Ooh please, could we have Todd Akin to kick around some more? (Or wait, are we sure that's what we want?)

Hear Todd talk: "It's one of those things that depends on the circumstances really. I don't rule anything out. I consider it a bright new future and I'm interested to see what the possibilities are."

by Ken

Well, if Mark "Hikin' the Appalachian Trail" Sanford can make a comeback, why not Todd "The Bitches They Be Askin' for It" Akin? Washingtonpost.com's Aaron Blake reported this afternoon:

Todd Akin opens door to a comeback

Former congressman Todd Akin (R-Mo.), in his first interview since his 2012 Senate campaign imploded after his comments about "legitimate rape," says he's not ruling out another run for office.

"It's one of those things that depends on the circumstances really. I don't rule anything out," he told KSDK-TV. "I consider it a bright new future and I'm interested to see what the possibilities are."

Akin also had some sharp words for Karl Rove, who like many Republicans has criticized Akin's 2012 campaign as woefully inept.

"I think I lost one race; he managed to lose about 12 of them in one night," Akin said.

(Worth noting: If Akin had been able to run in more than one race in 2012, there's a good chance he would have lost the other ones too.)

For more, see the full interview here.

First off, for the umpteenth time, could we make it clear that the lamebrain thug never suggested that there is such a thing as "legitimate rape," and at this point I think it's air to ask anyone who suggests that he did whether they consider themselves morons or just liars. What Saint Todd in fact was suggesting -- and it's really impossible for anyone with a working brain to honestly misunderstand the point -- is much worse: that there is a teensy, weensy occurrence of violent sexual episods that legitimately qualify as rape, the obvious implication being that all the other cases where women cry "rape!" are illegitimate. Presumably either the bitches wuz lying' or they wuz askin' fer it. And what they really want is abortion on demand.

This is, I have no doubt, exactly what our Todd believes, and not just Todd. As far as I can tell (as we've pointed out here often) his views on rape are identical to those of Paul Ryan, and very likely a host of other right-wing fake-moral doodybrains. Todd just happens to be possibly a shade stupider but unquestionably a degree more indiscrete than the rest of these clowns, who wouldn't know actual morality if it blasted their tiny brains to smithereens. Hiding just under the surface is the belief that the proper role of the wimmins is to be the wholly owned property of Good Christian Mens and to provide the traditional barefoot-and-pregnant servitude that God spelled out in the Bible. (Scratch just a millimeter deeper and you'll probably find that for wimmins that don't know their place, the occasional punching out by their Good Christian Mens is God's Plan.)

This seems to me way more revolting than the foolish notion that these people are saying there's such a thing as "legitimate [in the sense of "okay"] rape," and I wonder if it's entirely accident or incompetence that makes the infotainment noozemedia unwilling to discuss the actual belief, which perhaps strikes too close to home for the infotainment noozers.

ALL OF THAT SAID . . .

It occurs to me to wonder whether we're absolutely sure we want Todd back in the headlights. The obvious assumption is that he's so toxic, he can only do public harm to his ideological cohorts. Last time out, he was caught in an exposed position, making the jump from his old House seat to the Missouri statewide Senate race, at a time when the Gotcha Press Corps was lurking. Especially once you scratch away the layer of confusion about what he meant, what he believes is now practically "mainstream" on the over-the-edge-of-sanity Right.

And I worry about every benchmark of respectability those people manage to lay claim to.

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