Immodest Government

The most telling remark by Missouri Senate candidate Representative Todd Akin was not his inane comment about “legitimate” rape and a woman’s magic uterus, but his claim that he would not drop out of the race because of how important his election is for “the cause.” The polls show him losing by a large margin against one of the Senate’s weakest incumbents, and every major Republican from Mitt Romney on down has repudiated him, but Akin knows that he really is the indispensable candidate. He has “been called,” he says, to lead us.

The messianic ego that Akin is displaying has become all too typical of the political class. How often do members of Congress voluntarily step down? Republicans and Democrats jointly maneuvered to defeat term limits. Now even the self-limiters have fallen by the wayside, as legislators decide that they owe it to their constituents to hold on to their seats forever — until, that is, they decide to run for a higher office. Change their district, they will move to run in the new one. No barrier is so great that it can prevent them from getting back to Washington, where they can serve and protect us.

Read more: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/315201/immodest-government-michael-tanner