Akingate

Dems really shouldn't try to make Todd Akin the GOP Poster Boy, but then again, they probably should.  It's a tough call.  You should never let people forget about a fundamental failure of your opposition, but you also don't need to give "the independents" a reason to propagate the false equivalency of "both sides do it".

It's pretty hard to play this one - and ya gotta play it just right, but I think it's legit to demand a straight answer from every Repub candidate about where he stands on the Todd Akin question.

Another one from Addicting Info - this time making the case for defining the GOP as the party of Akin:

As has been repeated, ad nauseam, pregnancy by rape is not rare in the slightest (about 5% of rapes result in pregnancy. There is no worldview in which this is rare) and the very idea that a woman’s body would “shut the whole thing down” is not supported by any real science.

But that wasn’t the part which was supposed to remain secret.  Republicans mangle science on a regular basis. It’s kind of their calling card. No, the part that set off the firestorm from the right was the phrase “legitimate rape.” The idea that women are whores that have it coming is both widespread and deeply embedded among conservative politicians. It used to be a fringe belief and that is why Republicans rarely spoke out against making exceptions for women who were raped or the victims of incest. These days, the fringe is the mainstream so now? No more exceptions! But how to justify punishing women who have already been violated? Take away their victimization. Redefine “rape” so any woman not physically beaten to the ground wasn’t really raped. This is the bill Akin tried to pass last year. This is what Akin really meant and he did not misspeak in the slightest other than to forget to lie.