Politico:
“The views expressed were offensive. Rape is rape,” Obama said at a press briefing Monday. “And the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of rape we’re talking about doesn’t make sense to the American people. And certainly doesn’t make sense to me.”
Eugene Robinson:
At least until Election Day, Republicans were supposed to pretend that their party’s alleged “war on women” was nothing but a paranoid fantasy stoked by desperate Democrats. Obviously, Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) didn’t get the memo.
Speaking of which,
James Rainey:
The Republican Party has ridden ideological, anti-government fervor to a number of victories, particularly in the 2010 midterm election. But the political dangers created by the free-wheeling, anti-authoritarian movement have come into full view in the person of rogue U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin.
Most traditional GOP nominees who made a giant blunder — as Akin did Sunday with his foolish comments about how “legitimate rape” seldom makes women pregnant — would find it hard to resist the barrage of calls from Republican Party major-domos to give up their candidacies.
But as of Monday evening, Akin appeared determined to remain in the race against Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). His intransigence came despite clear signals — from the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee, its Senate leader, its party chairman, one of its most powerful independent fundraising engines and even a leading tea party umbrella group — that he needed to get out as soon as possible.
More offensive Republican behavior from
Jamelle Bouie:
Indeed, when you consider the extent to which this attack came out of the blue — no one was talking about welfare before Romney began this assault — and the fact that Romney’s White House bid depends on record levels of support from white voters, it’s hard not to see it as a blatant attempt to pander to the racial anxieties of downscale whites.
Which is why it’s worth pointing out this lie whenever it surfaces. Far more so than Joe Biden — who made an off-the-cuff remark — Romney is playing a deliberate game of racial division, trying to harm Obama’s standing with whites by connecting him to long-circulating stereotypes about African Americans. It’s an ugly move that should be condemned in the harshest terms possible.
EJ Dionne:
Those who are anxious about the deficit should relax. This campaign could actually pave the way for a sensible budget deal. And those who bemoan the rock-’em-sock-’em campaign should stop wringing their hands and get about the business of calling out falsehoods and identifying misleading assertions.
EJ is right. Do your job, media, and get over the handwringing. Maybe everyone won't hate you if you do.
Erik Wemple on Politico reporter David Catanese's twitter meltdown over trying to defend Todd Akin's comments:
Don’t like the tone here. Catanese appears to be blaming Twitter for his misguided thought experiment. Though Twitter challenges writers to put their thoughts in brief spurts, there’s nothing in its guidelines that bars someone from conveying nuance. That’s possible; it happens all the time. In fact, those who responded to Catanese’s tweets in many instances deployed nuance themselves.
The problem was not Twitter; it wasn’t the fact that he was wading into a highly charged issue; it was that he was attempting to defend something that didn’t merit defending.
And the
follow-up:
Politico has pulled errant tweep Dave Catanese from coverage of the Todd Akin scandal, according to a memo Monday from the news outlet’s editorial management.
More from
Kaili Joy Gray on the Catanese meltdown.
That won't stop Tony Perkins/FRC from defending the indefensible:
The Family Research Council offered strong support for Todd Akin Monday afternoon.
“This is an effort to try to direct attention away from…Claire McCaskill, who has been supportive of Planned Parenthood – an organization that’s been under investigation for criminal activity,” FRC President Tony Perkins said in between meetings of the RNC platform committee.
Perkins lashed out at Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) for saying Akin should get out of the race.
“He should be careful because based on some of his statements there may be call for him to get out of his race,” he said of Brown. “He has been off the reservation on a number of Republican issues, conservative issues I should say. His support among conservatives is very shallow.”
Cue the "Dems in disarray" stories.
Mark Blumenthal:
In Washington, the Republican establishment is sending Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) a unmistakable message: He needs to exit the Senate race against Democratic incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill. Now.
But in Missouri, a non-scientific Patch poll of influential local Republicans shows suburban activists and officeholders in or near Akin's district are divided about whether he should stay in the race, at least for the moment.
Cue even more "Dems in disarray" stories.
National Journal:
Democrats laud Team Obama's tenacity, in part because they want to protect the hard-won gains of his first two years. They want a harshly protective president to defend health care, bank regulations, and green-energy investments, not to mention education spending, Medicaid, Medicare, and environmental regulations. Discouraging words about the combative Obama — former Democratic Rep. Artur Davis of Alabama notwithstanding — are rare.
Dammit, there's got to be a... oh, wait...
POLITICO e-book: Obama campaign roiled by conflict. Right on cue.
Ta-Nehisi Coates:
For those of us who remember the attacks on Obama in 2008, this is a notable shift. Four years ago the book on Obama was not that he would fight dirty but that he would not fight at all. Before Obama became the Great Deceiver of Men, he was a pinot-noir-sipping weakling who was a horrible bowler, marveled at arugula and otherwise failed at manhood. The gospel among Republicans, and even many Democrats, held that Obama was yet another espouser of effete liberalism, a tradition allegedly pioneered by Adlai Stevenson, elevated by Jimmy Carter, apotheosized by Michael Dukakis, and admirably upheld by a windsurfing John Kerry.