My niece wrote on her Facebook...

...page last night, "I'm a Republican and I'm embarrassed." 

Apparently, the object of her embarrassment is Representative Todd Akin (above), who is running for the United States Senate from Missouri. 

I'm vaguely aware of Akin and read this about him in the Times this morning:

In an effort to explain his stance on abortion, Representative Todd Akin, the Republican Senate nominee from Missouri, provoked ire across the political spectrum on Sunday by saying that in instances of what he called “legitimate rape,” women’s bodies somehow blocked an unwanted pregnancy.

Whatever. I stopped listening to the tea party years ago.

But then I thought about my niece. And I wanted to write on her page: If you're still a Republican, after eight years of George W. Bush and four years of the tea party, you should be embarrassed. Or, put another way: After all that, it took this to make you embarrassed to be a Republican?

P. S. The article also notes that Congressman Akin is a member of the House Science Committee. (Is it any wonder that this Congress has only a ten percent approval rating?)