Kansas City News Blog

“Rape is terrible. Rape is awful.” That's from Kansas Senator and presidential hopeful Sam Brownback. He made that comment, according to this article in The Kansas City Star, while speaking at the National Catholic Men's Conference in South Carolina.

So now we know where he stands on that whole rape thing. You can almost picture one solitary tear rolling down his cheek, like a telegenically stoic Native American watching truck drivers hurl Hefty bags full of their soiled adult diapers into the breakdown lane.

Instead of concluding with “Period,” followed by “Thank you and good night,” thereby leaving the audience with the impression that maybe Brownback himself had an orange rape whistle on his key chain, he continued his thought to its logical conclusion: “Is [rape] made any better by killing an innocent child? Does it solve the problem for the woman that's been raped?”

Wow. Uh, I’d say no, “killing a child” doesn’t “make rape better.” As deal-sweeteners go, I think that’s a loser. And though the cartoon image of a fully formed toddler springing out of the womb of a rape victim pretty much speaks to the level of sex education in Kansas, it helps if you know who Brownback was speaking to. And the National Catholic Men's Conference is a group that really cares about rape. Y’know, in the same distant, hypothetical way that Madonna sometimes worries about unspayed Third World AIDS puppies. I mean, it’s not in their charter or anything. But it’s definitely something they’ve heard about.

Anyway, I read that and just shook my head in silent admiration. Here’s my analysis of this Brownbackian rhetorical technique:

1. Begin with a statement of conventional wisdom that everyone can agree with. [“Rape is bad.”]

2. Slip a roofie into its drink, and when it passes out, pose it on the couch next to a crazy-type statement. [“Killing babies does not make rape better.”]

3. Take a picture that proves that these two statements are a natural pair and they hang around together all the time.

Here are some examples of how a laughably optimistic presidential hopeful might deploy the rhetorical technique of the “Rohypnol Equivalence” for other interest groups:

The Minute Men
“Everyone agrees that the Apollo program was a triumph of American ingenuity. But if we allow illegal Mexicans to practice midwifery behind highway rest-stops, how will we ever return to the moon?”

Focus on the Family
“The sum of the degree measurements of two complimentary angles is 90 degrees. How many degrees of Satan is gay marriage?”

The National Rifle Association
“The equator is equidistant from the North Pole and the South Pole. But where will your rifle be when the abortionists outlaw the 4th Amendment?”

-- Chris Packham