Rachael Maddow has an excellent piece - Todd Akin's view is pretty mainstream Republican these days. It is taking the view of a part of the party that has been claiming what he did -- and much worse - for more than three decades. The same for Paul Ryan and his "personhood" view.. check out HR.3 this year and its notion of "forcable rape", the Republican redefinition of rape.
Todd Akin merely outed a widely held, but too embarassing for public comsuption, Republican view these days. I'm sure a lot of them (not at the top where they see the damage) feel Akin is heroic. Check out the abortion plank for their convention next week...
"Faithful to the ‘self-evident’ truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children."
but watch her piece - (sadly in Flash, so it won't work for some of you) .. the transcript should be out in a few days (update 8/22 - here is the transcript)
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They are scurrying about trying to do damage control, but the fact is the party has moved so far to the right so as to have separted from the norm of American values...
From an editorial in the NY Times
snip
...
All three positions are outside the mainstream of American opinion, but they are pretty much in the dead center of Republican thinking. Mr. Ryan has said he doesn't believe in a rape exception when outlawing abortion, and he worked with Mr. Akin in the House in trying to narrow the definition of rape so Medicaid would pay for fewer abortions of poor women. Mitt Romney says he supports a rape exception, but many of the politicians he has invited to speak at next week’s Republican convention disagree with him.
As several recent Republican primaries demonstrated, the party continues to nominate Tea Party candidates who create increasingly ludicrous definitions of “far right.” Ted Cruz, who won the Senate primary in Texas and is all but certain to be elected, favors the closure of the Departments of Energy, Commerce and Education, along with the Transportation Security Administration and, naturally, the I.R.S. He says he is very worried that theUnited Nations is trying to ban golf courses and paved roads.
...
And how different are Paul and Todd?
I doubt any of this means much to the current crop of Republicans as these are their core values too - and there is a white hot hate for Obama in the party..
But in the meantime Republicans are trying to pretend that the party's position is somehow different from the not-as-radical position of the Romney/Ryan ticket. Then they can appeal to their rabid base while also trying to claim to the moderate that President Romney and Vice President Ryan won't be that bad.
'just one little problem with that:
Paul Ryan co-sponsored the Sanctity of Life Act, which defines a fertilized egg as a person and grants it "all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood." No exceptions.
well ... two little problems:
HUCKABEE: Would you have supported a constitutional amendment that would have established the definition of life at conception?ROMNEY: Absolutely.
Of course Romney flipflops on everything, so maybe is real position is some superposition that we all agree with:-)
Of course Romney flipflops on everything, so maybe his "real" position is some superposition that we all agree with:-)
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