Posted on 03/08/2012 7:30:22 AM PST by Kaslin
Many Americans disdain Rush Limbaugh, some of them high-placed and influential. The author of Rush Limbaugh Is a Big, Fat Idiot is now a US senator from Minnesota. The incumbent president of the United States publicly picked a fight with the broadcaster less than a week after being inaugurated. "You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh," Barack Obama admonished attendees at a White House summit in January 2009.
But tens of millions of fans do listen to Limbaugh – fans whose years of loyalty have made him the most important talk-show host in America. Those fans deserved better than Limbaugh's disgraceful performance last week, when for three days running he insulted liberal activist Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown law student who testified in support of the ObamaCare contraception mandate.
That mandate is part of a preposterous public policy, and Fluke's testimony – with its wacky claims about $1,000-a-year contraception and throngs of Georgetown women "struggling" to pay for birth control– offered ample scope for ridicule and rebuttal. What Limbaugh resorted to instead was crude ad hominems. He didn't just call Fluke a "slut" and "a prostitute." He also labeled her "round-heeled," an "immoral, baseless" woman, someone "having so much sex it's amazing she can still walk." He demanded that she post "the videos of all this sex ... online so we can see what we are getting for our money."
As if this misogynistic dredge through the gutter wasn't reprehensible enough, Limbaugh compounded his offense with an apology that reeked of insincerity. In a 12-sentence statement posted on his website Saturday, Limbaugh praised himself as a hardworking master of the absurd who never intended to launch "a personal attack on Ms. Fluke." Most of his statement was devoted to rehashing his contraception argument. Not until the last sentence did he "sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke" – and even then, it was only "the insulting word choice" he was sorry for.
On Monday, with seven sponsors having pulled their advertising from his program, Limbaugh tried again. "The apology was heartfelt," he claimed. "The apology was sincere." He didn't believe that Fluke was "either of those two words," and he regretted having "acted too much like the leftists who despise me.... I descended to their level when I used those two words.... That was my error." He insisted again that his apology "was for simply using inappropriate words." And he complained of a double standard -- that there is "never an apology" from the "leftists that call me and other conservatives the most rude and explicit names."
It won't do, Rush.
I'm no Limbaugh-hater. Far from it. I'm a conservative who shares most of El Rushbo's political views and appreciates his sense of humor. I have defended him when he's been the target of scurrilous attacks from the left. And I fully agree -- and have written -- about the double standard on liberal hate speech.
This is different. Limbaugh's verbal assault on Fluke was no off-the-cuff blooper. It was boorish and deliberate. And the way to apologize is not by harping on left-wing misogyny. It's by apologizing -- full stop.
Limbaugh -- and the rest of us -- could take a lesson from the liberal radio host Ed Schultz, who in the heat of an on-air moment referred to Laura Ingraham as a "right-wing slut" last May. Just one day later, Schultz apologized.
"On my radio show yesterday, I used vile and inappropriate language when talking about talk show host Laura Ingraham," he began. "I am deeply sorry, and I apologize. It was wrong, uncalled for, and I recognize the severity of what I said." He didn't restate the argument he had been making. On the contrary, he said, "it doesn't matter what the circumstances were. It doesn't matter that it was on radio and I was ad-libbing…. What matters is what I said was terribly vile and not of the standards that I or any other person should adhere to."
Schultz's words that day were ashamed, humble, and seemingly heartfelt -- nothing like Limbaugh's grudging words of regret.
On the left they're gleefully milking this incident for all it's worth, eager to take down the man National Review once dubbed "the leader of the opposition." I would hate to see Limbaugh, who has often been falsely smeared, give his enemies a victory they don't deserve. But this time he is guilty as charged. His lapse in judgment and taste was egregious. And his sullen "apology" is only making things worse.
that would make Rush her pimp, I believe she already has an entire stable of those on capitol Hill and in the basement of the WH
After all the revelations about carbonite etc, hope Rush is learning to be more selective about who he takes money from. We’ve been enriching the damn communists who are selling rope to hang us
I disagree with the article also, but because most of the replies do also, I decided to post it. Otherwise I would not have
I think that a decade+ at the Boston Globe may have gotten to Jacoby.
I think that a decade+ at the Boston Globe may have gotten to Jacoby.
So you believe like this article that an abject and sincere “apology” would have staved off this campaign from the left?
the “get Rush” boycott machine was cocked and loaded and ready to go, if Rush didnt give them an opening line, they would invent one
there is no “apology” for this because it is not about Fluck, it is about destroying Rush Limbaugh and trying to influence female voters against the GOP
I suppose you also believe that if obama had only apologized more sincerely for our troops destroying defaced korans, the afghans would have been placated and muslims would love us
I’m sorry. You directed your post at me instead of the freeper you intended it for: Straw Man.
Dear Jeff, I hope you are sitting at an ATEX terminal at the Boston Globe. Please type “INIT DP:” at the Command prompt. Shhhhhhh, it formats all the hard drives on the network but don’t tell anybody......
—I more or less agree with the article. You seem to have missed the fact that Fluke never claimed she was having all that sex. —
No. I caught that. If she had, he would have had nothing whatsoever to apologize for.
I think he was basically apologizing for being tasteless in his response.
Also, although I think he did handed this issue to the left, but with a booby trap. I don’t think they expected him to step in it as he did. It made it all about him insted of where they were going with it. There was a nurse in Tacoma the other day that in a telephone interview was amplifying what Fluke said. I think she may have been the second of what may have been intended to be a string of women to come forward for free contraception.
Rush inadvertently derailed the whole thing. We’ll see how it plays out now. It will not be what they expected.
The bio of Rush, An Army of One, says near the beginning that the full quote was “You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done”. Also the author, Zev Chafets, gives an example of Rush “illustrating the absurd by being absurd”,
a phrase which Rush brought up recently in the Fluke incident.
btw Mediaite has a piece about Olbermann apologizing “again”
to S.E. Cupp and Michelle Malkin for his remarks about them. Malkin however, it was noted, tweeted that “he apologized to a camera, not to me” (i.e., in person). Malkin brought up
the “mashed up bag of meat” comment in her most recent
column.
>>It was Keith Olbermann, then at MSNBC and now at Al Gore’s Current TV, who wrote on Twitter that columnist S.E. Cupp was “a perfect demonstration of the necessity of the work Planned Parenthood does” and who called me a “mashed up bag of meat with lipstick on it.” He stands by those remarks. Olbermann has been a special guest at the White House.
http://michellemalkin.com/2012/03/07/the-war-on-conservative-women/
I doubt that Rush is going to grill potential advertisers on who they give their campaign donations to. But still, it was eye opening to learn that these people who make a lot of money by advertising on the nation’s premier conservative talk show, turn right around and donate to the liberal political party that hates “business.”
Mr. Jacoby comes off as a bit of a pussy. (I sincerely apologize for my choice of words).
LOL!!
Perfect!
The Repubs in D.C. didn’t drop it. Boner came out in public to villify Rush.....THEN they went back into hiding. Pelosi must have ORDERED Boner to come out.
I think we should all send Boner a get well card.
Dear Speaker Boehner:
I was saddened to hear you had some sort of a mental breakdown recently.
Not objecting to the many instances of President Obama dismantling the United States at will, allowing him to essentially rule by edict, I realized you must be sick.
We hardly ever hear from you. When we do one day you’ll be against Obama, and on the next you will have caved. This must take a heavy mental toll on you.
Please accept this wish for a speedy recovery. Get well soon.
Ron Doughty
Republican (Hmmm, what is that supposed stand for again? I forget. As of late, nothing at all.)
Isn’t this propaganda from the people who hate us?
Actually I wasn't referencing the Rush issue there. I see no reason why a Republican in congress should give into the liberal baiting and comment on Rush one way or the other. When asked about him they should just tell the media to pound sand. Tell them it's Obama's and Pelosi's job to police the airwaves for thought-crimes.
I meant the Blunt amendment/birth-control/religious rights effort. After the single vote the issue will go the way of repealing Obama-care effort, just disappear; except to the extent that Dems keep trying to bring it up.
I have found that leftists do not accept apology very easily and that is because the apology takes away their much beloved status of “victim”. Apologize to a Conservative and they can easily accept since they do not wallow or even at all enjoy the feeling of being a victim of any sort.
Plus, there seems to be some sort of rule I do not understand about apologies. Apparently one can’t give any insight as to how or why the mistake was made or it somehow nullifies the apology. So if you have a bad day at work and come home and say some wrong words to your family, it someonw erases the apology if you add the information that you were in a bad mood because of the events at work. Were I on the receiving end of an apology this extra information would be helpful to me, but I guess it is poor form somehow. I don’t quite get it.
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