Taking an about face on Todd Akin without changing direction - Fight!

1st - the GOP has been despicable on the matter of Todd Akin.
2nd -  Todd Akin has blown it, and I don't mean his Jaco comment.

The GOP, the current and former senators, and all others who've called for Akin to withdraw, saying that because of his 'misstatements' he is unacceptable, are themselves unacceptable.  I won't bother going more into what I went over yesterday. Their pandering to politically correct airs, is nauseating.

Akin won an election. He was right about staying in, he won an election - you don't just allow that to be overturned over for campaign turmoils. But that nomination comes with a responsibility, an awesome responsibility, that when you attacked - when those who entrusted their vote to you are attacked through you - then you fight back and fight back loud and clear leaving no confusion over who is taking their responsibility seriously, you stand up strong, face the fire and provide the active leadership needed to prevail.

That has not been the case, and yesterday was the day to prove it. Yesterday is gone.

Akin's response has been so lax, so passive, and what he has done is so inept, that my confidence in him has dissipated - not because of his words, but because of his actions.

First, what he should not have done. He should not have issued an apology that was little better than genuflecting to political correctness, the very same tones of political correctness that were used to transform a minor verbal blunder into a national firestorm (in the eyes of the media and establishment).

And then he did nothing else. Except, that he then issued the apology that he should have given in the first place.

And then he did nothing else. Except for saying in interview with Dana Loesch "Ah shucks, this new fangled new media stuff really caught us by surprise" (except for 'fangled' and 'shucks' I think that's a quote).

What should he have done?

He should have clarified what did, and did not happen. He should have and the sense and initiative to say something like:

"My message is that rapists should be punished and life should be defended. Period. This so-called incident deserves no more of this campaigns attention. I've issued my apology, if you'd like to hear it again, go to my campaign site... and please leave a donation while your at it - we'd be thankful for contributions from people with spines.

We're facing a formidable democrat senator in Claire McCaskill, who has used Missouri's Senate seat to undermine the health and safety of all Missourians, men and women alike, who voted to take away their right to make their own choices in regards to their health care. Who used her vote to help in closing down a major portion of our states economy and energy concerns with Coal and coal fired energy plants.

Claire McCaskill is busy using every trick in the book to keep her power and leave my fellow Missourians powerless, and I'm devoting my energy and my campaign towards ending that in 72 days. Join me!"

I'm a simple programmer, a student of life, a blogger. If I can see that, if I can come up with that, why the hell can't the man we elected to represent us in the Senate campaign, do better?! AND WITHOUT HESITATION!!!!

There is a passage from Julius Caesar that has been plaguing me:

"The enemy increaseth every day.
We, at the height, are ready to decline.
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves
Or lose our ventures."

, and it has been plaguing me all the more because it comes from the mouth of Brutus, but it is true all the same, and Todd Akin's inaction has become a far greater danger in this election than his misstatements. If he won't fight now, if he didn't see the importance of doing that yesterday... why should we have any confidence that he is going to pick up the fight and fight effectively tomorrow?

Todd Akin said several times yesterday that he was running to the sound of the gunfire. Well Mr. Akin, when running to the sound of the guns, it would be wise to bring your own gun, loaded and cocked and eagerly seeking out enemy targets (not your own POTUS ticket) to fire upon.

Yesterday was Todd Akin's chance to do that, and he needed to come out shooting, he needed to come out and assert his position and lead the charge. But what he brought was only more olive branches and a folksy "Wow, hasn't this been sumthin'?". I'm seething.

He had his chance to do that yesterday. He didn't run to the sound of the gunfire, he did a drive by of the mess hall & PX and kept driving on without ever coming in sight of the front lines.

And now the lines are collapsing all around us.

Mr. Akin, we would support you if you would just fight, but you will not. And we elected you to do just that. And you do not.

That's a dilemma that must be resolved. Now.

I supported Todd Akin to be our senator, and to do that he's got to defeat Claire McCaskill, but he has failed to act. It seems that I will have to take an about face on my support for Todd Akin, but who will take over the fight? Because THAT is the direction we must charge, not a backwards pandering to the sensibilities of political correctness, as the GOP establishment is seeking to cringe in, but forward into the fight.

Someone. Please. FIGHT!

MO GOP: What Price Principles? Just one gaffe... and we'll give your change back!

Congressmen Todd Akin, who just won the Republican primary for Senate from Missouri, is going to make an announcement this morning, regarding whether he's going to remain in the senate race... or withdraw.

Why? Because of a comment. Actually because of a portion of a comment. A Gaffe. Who is calling for him to do this? The 3rd place rival he defeated in the primary, and nearly every GOP operative and functionary in Missouri, campaign contributors in and out of state, as well as various and sundry Republican Senators, nationwide. Even former Cosmopolitan centerfold guy, Sen. Scott Brown from MA, has put his two cents in on the propriety of Akin's remaining in office.

What was this comment?

He wondered, stumbling for a few words in the midst of a reply about abortion in cases of rape, he said

"Well you know, people always want to make that as one of those things, how do ya, how do you slice that particularly tough sort of ethical question, it seems to me... well first of all, from what I understand from doctors, that's really where... if it's a legitimate rape, uh, the female body has ways to shut that whole thing down. But let's assume, maybe that didn't work or something, I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not on attacking the child."

Was it a WTF?! moment? Yes it was.

Was it a stupid thing to say? Yup. Did he apologize for it? Yes indeedy he did. He issued a statement with all the popular PC proper words about empathy & such, and that he was sorry, which personally I think was a bit of a pander to the godz of political correctness - always an error - if I wrote his press release, I'd have said something like:

But foolish as his comment was, did he say anything that revealed any nefarious dealings or hidden agenda? No. Did he say anything that suggested that he didn't believe the conservative positions and principles he campaigned upon to win the nomination for Republican Senator from the state of Missouri? No. Did he make the statement as part of a well considered position paper? Nope. He made the verbal blunder, in trying to stitch together two statements regarding abortion and allowing the fact that rape was an awful crime and  someone should be punished for it, preferably the rapist.

This doesn't go against the positions he ran on, or against his public or private feelings on the matter, he's held this view, campaigned on this view, and was elected over his rivals for the nomination because of, or in spite of, this view.

Yet political players far and wide now wish to overturn the legitimate winner of a primary election; party players and powers that be, wish to disenfranchise all republican voters of Missouri, in order for these power players to put who they would like to see him replaced with. These are the same people who didn't want Akin to run for the Senate, the same people who didn't support him during the election, the same people who did their best to undermine him in order to get a less conservative candidate to run... face it: Democrat Senator Claire McCaskill was more interested in a Conservative winning the Missouri Senate primary, than the MO GOP was! And yet, after the people of Missouri, who knowingly voted for the more conservative candidate - are very likely going to have their votes overturned, by party players who didn't approve of their votes to begin with.

On the pretext of a politically sensitive gaffe, the candidate nominated in a statewide election, is potentially going to be removed from the race, and replaced by someone the GOP would have preferred to have been (s)elected in the first place.

So convenient and such a nice precedent... what could possibly go wrong with that?

Realize, he broke no law, revealed no lie, exposed no subterfuge. He was not accused of rape by former associates or fans (Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, Kathleen Wiley, etc), he didn't lie about having sexual relations with an intern in the oval office, he didn't leave a woman to die in his car submerged in a pond, he didn't tweet photos of his privates to random women across the Twittersphere, he didn't molest a young boy... he didn't even call anyone a bad name.

He said something stupid, recognized it and immediately apologized for it.

And for that... he is being hounded to withdraw his name from the race.

A statewide vote is being nullified, not because of outrage and widespread demands from the people, but to soothe the sensibilities of party apparatchiks and to enable them to override an election they didn't approve of, and to avoid possible embarrassment to Mitt Romney's campaign & the Republican National Convention. And just maybe perhaps because members of the GOP, would very much like to kneel and prostrate themselves at the feet of the media lords of political correctness, and fervently declare to them, while kissing their ring, that they will never let it be said that they hold the will of the people or their own principles and convictions, to be of equal or greater value than a single tenet of political correctness or the current winds of popular opinion.

Whether or not Todd Akin withdraws, I'd just like to say to the MO GOP - you disgust me. You are an abomination and an affront to the Republic.

Have a nice day.