F. Fitzgerald said there “are are no second acts in American lives” — but there apparently are second acts in conservative ideologues who wish to flaunt their studity. An so I submit to you one Rep. Phil Gringley:
U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) said that former Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) was “partly right” regarding Akin’s remarks — which were proven untrue by doctors — about women being able to prevent pregnancy if they are raped.
Speaking at a suburban-Atlanta chamber of commerce breakfast, Gingrey also said that he’s been an OB-GYN since 1975 and tells infertile couples “all the time” to just “relax” in order to conceive, according to The Marietta Daily Journal.
“[In] Missouri, Todd Akin … was asked by a local news source about rape and he said, ‘Look, in a legitimate rape situation’ — and what he meant by legitimate rape was just look, someone can say I was raped: a scared-to-death 15-year-old that becomes impregnated by her boyfriend and then has to tell her parents, that’s pretty tough and might on some occasion say, ‘Hey, I was raped.’ That’s what he meant when he said legitimate rape versus non-legitimate rape,” Gingrey said.
Gingrey, a co-chair of the GOP Doctors Caucus, continued: “I don’t find anything so horrible about that. But then he went on and said that in a situation of rape, of a legitimate rape, a woman’s body has a way of shutting down so the pregnancy would not occur. He’s partly right on that.”
And there is now the invetible, predictable (partial)walk back:
On Friday, Gingrey’s office provided a statement, in which, he appeared to be distancing himself from the remarks, which he said were misconstrued:
“At a breakfast yesterday morning, I was asked why Democrats made abortion a central theme of the presidential campaign. I do not defend, nor do I stand by, the remarks made by Rep. Akin and Mr. [Richard] Mourdock. In my attempt to provide context as to what I presumed they meant, my position was misconstrued,” he said in the statement.
It doesn’t sound like the GOP is doing too well in its (supposed) efforts to win over more women voter.
P.S. Doesn’t it seem as politicians (who say dumb or politically self-destructive things) are always misunderstood?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.