What's the Deal with Todd Akin's "Legitimate Rape" Comment?

I suspect you may be like me, and have to watch that several times in order to absorb the full blow of its utter stupidity. My first reaction, having recovered from that, was that it seems like a reiteration of Michele Bachmann's vaccination comments, in which a GOP candidate for office decides to apply his or her own imagination to science. (Bachmann's creative repertoire also extends to history.) And even though this will be less harmful — even if some are bound to be convinced — the pseudoscience still reveals a wider ignorance within the GOP. I was particularly scared at the way in which he attempted to recast abortion as an easy ethical problem, a mistake made by both liberals and conservatives, and proceeded to rewrite established medical knowledge while he was at it.

Nate SIlver is predicting that the blowout from the whole fiasco could swing the Missouri race by a big margin. It seems likely. Romney's side has taken the politically astute move of siding with basic decency, and has confirmed that a Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape. Maybe sensing that this had not gone far enough to cut the cord with the odious Akin, Romney on Monday in the pages of NRO said that the remarks were "insulting, inexcusable, and, frankly, wrong."

Amy Davidson considers it indicative of wider ignorance:

Beyond that, there is a notion, common in conservative rhetoric lately, that desperation is always elsewhere, and that the crises in ordinary lives do not need to be contemplated or worried about—not by nice people. They are rare; something has gone wrong; maybe the complaint isn’t legitimate; maybe it’s their own fault. That indifference goes beyond the question of rape and abortion.

I still like the comment of a relative on Facebook, who wrote, "Intelligent design has a lot to answer for, if this is the sort of idiot it produces." Indeed.