Posted on 03/05/2012 1:02:35 PM PST by SeekAndFind
While Laura Ingraham waits for an encouraging call from the president to compensate for MSNBC’s Ed Schultz calling her a “slut,” “reproductive justice” activist Sandra Fluke rejects Rush Limbaugh’s sincere expression of regret for calling her the same:
The Georgetown law student who drew an apology from Rush Limbaugh this weekend after the conservative radio host called her a “slut” on his show said that his public apology wasn’t sufficient during an appearance on ABC’s “The View” today.
“I don’t think that a statement like this issued, saying that his choice of words was not the best, changes anything, and especially when that statement is issued when he’s under significant pressure from his sponsors who have begun to pull their support,” said the 30-year-old student, Sandra Fluke. …
Fluke said she has not heard from Limbaugh personally but added that she’s not hoping to speak with him.
“The statements he’s made about me over the air are personal enough, so I’d rather not have a personal phone call with him,” Fluke said.
Fluke has the luxury to reject his apology in large part because she has the support not only of the president himself, but of big-name advertisers who have exerted bully-like pressure on Limbaugh. (Even The View’s Whoopi Goldberg said she found the speed with which they were willing to abandon the radio host to be disturbing!)
At this point, while it’s plausible that Rush apologized solely because he’s losing sponsors (as Fluke suggested), it’s also plausible that he has genuinely repented of his word choice. Limbaugh not only said he was sorry with a statement online, but he also opened his show today — his first on-air appearance since advertisers began to pull their support for his program — with a repeat apology, in which he made it clear that he violated his own personal broadcasting standards. In fact, he took a full 30 minutes to explain the entire episode to his listeners, including an explanation for why his advertisers left him (h/t The Right Scoop):
Ed said this weekend he thinks Rush was right to apologize, but I’m not so sure. He was wrong to use the word “slut” in the first place — it’s just a disgusting word that’s better left unsaid and Rush’s use of it conveniently played into the leftist narrative that conservative men are misogynistic (i.e. it was both tasteless and strategically stupid of Rush to say it) — but his apology makes it seem as though he did something wrong by expressing his opinion about a legitimate subject of national commentary.
Folks have made the argument that Rush’s “personal attack” was somehow different than similar name-calling directed to the likes of Laura Ingraham, Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. The argument typically goes something like this: Sarah Palin et. al. are public figures, while Sandra Fluke is a private citizen. But, in this instance, Fluke isn’t exactly a “private citizen.” She’s a seasoned activist who introduced the subject of Georgetown law students’ sex lives to the national debate about the Obama administration’s religious-liberty-violating contraception mandate.
Indeed, her unwillingness to accept Rush’s apology underscores that she’s far from a naive private individual who unexpectedly found herself at the center of a national controversy; she made it clear by her remarks on The View that she’s prepared to stoke this controversy as long as she derives a benefit from it. As long as advertisers continue to withdraw support for Limbaugh and the left continues to rally around Ms. Fluke, she’ll milk his remarks for all they’re worth.
The answer: Let’s stop giving Fluke the benefit of this controversy. Let’s keep the focus where it belongs and patiently continue to correct the misimpression (a.k.a. lie) that conservatives want to ban contraception. Nobody wants to ban contraception, but the Obama administration does want to force religious employers who object to contraception on religious grounds to pay for employee health insurance that includes coverage for contraception. It’s to that mandate that conservatives are politically opposed. Some conservatives are also personally opposed to contraception and to sexual promiscuity — but they’re not seeking to change the culture through the government. It’s progressives who prescribe government solutions to cultural ills and, in the process, jeopardize important freedoms.
If you read the transcript of Fluke’s testimony, and I use that term loosely since she was “testifying” in front of a Democratic sub-committee, not Daryl Issa’s Congressional committee, she said that she was speaking for “others” not herself.
The main points of her testimony dealt with the inability of students to get contraceptives for medical conditions. Which may or may not be true. Her comments all dealt with anecdotal situations without any attribution to a source.
Rush made some important points today. First, she was proposed as a last-minute replacement for another speaker the Dems wanted on record. Issa did a quick vetting and said no. That’s why the Dems had to play kubuki theatre with her “testimony.”
Regardless, Rush said he was wrong. I believe him. I think he let the absurdness of the entire situation...talking about contraception as opposed to the economy get the better of him.
I don’t believe this is over. Fluke has a history, it has been said she came to Georgetown for the express purpose of trying to challenge a Catholic institution on it’s contraceptive policy. Chances are, she’s made statements in the past that will expose her political activist leanings.
As for Rush, the fallout continues, but he will survive.
When gasoline hits $4.50 a gallon by Memorial Day, “O” will have to address an increasingly militant electorate who care more about their ability to get to work rather than than whether their health plan covers contraceptives.
Explaining why he deep-sixed Keystone, the lack of drilling permit approval during his administration, and the sight of Cuban and Chinese rigs drilling in the Gulf of Mexico will
make this a minor distraction.
rush should have never apologized. he makes millions he doesn;t need to keep some crappy flower delivery sponsor
all it takes for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing (or apologize even when they’re right)
rush should have never apologized. he makes millions he doesn;t need to keep some crappy flower delivery sponsor
all it takes for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing (or apologize even when they’re right)
rush should have never apologized. he makes millions he doesn;t need to keep some crappy flower delivery sponsor
all it takes for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing (or apologize even when they’re right)
Rush has a wife?
1. Strong relationships and honorable disagreements do not require appologies.
2. The View not long ago promoted calling each other sluts on the View, so, what gives? Why all of a sudden this retraction by the View? Or is it that they want us to be guilty for their reasons?
[[Sandra Fluke on The View: Rushs apology changes nothing]]
Rush, on the Rush Limbaugh Show “I don’t care if the slut accepts the apology or not- it’s there if she ever decides to accept it”
[[it has to do with using a derogatory term to describe a woman he didn’t know]]
Oh but he DID know her- Hell- all America knows her after she unashamedly told America that she is infact a slut. A sluit is someone who has premerital sex- She made it very clear that she spends 1000 per year so that she can have premarital sex. IF having premarital sex doesn’t make a woman a slut, what exactly does it make her? Whaty cute euphamism shoudl we use to sugar coat a woman with no shame and no moral values?
Dayam.
In my opinion Rush should have aologized- only his apology should have read
“I apologize to fluke, I called her a slut, and after having time to think about it, it was an insult to sluts the world over to call her a slut- I didn’;t mean to insult sluts the world over, and hope they will forgive me for insulting them. As for fluke- I couldn’t give a fluke what she thinks of my previous comment”
Of course the slut won’t accept it. The whore is going to milk this forever. Has she called Hollywood yet about them making a movie about her?
Indeed, sluts should be offended at being compared to a feminazi. an honest whore is far less dangerous to our culture and our society than these dangerous 5th column marxist activist vultures.
Well, if his apology is meaningless, why not take his original comments in the same manner and consider them meaningless as well?
I hadn't listened to Rush in months. I listened today.
Oh, so does that mean we'll no longer hear calls for boycotts every time somebody does something a lib doesn't like, since what people do while they're losing sponsors doesn't count after all?
This is what matters. To people with intellectual honesty and integrity Rush will not only keep his 20m listeners he will add to them because he is acting with the character of a true leader.
Let the liberals show themselves for the selfish, irresponsible, unprincipled children they are.
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