by Ari Berman
Back in 1990, the Republican candidate for Governor of Texas, Clayton Williams, likened rape to bad weather, saying, “As long as it’s inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”
When that joke came to light in June, John McCain was forced to “postpone” a fundraiser in Midland hosted by Williams. McCain spokesman Brian Rogers called the joke “incredibly offensive.”
But what Williams said in 1990 is not all that different than a joke McCain made about rape in 1986. According to the Tucson Citizen, here’s what McCain, then a two-term Congressman from Mesa, said during his run for the Senate:
Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, ‘Where is that marvelous ape?’
The Arizona Women’s Political Caucus and the Arizona chapter of NOW condemned the remarks as “insensitive, cruel and sexist.” McCain said he “did not recall” telling the joke and his spokeswoman at the time, Torie Clarke, said the furor was “a politically motivated sideshow” initiated by McCain’s Senate opponent, Richard Kimball.
The reporter on the story, Norma Collie, stood by her account in an interview with the Huffington Post this week.
Read the whole article here.