Anything you (the US) can do, we (the UK) can do better - at least, offensive and dangerously ill-informed comments about rape, that is.
First, Republican candidate and anti-abortionist Todd Akin claimed that "doctors" had told him pregnancy resulting from "legitimate rape" was rare. Mitt Romney has denounced the comments, saying he has "an entirely different view" - which is odd, given what the Guardian refers to as his "ambiguous record" on the subject.
Not to be outdone, up stepped walking controversy-monger George Galloway, doing us Brits proud by describing Wikileaks founder Julian Assange as being guilty of nothing more than "bad sexual etiquette" if it's proven he didn't ask or even wake a woman before having sex with her. How rude! The rogue. Let's hope the judge just prescribes a few lessons in good manners, eh?
An apposite time, then, for the Guardian's Tanya Gold to write about the popularity of "hilarious" rape jokes at this year's Edinburgh Festival. Frankie Boyle has a lot to answer for.
Monday, August 20, 2012
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2 comments:
and it's this kind of thing which made my vote in the 2010 general election an anti-Galloway vote as much as anything else.
He's a force of nature and brilliant in lots of ways - the by-election result in Bradford was testament to that. He is also, however, an ego-on-legs that the people of Bradford will soon realise does not put the work in as a constituency MP.
Happily Bethnal Green & Bow now has an excellent and representative MP, rather than a divisive one.
Every now and again he hits the nail on the head, and part of me admires him for being a firebrand when most politicians will kowtow to the party line or whatever will make them electable. But you're right - above and beyond it all he's an incorrigible egotist whose concern is more for his public profile than the wellbeing of his constituents.
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