To the Readers' Forum:
What is wrong with what Congressman Akin said? It is so horrible and obvious we are supposed to know instinctively. You can have mistresses, promote abortions, have a homosexual paramour with illegal financial undertones, cheat on taxes, even get drunk and kill a woman under very strange circumstances and still be elected - if you are a Democrat, but if a Republican doesn't cover a sneeze, it's the death penalty.
Akin used the word ''legitimate'' as an adjective modifying rape. He meant an actual, truthfully reported rape as opposed to one that isn't, an impermissible innuendo. We are supposed to believe that women never lie, that women never lie about sex, that feminists are entitled and we are obligated to believe anything they want, or that no matter what happens and no matter what is said, feminists must be exempt from suspicion.
Apparently equally horrifying was the remainder of Akin's statement. All our lives we have heard that conceptions from rape are relatively rare. With farm animals we are told to keep levels of stress low to favor conception. In zoos with endangered species we are trying to propagate, extreme measures are taken to minimize stress for similar reasons. Now, all of a sudden this doesn't apply to humans? Where is the research? Where was this reported? How do all these leftists stay so current on sexual research? What do they expect the rest of us to do? Sit down; shut up, and vote Democratic.
Akin spoke haltingly and with embarrassment about sex. This itself is blood for the leftist sharks. He has inhibitions, not one of us; destroy him.
The whole thing is a farce, a preposterous dumb show, adolescent entertainment. The left is organized to troll for anything it can exploit, distort, and use to drum up mob frenzies. Find a scapegoat and make an example of him. Make even the slightest lapses of sycophancy a major offense. Don't deny the double standard; flaunt it. Bully, disgrace, and intimidate anyone who stands in your way. They know issues and facts have almost no influence on human behavior, it is all emotion and social context.
The issue is never the issue, as Saul Alinsky famously said. Power and the Senate are the immediate issues. Total domination with suppression of all dissent is the ultimate goal. None of these breast beaters gives a fig about women, truth, sensitivity or anything but power.
Norman P. Carlson
Busti