Which is worse, Rep. Todd Akin’s, R-Mo., ignorance about human anatomy – or the way Republicans jump, run and hide when the Democrat-media complex decides they should?

Akin is the Republican candidate for a crucial Senate seat in Missouri. In an interview, he said that he believed that pregnancy following an act of rape is “really rare – if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.”

Incredibly dumb. The married father of six, including two daughters, apologized the next day and then recorded an ad apologizing yet again. That, at the very least, should have satisfied his Republican supporters. But, no.

Akin’s opponent, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Democratic PACs spent $1.5 million on behalf of Akin to ensure his Republican primary victory over two other Republicans that experts considered surer bets to beat her. Unfortunately for McCaskill, Akin was leading in the polls before the gaffe. Akin’s stupid comments were just what she was hoping for.

Never mind that the “offended” McCaskill rode to election in 2006 by calling President George W. Bush a murdering racist. Oh, yes, she most certainly did. Bush, said McCaskill during the campaign, “let people die on rooftops in New Orleans because they were poor and because they were black”!!!

After this hideous smear, why didn’t the race-card-playing McCaskill resign from the race? But, yawn. Crickets. Media mute.

Republicans, hoping to take back the Senate by picking off the vulnerable McCaskill, also drop-kicked Akin. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus urged him to “step aside” and “let someone else run, to actually give ourselves a better chance of winning.” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, head of the National Republican Senate Committee, threatened to withhold $5 mil previously promised to the Akin campaign.

President Obama, whose party chair routinely accuses the GOP of engaging in a “war against women,” condemned Akin’s remarks as ignorant: “Rape is rape, and the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of rape we are talking about doesn’t make sense to the American people and certainly doesn’t make sense to me.”

“Rape is rape,” said Obama.

President Bill Clinton plans to speak at the Democratic convention in North Carolina. Clinton, some might vaguely recall, was accused of rape by a woman named Juanita Broaddrick. “Dateline NBC” aired her allegations against the then-Arkansas attorney general and gubernatorial candidate.

Here’s what Broaddrick alleged: “I first pushed him away. I just told him ‘no.’ … He tries to kiss me again. He starts biting on my lip. … And then he forced me down on the bed. I just was very frightened. I tried to get away from him. I told him ‘no.’ … He wouldn’t listen to me.” To this day, former ABC reporter Sam Donaldson is the only national reporter to ask Clinton about Broaddrick’s allegation.

Then there’s Kathleen Willey, who on “60 Minutes” made a credible allegation of sexual assault against Clinton. Willey, a Clinton campaign volunteer, says that Clinton, in the Oval Office, took her hand and place it on his aroused genitalia: “He touched my breasts with his hand … and then he whispered … ‘I’ve wanted to do this ever since I laid eyes on you.’ … He took my hand, and he put it … on his genitals.” Willey said she managed to push him away.

Let’s not forget Paula “drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you’ll find” Jones. Alleging that then-Gov. Clinton propositioned her and exposed himself in a Little Rock, Ark., hotel room, Jones sued him for sexual harassment. Jones alleged that a state trooper escorted her to a room at the Excelsior Hotel to meet Clinton. Clinton dropped his pants and, according to Jones, asked her to “kiss it.” Clinton later paid Jones $850,000 to settle the sexual harassment lawsuit that Clinton long claimed lacked merit.

Akin is supposedly a chauvinist retrograde. But there is an absolute, media-observed no-fly zone over Clinton, a man variously accused of rape, sexual assault and harassment by three different women. Why Republicans show so much deference is bewildering.

What about the allegations of sexism – in the supposedly pro-women Democratic Obama White House? Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Suskind was given approved access for his book “Confidence Men.” White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, whom Suskind recorded, complained about the anti-woman “frat house antics” atmosphere in the Obama campaign: “This place would be in court for a hostile workplace … because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women.” What?!

But, crickets.

Many folks are fed up with cowardly Republican leadership that crumbles before the Democratic-media complex rather than shines a light on its hypocrisy. My advice to Akin? Hold a press conference and announce, “I’ll resign when Bill Clinton apologizes to Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey.” Then watch the contributions pour in.

Game on.

COPYRIGHT 2012 LAURENCE A. ELDER
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