Besides being disavowed by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, presidential candidate Mitt Romney ]denounced Akin’s words as “outrageous,” and GOP officials called for Akin to step down. What’s lost in this fray, and what is most important for women voters, is that as bizarre as Akin’s statement was, it is in complete accordance with the official GOP platform: a ban on abortion with no exceptions for rape--or incest. This is the same platform it brought to the 2008 convention and the 2004 one.

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As you probably know, the other day, Vice President Biden got in a bit of trouble—again. Speaking to an audience in southern Virginia that included hundreds of blacks, he said:

Look at what they [Republicans] value, and look at their budget. And look what they’re proposing. [Romney] said in the first 100 days, he’s going to let the big banks write their own rules — unchain Wall Street.

And then came the punch line…

“They’re going to put y’all back in chains.”

The reaction was immediate—and huge. Biden’s oopsies are as popular as Dan Quayle’s two decades earlier. The media (including the influential Jon Stewart) had a field day with this remark, in part because any kind of perceived misstatement by a famous person tends to get a rise out of the public and is a sort of welcome, effortless freebie.

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