FU - FairAndUNbalanced.com

How can a politician bury an extreme position?

Here in Missouri, our own Republican candidate for the United States Senate has found a perfect method.

It is, in part, a philosophical question as to whether a citizen of Missouri should be concerned about the quality of education kids receive in Arkansas or Mississippi. President Bush, what used to be mainstream Republicans, and even conservatives used to agree that no child should be left behind.

In part, it is a matter of practicality. States cannot routinely amortize costs, even when benefits extend years and decades ahead. Businesses can. The federal government can.

Representative Akin opposes such considerations. At the Missouri state fair, he was asked about it. St. Louis Public Radio was there.

"I think the federal government should be out of the education business; I think that's something that should be done at the state level. I used to be a state legislator...states can handle education stuff fine, (and the) federal government doesn't really add any value."

It was a clarification of his thoughts on school lunch programs for little kids. Todd Akin opposes that as well. If the states can handle it they should. If not, well, the priority for Republicans should remain further tax cuts for the extremely wealthy.

The news coverage was national. Dailies on Florida, Los Angeles, Washington State, Charlotte, pretty much everywhere, covered the proposed elimination of school lunches for hungry children.

This past weekend, Todd Akin had a chance to clarify his stance further. Charles Jaco is a local interviewer who conducts a weekly show on the local Fox affiliate. He asks all the controversial questions, but he stays polite, doesn't press too hard, not much on follow up. He asked Mr. Akin about the school lunches. Representative Akin explained that he had no objection to feeding kids. he just felt like states would handle it with less waste. No value was added by the feds.

Charles Jaco pretty much let it go at that. He went down the list of other issues. He had asked, and Mr. Akin had given his boiler plate responses, and it was on to the next item. Pell Grants followed, the farm bill, restrictive voter ID laws. After the commercial break, Mr. Jaco went to yet the next item and got to abortion. Todd Akin is a personhood anti-abortion advocate. Even many kinds of birth control should be outlawed. He tried moderating his position just a little. There are extreme circumstances in which a fetus definitely will not survive, and the only question is the survival of the pregnant woman, which depends on an abortion. Mr. Akin is for optimizing life, so maybe in those cases. Nothing would be lost and the woman would survive.

Jaco, surprisingly, went to a follow up question. How might the optimizing of life apply to rape cases? Would that also be an exception?

Todd Akin was ready for that one. He exposed the liberal pro-abortion lie about rape exceptions. You see, "legitimate" rape victims don't get pregnant. You can find that wisdom on at least a few personal blogs inspired by the sort of medical information passed about in Fellowship Hall at some churches on Sunday. Pediatricians might scoff, but they are seldom enlightened by the Holy Spirit. Not so Mr. Akin.

"From what I understand from doctors, that's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

There might be extremely rare instances in which female natural anti-pregnancy processes might miss a rape or two. But why punish the fertilized egg? We should punish the rapist instead.

"Let's assume that maybe that didn't work or something. You know, I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child."

Okay. So keep it outlawed. The exception does not exist. It's a myth. In almost all cases of legitimate rape, victims can't get pregnant. On to the next question. Said Jaco, "Let's go on to the economy."

There you have it. The abortion answer made everyone drop their teeth on the table. Now nobody anywhere is reporting on eliminating school lunches for hungry kids in order to help finance tax cuts for the wealthy. That controversy has been blown away like ashes in the breeze.

How many politicians could come up with that sort of creative strategy? Akin. What a guy!