Akin isn't a glitch, he's a feature of the repugican party

You may recall that repugican Cong. Akin is running for the US Senate from Missouri, and recently made some quite incendiary comments about rape and abortion.

Here's that from Marketwatch:

Akin, a Missouri congressman who is challenging Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, said on Sunday that pregnancy caused by rape is “really rare,” and that in the case of “legitimate rape,” women’s bodies have “ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

And here's the video of him making the comment:

Now the problem for the repugican party: Akin needs to pull out by the end of today or it gets a lot harder, but not impossible, for the repugican party to replace him with someone else.

From CNN:

Missouri election rules allow a candidate to withdraw with little difficulty through Tuesday, which is 11 weeks prior to the Nov. 6 election.
After Tuesday, the candidate must get a court order and pay for any necessary reprinting of ballots. The state repugican party would choose another candidate to run against McCaskill, considered one of the most vulnerable senators in the country.

Good piece by LZ Granderson at CNN about how Akin is only the tip of the iceberg - this is a repugican party-wide problem. Here's a snippet:

The truth is the "legitimate rape" comment made by U.S. Rep. Todd Akin -- as in pregnancy from "legitimate rape" is rare -- is not a repugican party anomaly, but rather another disturbing glimpse into the viewpoint too many social conservatives have about women's health and reproductive rights. And if abortion is not among the "real issues," why is the repugican party platform committee considering adding a ban, with no mention of exceptions, to this year's to-do list?

Last March, in a discussion in the Kansas House about whether women purchase separate abortion-only policies, repugican state Rep. Pete DeGraaf suggested women should plan ahead for rape the way he keeps a spare tire. A few weeks later, Indiana state Rep. Eric Turner, a repugican, said some women might fake being raped in order to get free abortions.

Former presidential hopeful Rick Santorum suggested doctors who perform an abortion on a woman who becomes pregnant from an attack should be thrown in jail and this year suggested rape victims who become pregnant from an attack should be forced to keep the baby and "make the best out of a bad situation."

And we're to believe Akin is just a one-off.

Please.