WHO COULD forget candidate George W. Bush’s phrase that he was a “compassionate conservative,” implying that an entire political philosophy need such a qualifier.
Well, given past and current Republican attitudes toward the poor, ill, disadvantaged, and women, who could say that Bush was not prescient? Now Todd Akin comes along as the latest case in point. The Republican candidate for Senate in Missouri said, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
An amazing attitude to be sure, but what’s more amazing is Akin’s current role in this conservative Republican House of Representatives — namely, that he serves on a House science committee. Which leads any thinking person to the inescapable conclusion that conservative compassion is to compassion as conservative science is to science.