For crying out loud, are we talking about this again?
Mitt Romney is distancing himself from Richard Mourdock after the Republican U.S. Senate hopeful said in a debate Tuesday night that all pregnancies are “something that God intended to happen” – even in cases of rape.
“I’ve struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen,” he said.
Dear Conservative Candidates:
Between now and election day, if someone asks you about abortion in the case of rape, please slap that person’s microphone to the ground and run away with your fingers in your ears yelling “La la la la!” as loud as you can. It will look better than any answer you can come up with.
No one (No! One!) is asking you this question in good faith. They don’t really care what you think. They won’t be swayed by your deeply held convictions. They are only trying to get you to yak up a sound bite that they can use to torpedo you and then hang your dead carcass around Mitt Romney’s neck.
Nobody cares about debating the sanctity of life, or the obvious point that if someone has to die because of a rape, shouldn’t it be the rapist? It’s not about winning debates; it’s about winning elections. Win, and you get to implement policies that protect life. Sabotage yourself by blundering into the modern equivalent of “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” and you don’t get to protect anybody.
So, for the sake of those lives you say you value, please, please, please shut up, shut up, and shut up. Thank you.
Your pal,
Jason
Update: Jennifer Rubin and Charles C.W. Cooke make heroic efforts to explain that what Mourdock said is much more reasonable than the headlines would lead you to believe (Surprise! Surprise!). I appreciate their attempt to inject common sense into the story, but, again, nobody cares. It’s not about reasonableness or explanations or common sense. It’s about ginning up ways to make a Republican candidate look like a crazy loon from a party of crazy loons. Conservatives, please stop opening the door into your own face.
Update, Yet Again: GetReligion does a good job of laying out the “galling” inconsistency of the press’ abortion coverage:
Now, it’s worth noting that no debates ever ask any consistent pro-choice candidates why they think there should be no protection for unborn children whose lives are ended simply because they’re female, or because they have Down syndrome, or because they’re inconveniently timed, or because of the circumstances of their conception. Nope, even though the vast majority of Americans seek some or total protection for unborn children, these questions are never asked. Not even of President Obama, whose voting habits while in the Illinois Senate were particularly extreme.
But if you’re consistently pro-life, then release the hounds. If you publicly affirm your belief that God loves every person equally, no matter what his or her origin, you’re painted as an extremist. You should call your office! And freak out! The AP headline was literally “Mourdock: God at work when rape leads to pregnancy.”