 by Chris MatthewsLet Me Start, Hardball with Chris Matthews |
COMMENTARY
This is a right-wing assault on women. This caveman view of the sexes that has now shown its ugly head.
Nobody paid any attention last week when Speaker John Boehner dared to mention the "knuckle-draggers" in his party, the hard-right wildmen who believe the president's a secret Muslim invader, that women who have an abortion or even use an IUD should be treated as murderers; now comes this Republican candidate in Missouri, Todd Akin, talking about "legitimate" rape and spouting some caveman theory that sex which is forced cannot result in pregnancy.
Finally, we meet the missing link, the evidence that the party of Lincoln cannot get in bed with the most freakish elements of the right, the birthers and the personhood nuts and all the rest of this menagerie— and not become itself a freak show.
Let's state it clear right up front: a woman forced to have sexual relations at the threat of harm is a victim of rape. There are no qualifiers, no area of "legitimacy" or "illegitimacy."
As the great Michael Kinsley put it, "in politics, a gaffe is when you say what you really think."