Todd Akin on Monday said that he’d been “assassinated by the media” in his failed 2012 Senate campaign against Claire McCaskill (D-MO), much like the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI).
Akin invoked McCarthy, who was denounced in the 1950s for leading a witch hunt against alleged Communists, in a phone interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
“I use McCarthy as an example of someone who was assassinated by the media, so he had no credibility,” Akin told the Post-Dispatch, drawing a comparison to what he said were “intentional and dishonest” distortions of his comments on rape and pregnancy during his Senate campaign.
Akin offers a defense of his infamous “legitimate rape” remark in his new book, “Firing Back.” Fox News host Megyn Kelly grilled the former congressman on that defense Monday night, accusing Akin of “dialing it back” after apologizing for the comment.
