The liberal activist organization non-partisan journalistic outfit ThinkProgress is at it again, this time targeting yours truly (perhaps they are attempting to create a “rap sheet” on me, so they can attempt to “Treviño” me in the future?).
One of the benefits of having a blog is the ability to respond to things such as this. It wouldn’t warrant a newspaper column, but two falsehoods in one headline does warrant a blog post.
So here’s their headline: “Conservative Columnist Suggests Akin’s Rape Comments Are ‘Explainable,’ Touts Junk Science.”
My response:
1. It is true that I wrote this morning that Rep. Todd Akin needed to explain his recent controversial comments (this was before his radio interview with Mike Huckabee — indeed before he had granted any interviews). ThinkProgress (apparently?) interpreted this to mean I think his comments are easily “explainable” — meaning understandable. (It would be hard for me to know whether or not Akin’s comments were explainable — or acceptable — before I understood his explanation.)
Note: I did write that if Akin was arguing that some women might falsely claim to have been raped (in order to procure a legal abortion), then that theory would at least be explainable (meaning it’s a coherent explanation).
Nobody knows exactly what Akin meant by the term “legitimate rape,” and that’s the point. At the end of the day, we might not agree with his position (whatever that is!), but shouldn’t we at least try to suss out what he was trying to say?
Clearly ThinkProgress took my comment out of context.
2. Next, I tackled what Akin might have meant when he said “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Again, this struck me as an odd thing for him to say, and so I posited some theories regarding what he might have been referencing. Then, I noted: “This may or may not be junk science.”
Somehow this led ThinkProgress to conclude that Matt Lewis “Touts Junk Science.”
Unbelievable.