[Cincinatus' Wife]

ABC: “This Week”..........STEPHANOPOULOS: And I’m going to ask David Axelrod about Secretary Chu in just a moment.

But also, Rush Limbaugh created quite a stir this week with his attack on the Georgetown student Sandra Fluke who testified in support of President Obama’s policy that insurance plans should provide coverage for contraception. Let’s show what Rush said right here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIMBAUGH: She goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex. What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? Makes her a prostitute? She wants to be paid to have sex.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: The Democrats pounced. President Obama called the student. Under pressure, Mr. Limbaugh did apologize yesterday. I know you disagree with the framing on this issue. You believe this is an issue of religious liberty. The Democrats have called this part of a war on women. Do you worry that Rush Limbaugh helped reinforce that Democratic message?

GINGRICH: No, I worry that the elite media are so desperate to not describe this accurately. You know, Cardinal George has indicated, the cardinal of Chicago, that the president’s policy — which by the way, George, includes sterilization and abortion pills. And let’s be clear about this. The president’s policy, according to Cardinal George, would lead the Catholic Church to give up every Catholic university and every Catholic hospital.

Now, I’m kind of amazed that there aren’t more voices in the elite media in favor of religious liberty in America and suggesting that, first of all, this young lady can buy contraception all she wants to. There is no place in America that’s difficult for her to get contraception. The question is, should a religiously-affiliated institution — not just Catholic, but for example the Christian University of — the Ohio Christian University, which is Protestant, but is right-to-life— finds that sterilization and abortion provisions of Obamacare totally unacceptable.

Now, is that something people are going to look at and say this is a religious liberty issue, or are we just going to have the government from here on out define for us what rights we have and say to us, oh, it’s OK to be religious for one hour on Sunday, but let’s not take it seriously the rest of the week?

I think this is a very profound question about freedom.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you think Rush was right to apologize?

GINGRICH: I think he was right to apologize. But let’s talk about apologies for a second. I think the president was totally wrong as commander in chief to apologize to religious fanatics while our young men are being killed in Afghanistan, and I think it was a disaster of an apology—

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me ask you—

GINGRICH: We now have the U.N. commissioner to Afghanistan — no, just let me finish. You have the U.N. commissioner to Afghanistan in essence saying, since the president has admitted the United States is guilty, these people should be tried. Now, I think that is a disastrous position for us.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you know, before the president apologized.......”

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-newt-gingrich-david-axelrod/story?id=15840087&singlePage=true

[lentulusgracchus]

Thanks for posting that transcript of Newt duelling with Little Georgie Clintonopoulos on This Week. I saw the original exchange, and the transcript shows even better than one can get an impression of at the time, the degree to which those sorts of exchanges are actually a form of fighting, and how Clintonopoulos was trying to corner Newt and get him to abandon Rush Limbaugh, to isolate Rush (as if Georgie were some kind of Alinskyite working for the White House and exchanging 100 phone calls a week with Carville, Begala, and the WH chief of staff!).

That's helpful, thanks.