Todd Akin Acknowledges That No Rape Is Legitimate

Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin had to explain that he thinks "No rape is legitimate -- it is an evil act committed by violent predators," in an interview on Mike Huckabee's radio show Monday. Several Republicans have called on Akin to drop out of his race against Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill after he told a Missouri TV station that "a legitimate rape" rarely leads to pregnancy because "the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." Akin was effusive in his apology, saying, "I really made a couple of serious mistakes here that were really just wrong," but his clarification doesn't entirely show that he gets why people are so mad. While Akin stressed that pregnancies could result from rape, he told Huckabee, "I was talking about forcible rape and it was absolutely the wrong word." Adding any qualifier to rape is what makes many people so mad, as President Obama suggested when took questions unannounced in the White House press room Monday. "Rape is rape," Obama said, "The views expressed were offensive."

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Akin made it clear he's staying in the race. "The good people of Missouri nominated me and I'm not a quitter and my belief is we're going to take this thing foward," Akin said. "To quote my friend John Paul Jones, I've not yet begun to fight." Surely McCaskill is cheering that comment, as she spent $2 million airing ads faux-attacking Akin as the "true conservative" in the Republican Senate primary. He is the opponent she wanted for a reason.

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Update: Crossroads GPS is pulling out of Missouri, Politico's Alexander Burns reports. The group, founded by Karl Rove, started canceling ads Monday. A new set were to air Wednesday. Rove said Akin had "some real explaining to do" Monday, but did not explicitly call for him to quit the race.