Yesterday, we learned that Todd Akin retracted his apology for his dumbass comments about legitimate rape. Today, Politico has run a collection of quotes from Republicans trying to distance themselves from zombie Todd Akin and his stupid, stupid beliefs:

“Todd Akin is an embarrassment to the Republican Party and the sole reason Claire McCaskill is still part of Harry Reid’s majority,” said Brian Walsh, who served as communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 2012 cycle.

There's a lot more. Republicans really, really want Akin to shut his hate-hole.

But you know who Republicans can't get enough of these days? Rick Perry! At least, that's the premise of this glowing BuzzFeed story by Kate Nocera that reads suspiciously like it was willed into existence by Perry's publicity team:

Several people close to Perry insist his response to the border crisis involves no political calculation at all, and that he would be doing the exact same things were he not seriously toying with a 2016 run. A spokeswoman for Perry did not return a request for comment.

But, they add, it does give him the chance to change the subject from his “oops” moments and remind people why they thought he had a good shot before his 2012 dreams were derailed.

“It’s a side of Rick Perry the national public really hasn’t seen that a lot of us in Texas have,” said Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, who chaired a Homeland Security field hearing on border crisis in Texas last week with Perry as lead witness. “It’s one of his most passionate issues. He’s not coming across strident; he wants to see D.C. work. He’s solution-oriented.”

I could easily see a day in 2016, after Rick Perry inevitably fucks up his next presidential bid and after Todd Akin successfully runs for some shitty office somewhere in Missouri, when these two stories are completely reversed and Republicans are running away from Perry's incompetence and into the arms of a true conservative like Akin. That's why the BuzzFeed story rubs me the wrong way with its credulous acceptance of the claim that Perry is not being politically calculating. It's all politics, always.