Mitt Romney's Latest Headache: Rep.Todd Akin’s Rape/Abortion Remarks

by Nomad
Just when you may have thought the Republican party couldn’t get any more ignorant and hypocritical, in one fell swoop, a remark by the Tea Party nominee in the Senate race for the state of Missouri has demonstrated that the party has untapped reserves of both.

On a recent St. Louis TV program Rep. Todd Akins was asked about women’s reproductive health issues, and whether his anti-abortion stand included an exemption for rape. He replied that it did not. Why? Because in those cases, he claimed, a woman’s body will somehow know to end the pregnancy itself. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

There was immediate outrage by women’s groups, which is a fairly predictable result whenever a politician- especially a male one- is foolish enough to put the words “legitimate” and “rape” together in the same sentence. (It's also an effective way to isolate yourself at a cocktail party, I might add.)  

Apologists for the Congressman- where they could be found- shrugged off the remarks as just a poor choice of words and (c'mon guys!) an artificial controversy. 

A Closer Look at Romney’s Surrogates- John H. Sununu 3/3

by Nomad
PART ONE
PART TWO

In this final post in the series, we will look at the mounting calls for Sununu's dismissal as Chief of Staff in George Bush, Sr. administration. Even after he had been warned about his questionable misuse of travel expenses, he failed to take the problem seriously. 

Pride Before the Fall

Those that said Sununu would not change were quickly proved correct. When barred from using military aircraft, he resorted to different modes of travel and different methods to pay for them.

According to investigative reporters, Sununu ordered a White House limo to take him to New York to a rare stamp auction at Christies. To make matters worse, Sununu then sent the car and driver back to Washington unoccupied while he returned on a corporate jet.

A Closer Look at Romney’s Surrogates- John H. Sununu 2/3

by Nomad

In PART ONE of this three-part series, we examined John Sununu's new role as a Mitt Romney surrogate. We then took a look at the man, his character and how his character affected his performance in his former position as George H.W. Bush's Chief of State in the early 1990s. 

In this post, we will start out with one of Sununu's important miscalculations.

The Appointment Blunder
When Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, known for being a leader of the Court's liberal wing, stepped down, President Bush had expressed desire to nominate Clarence Thomas to the court. This was part of a long term agenda to place a conservative majority on the bench. The genius of the agenda, so the theory went, was that liberals would see a black man, or a woman, or a Hispanic, but the mindset was very much conservative. A faux kind of affirmative action for the Supreme Court.

However, because of Thomas’ lack of plausible qualifications for the position, the idea was eventually nixed. (The idea would later be -out of necessity- revived and that would lead to exactly what President Bush had feared -a major confirmation skirmish for the Bush administration.)

What they needed was somebody whose background was spotless and whose views were not extremist- or at least, not conspicuously so.