Huckabee blames GOP for allowing Akin’s ‘legitimate rape’ comment to sink campaign 
 
 By Scott Kaufman 
 
 Monday, July 7, 2014 11:37 EDT 
 
 In the forward to former Senate candidate Todd Akin’s new book, former Arkansas governor and potential 2016 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee defends Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment. 
 
 “I expected Democrats to pounce on Todd,” Huckabee wrote, for a comment that women don’t become pregnant in cases of “legitimate rape.” 
 
 “But I was disheartened and outraged when Republicans circled the wagons,” he continued, “not to support Todd and help him overcome an obstacle but instead as a firing squad pointed at the congressman.” 
 
 Huckabee further claimed that the author of Firing Back: Taking on the Party Bosses and Media Elite to Protect Our Faith and Freedom is just one of many “social conservatives” who have been attacked by “party bosses, partisan power brokers and the entrenched GOP establishment.” 
 
 “I’m deeply offended by this infighting within the Republican Party,” he wrote, “because it is so destructive to the country we care so deeply about.” 
 
 Oliver North also contributed a glowing review of Akin and his book, writing that he admires “Todd’s stand for the sanctity of life” and “his steadfast resolve against an onslaught of media bullies and party bosses,” which he characterized as “the stuff of legend.” 
 
 According to Right Wing Watch, Akin’s publisher — World Net Daily’s Joseph Farah — said that the “legitimate rape” comment “represents in its entirety one of the best articulations of the life ethic. There’s simply nothing in there that is factually wrong or offensive — unless you are looking to be offended by something.” 
 
 [Image via Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons licensed] 

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 Todd Akin takes it back. 
 
 He’s not sorry. 
 
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 Two years after the Missouri Republican’s comments on rape, pregnancy and abortion doomed his campaign and fueled a “war on women” message that carried Democrats to victory in the Senate, one of the few regrets he mentions in a new book is the decision to air a campaign ad apologizing for his remarks. 
 
 “By asking the public at large for forgiveness,” Akin writes, “I was validating the willful misinterpretation of what I had said.” 
 
 (PHOTOS: 5 controversial Todd Akin quotes) 
 
 And when it comes to his infamous line about rape and pregnancy, that “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” he writes defiantly: “My comment about a woman’s body shutting the pregnancy down was directed to the impact of stress on fertilization. This is something fertility doctors debate and discuss,” Akin writes. “Doubt me? Google ‘stress and infertility,’ and you will find a library of research on the subject.” 
 
 “Firing Back: Taking on the Party Bosses and Media Elite to Protect Our Faith and Freedom” hits bookshelves July 15. An advance copy was provided to POLITICO by a source involved with the book. 
 
 Akin argues that he could have defeated Sen. Claire McCaskill in Missouri, despite his comments, if it weren’t for the piling on from both liberals and conservatives. He compares his situation sympathetically to that of George Allen, who lost a Senate race in Virginia after calling a liberal tracker a racial slur. And he accuses liberals of hypocrisy for asking Bill Clinton to headline the Democratic National Convention. 
 
 (From last year: Akin says he regrets rape comments) 
 
 The forward is written by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, but few other conservatives are likely to cheer Akin’s return to the national stage in the final months of a campaign season Republicans vowed would not be shaped by the mistakes of 2012, when comments about rape and women’s issues derailed their hopes of retaking the Senate. 
 
 Akin isn’t concerned. Here are some key takeaways from his book: 
 
 Defends comments on rape 
 
 Akin offers no apologies for his “legitimate rape” comment and blames liberal news media for how it was received. The liberal opposition research super PAC American Bridge dug up the video and sent it to Talking Points Memo, described as one of the “well-funded, left-leaning blogs.” Talking Points Memo posted the footage and started a firestorm. 
 
 Akin systematically defends every phrase in his response to whether abortion in the case of rape should be legal. “Taking my comments in order: When a woman claims to have been raped, the police determine if the evidence supports the legal definition of ‘rape.’ Is it a legitimate claim of rape or an excuse to avoid an unwanted pregnancy?” 
 
 (From the POLITICO archives: Akin: 'Legitimate rape' victims rarely get pregnant) 
 
 “My comment about a woman’s body shutting the pregnancy down was directed to the impact of stress on fertilization. This is something fertility doctors debate and discuss. Doubt me? Google ‘stress and infertility,’ and you will find a library of research on the subject.” 
 
 To further make his case, Akin says he was hesitant to appear on a local Fox show hosted by Charles Jaco, where he made those comments, because the “hard-bitten liberal” could make the interview a “high-risk venture.” The fact that Jaco didn’t immediately pounce on his comments was because he heard them “in context with the various qualifiers.” 
 
 Akin later says during his time as a state legislator, he wished he could have done more to “end this evil,” referring to abortion, which in his view “easily trumps slavery as the greatest moral evil in American history.” 
 
 As Akin makes the case that he has “zero sympathy” for anyone who commits rape, he tries to illustrate his commitment by pointing to President Bill Clinton. Akin writes that if he had been in Congress in 1998 he would have voted to impeach Clinton. The investigation started, according to Akin, with allegations of sexual assault of Paula Jones, which then led investigators to learn about his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky. The impeachment involved Lewinsky, not sexual assault. 
 
 Akin writes that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney should have defended him by using Clinton’s indiscretions and alleged comment that one woman “put some ice on that” just as Clinton was set to serve as a keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention. In 2012, Romney denounced Akin’s comments and urged him to drop out of the race. 
 
 What Akin believes Romney should have said when asked about the “legitimate rape” comments: “[Bill Clinton] is giving the keynote speech at the Democratic convention in two weeks, and you want me to denounce a decent, God-fearing man for his inelegant comments about rape? No, not happening, and if the truth hurts, put some ice on it.”
– First Todd Akin said "legitimate rape" victims rarely get pregnant. Then the Missouri rep apologized for the rape comment in a commercial for his 2012 Senate run and the world moved on (but not before opponent Claire McCaskill soundly defeated him). Now he’s back with a new book and a new (old) outlook: that he was scientifically accurate in his initial assessment of rape, according to Politico. "My comment about a woman’s body shutting the pregnancy down was directed to the impact of stress of fertilization," he writes in Firing Back: Taking on the Party Bosses and Media Elite to Protect Our Faith and Freedom. "This is something fertility doctors debate and discuss. Doubt me? Google 'stress and infertility,' and you will find a library of research on the subject." And he says apologizing for the initial comment is one of his few regrets: "By asking the public at large for forgiveness, I was validating the willful misinterpretation of what I had said." Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee penned the foreword to Akin's book, scheduled to hit shelves July 15, and calls out Republicans who "circled the wagons," according to Raw Story, "not to support Todd and help him overcome an obstacle but instead as a firing squad pointed at the congressman."