opponent is Christie Vilsack. Maybe we should look into helping her a little bit.
DCCC Red to Blue includes Christie’s race. They seems to think she has a chance.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Ben Lehman:
Yes,… worth keeping in mind sexual assault isn’t just a woman’s problem.
g
Of course, only last week Steve King told a tall tale about how the Obama administration wants to have 13 year old rape victims taken over state lines for abortions….I guess he forgot about that young woman?
Peter
Probably. It’s theoretically possible that the stars have aligned such that he actually doesn’t know anybody who has been raped, but the odds are depressingly long against it.
And I for one can’t think of a single reason why someone wouldn’t be comfortable talking about their rape with him, what with his terrific attitude on the subject.
Brachiator
Clearly, these fools believe that Pussy Riot is the means by which a woman magically wards off an unwanted pregnancy when she has been assaulted.
dance around in your bones
I guess Steve King has never heard about this case.
Oh, wait – that was not in ‘Murka. Doesn’t count.
I said this in another thread – WAFF (what a fucking fool).
I just wish some of these clueless guys could be a woman for…………oh, 3 months.
lamh35
So Akin went all Effie White on KKKlannity and even threw some shade on ole Mittens, the “head of the party”…BHAHAHA
Brachiator
Curses, moderated.
Tried to say,
Clearly these fools believe that P#ssy Riot is the means by which a woman magically wards off an unwanted pregnancy when she has been assaulted.
Violet
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Yeah, I found out not too long ago that a male friend of mine was raped when he was younger. I had no idea. I knew he had problems with depression. Thought it had to do with losing a parent at a young age. Had no idea this was also in the mix.
You just never know unless someone tells you.
John PM
I am beginning to think that all members of the Republican party are the result of in-cest and were locked in the basement during their formative years.
Maude
@lamh35:
The pundits used to say that the Republican party stuck together and stayed on message.
Not any more.
Suffern ACE
Im so out of the loop on this. Is the latest line that rape is a vast conspiracy by women to put men in prison?
red dog
Why oh why does this shit with Akin and King happen when Jon Stewart is on vacay?
Calouste
FTFY. I’m getting more and more convinced that all these rape defenders have some skeletons in the closet in that regard. All that emphasis on “if she’s not beaten up it isn’t rape” sounds like someone is trying to dodge something. Has anyone asked Herman Cain for his opinion in this matter yet?
Pen
@red dog: Don’t worry, if he wasn’t we’d be hearing no end of the bullshit “both sides say stupid things so lets just laugh at everyone” shtick he’s been doing since ’08.
fraught
@Violet: In some ways it’s harder for boys to admit/report. They make up other reasons for their depression. It stays longer sometimes if it’s not dealt with. I know this in a personal way.
Mnemosyne
@red dog:
Are you trying to get legislation passed that will ban rape and incest victims from getting an abortion because no one you know has ever been raped?
If not, then you’re not being lumped in with King.
ETA: And I would guess that most men who are 50+ would say they don’t know anyone who’s been raped, because it’s not something that was talked about with men in that generation. But, as others have said, there are probably quite a few men and women of your acquaintance who have been raped or assaulted but haven’t talked to you about it.
Yastreblyansky
He knows somebody who’s had an abortion, too. It’s not just that it’s hard to talk about, it’s also that he doesn’t want to listen. You might be able to get his wife to tell you, about their gay friends too, and the folks who were on welfare, and what not. He doesn’t believe he even knows people who took out school loans.
LongHairedWeirdo
I was 25 when I realized I knew 25 women who’d been raped. It was freaky and horrible, and blurted that out to a close female relative and learned I knew 26.
You’re damn right he knows women who’ve been raped.
Nancy Irving
What does some lunatic’s personal experience have to do with it?
Randi
I don’t see how never personally knowing a rape victim makes it any less a tragedy or important issue needing to be addressed. So if he knew someone who’d been sexually assaulted THEN he’d be pro-choice? That’s pretty illogical. So since he’s probably never known a murderer on death row, he doesn’t believe in the death penalty either?
Sad_Dem
“Hey Steve? You do personally know a girl who was raped. You just don’t know that she was raped.”
So true.
/two friends in high school, another high school friend raped and murdered, a wife of a friend, a fiancee…
/They know better than to tell you, Steve.