August 20th, 2012:

Almost fell off my chair reading this over my morning coffee…

Missouri Congressman Todd Akin, a conservative Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, sparked a furor and earned a rebuke from Mitt Romney’s campaign after saying in an interview broadcast Sunday that women’s bodies can prevent pregnancies in “a legitimate rape” and that conception is rare in such cases.

Mr. Akin, a six-term congressman running against incumbent Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill, was asked in an interview on St. Louis television station KTVI if he would support abortions for women who have been raped.

“It seems to me first of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” Mr. Akin said. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” Mr. Akin said of a rape victim’s chances of becoming pregnant.

Huh? A female body can do what??? What doctors has this moron been speaking with? Doctors of Divinity? Doctors of Death Stars???

Wow. Just. Wow.

Staying with the Republican Party theme, how about that new running mate for Mitt Romney? Surely he isn’t like that hillbilly from Missouri? Surely Romney has not made the same mistake as that last GOP Presidential candidate and chosen someone who is all style but whose substance only goes about 2 mm deep!

Like this gal:

On Sunday, the New York Times had this to say about the esteemed Paul Ryan:

Howard Fineman wrote in The Huffington Post that “Ryan turns out, upon closer inspection, not to be a purifying ideologue, but rather a young, power-hungry, ladder-climbing trimmer.” The self-styled deficit cutter backed W.’s deficit-exploding agenda, and the tut-tutting critic of the Obama stimulus grabbed for the president’s stimulus money.

Neocons and Tea Partyers, however, continued to rhapsodize. Grover Norquist told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt that Ryan would be the Dick Cheney of economic and tax policy. And that’s a compliment.

The comparison is apt. Ryan looks like a bonus Romney son, as Dan Quayle did with Bush senior. Republicans find the tableau of two rich white guys — same shirts, different generations — comforting. With W. and Cheney, the usual order switched and the vice-presidential candidate played the role of surrogate dad.

OK. Lesson not taken…

It will be interesting to see how President Obama approaches his second term in office.

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