Todd Akin is establishing himself as a great recruiting tool — for the Democrats. Melinda Henneberger, the WaPo‘s “She the People” anchor-blogger and apologist for Republicans at their Rethuglican-ist, wakes up and smells… something that ain’t coffee:
… For more than a year, I’ve argued against the idea that Republicans were coordinating a “war on women.’’ What hyperbole, I thought, reluctant to compare affronts to American women to the truly life-threatening situation of so many women around the globe…
Well, that was then. Though I still know plenty of Rs who show enormous respect for women, as well as some Ds who don’t, Akin hasn’t become a pariah for putting forth a marginal idea, but for embarrassing those in his party who resemble that remark. I believe in extending the benefit of the doubt, but this isn’t the first time, or even the second, that elected GOP officials have suggested that women have to be closely monitored to make sure they’re on the up-and-up about having been raped…
In an hour-long interview with Pelosi this week, at the end of a long day of back-to-back fund-raising events, I was surprised when she agreed that at bottom, this isn’t even about abortion: “My family’s all pro-life – they don’t share my views,’’ she said of the family she grew up in. “But this is not about abortion; let’s put that aside. Abortion is something you can agree to disagree on, but this shows a disrespect of women that’s beyond that – and even beyond politics, to something that’s deep-seated, sociological, cultural and psychological. Todd Akin’s statement and the obliviousness with which he made it find a very comfortable home with House Republicans, who are rushing to get rid of him because of what he says about them.”
Particularly, she says, because Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan (Wis.) has sponsored a number of the same bills Akin has, including laws redefining rape and pushing for a ‘human life amendment’ that would ban some forms of birth control….
But Pelosi says that as good as all this is for turnout, “I really have a level of sadness about it.’’
Of the “war on women,’’ meme, she shrugs and says “it’s alliterative. I have not been one of those who’s been out there with the ‘war on women’ words.’’ Those who send e-mails with her name on them don’t seem to know that, but she insists that for a long time, “I was hoping it was the odd duck here or there.’’
What the congressman from Missouri has done, though, she says, has shown that’s not the case – and made him “the doggie doo on the shoe of his party, the tattoo on Paul Ryan that they won’t be able to get off.’’
Pelosi: Akin Is “the Doggy-Doo on the GOP Shoe”Post + Comments (61)