First Diary!
With that out of the way, let me express why I find Todd Akin's apology regarding his statements about "legitimate rape" to be so utterly, truly clueless that he honestly does NOT understand what all the hubbub is about.
More below the squiggle.
Let's compare these two statements by Akin. First, his initial statement on Sunday:
"If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,"
It is absolutely clear that Akin was equating "legitimate" with "real" or "forcible" rape. An "illegitimate" rape, one can assume he thinks, is not forcible. An example of this is statutory rape. This is the same "logic" that what was spelled out in the legislation he and his cronies supported that would narrow the definition of "real" rape so fewer pregnancies produced by rapes would qualify for federal abortion funds.
Now for the apology:
"Let me be clear," Akin added. "Rape is never legitimate. It's an evil act that's committed by violent predators. I used the wrong words in the wrong way."
Based on this apology, is sounds like he thinks that the public mistook his use of the word "legitimate" to mean "justified" or "OK"!! Otherwise, he would have said in his apology that "All rapes are legitimate", not "Rape is never legitimate".
Is he so completely, utterly clueless that he thinks that if he had said: "If it's a forcible rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,", that everything would have been OK? He is totally, completely misunderstanding the outrage against him.
Unbelievable.