Today’s Christian Science Monitor includes an article titled “Rush Limbaugh: Do Democrats want uproar to continue?” It must be a rhetorical question because anyone with half a brain – even if it’s half a brain tied behind his back – knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Democrats smell blood in the water:
Rush Limbaugh remains in big trouble. Advertisers – 11 at last count – are pulling spots off his radio talk show because of the reaction to his calling Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute.” Opponents are mobilizing on social media for a long campaign to try to convince even more sponsors to drop his program. Ms. Fluke herself has rejected as insufficient Mr. Limbaugh’s attempts at apology.
But here’s our question: At this point, is it even within Limbaugh’s power to apologize enough? Has the political uproar reached a state where Democratic officials just want it to continue?
That’s certainly possible. Over at the liberal Plum Line blog, Greg Sargent writes that it’s hard to overstate what a huge gift Limbaugh has handed the Democratic Party.
“Dems will do all they can to ensure that Limbaugh continues to loom large over the presidential race,” writes Sargent.
He points out an interview Obama campaign senior strategist David Axelrod gave CNN in which Axelrod accused Mitt Romney of not showing enough outrage over Limbaugh’s comments.
“I was kind of shocked when Governor Romney, all he had to say was, ‘Well, that isn’t language I would have used’…. I thought that was a cowardly answer,” Mr. Axelrod said on camera.
I want to make 2 points:
- Rush may have used unsavory language to describe Sandra Fluke, but Fluke was no fluke. She planned this whole incident beautifully with or without the help of the Democratic Party. Was she a plant? That remains to be seen, but this much is certain: Sandra Fluke is the wedge that Democrats will use to try and create distance between women and the Republican Party.
- When you know that apologizing is useless, stop apologizing.
CNSNews ran an article today with an equally engaging title: “$9: Price for a Month’s Supply of Birth Control Pills at Target 3 Miles from Georgetown Law.” According to the article,
Although Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke testified to the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee last month that contraception can cost a law student $3,000 over three years and that some of her fellow students could not afford it, a Target store only 3 miles from the law school currently sells a month’s supply of birth control pills for only $9 to people who do not have insurance plans covering contraceptives.
That would make the total cost for birth control pills for a student who decided to use them for all three years of law school just $324.
This issue isn’t about Sandra Fluke; it’s not about Rush Limbaugh; and it’s not about the Catholic Church. It’s a moral question. More precisely, it’s about whether hardworking men and women who try to lead decent lives should be required to pay for the immoral sexual practices of people who want to live licentious lifestyles. I have a very strong hunch that most women, especially older women who regret their promiscuity during their college years, will come down on the side of morality. Actually, it’s more than just a hunch. Try asking some of the women you know who are 40 or older, and you’ll see for yourself. Most of them feel that way. I know that’s not a scientific study, but it’s good information.
This is my advice to Republicans: don’t play defense on this issue. Play offense and you’ll win. Bring forward some impressive women, young and old, with the opposing view and let them lead the charge. As a former Democrat, I can tell you with assurance that most Democrats aren’t even half as smart as they think they are. Take the club from their hands and beat them about the head and face with it.
Neil Snyder is a chaired professor emeritus at the University of Virginia. His blog, SnyderTalk.com, is posted daily.
OK, let’s see: she goes and testifies that she needs 3,000 dollars in condoms for three years. Therefore she is a slut.
But we are no longer allowed to call slut a slut.
If she were my daughter I would call her a slut because of what she has said.
And I would advise her to look for treatment, because she has an addiction.
She may be a liar, but the amount of money she claims she spent on obtaining contraceptives over three years does not mean she is a slut. You have no knowledge of the intimate details of her private life, yet you and your like-minded friends claim that she is categorically a “slut” because of how much money she spends on birth control.
If a Catholic woman decides to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a NFP course, purchases various nicely designed charts and fertility indicators and thermometers, etc., in order to plan her family, does that mean she’s a slut because you can tot up her expenses, divide them by the number of the cheapest condoms you can find, and come up with a number you personally determine represents an immoral number of times to have sex — oh, and you can assume each one of those incidents your cut-rate truck stop rubbers indicates involves a unique partner, right?
So any Catholic woman who spent more than $0.00 pursuing NFP is a dirty whore, a slut, clearly sleeping around with many men, etc….?
Because that is exactly what you just said, even though you’re too ignorant to realize it.
Or is the real issue here the mandate, in which case the amount of money anyone spends isn’t the point. It’s the fact that the government wants to mandate that all insurance providers cover them at 100%, regardless if that means shelling out $1000.00/yr or $1.00/yr.
I thought that was the issue. I thought that was what we were supposed to be fighting.
Guess the reality is we’re all just supposed to stoop to the level of grubby little piggies and make sexually degrading comments about women who disagree with us — including, btw, a call to essentially rape the daughters of the Carbonite CEO, found among the comments of “Dr. Helen’s” Mean Girl piece.
That’s what the world sees. That’s what the moderates and independents see. That is now who we are to them, and that’s the kind of rhetoric and imagery that sticks.
So, if you’re REALLY interested in winning in 2012 (which is now nearly impossible, thanks to Rush Limbaugh and his like-minded hangers-on), you might want to stop repeating your ignorant, childish, piggy nonsense everywhere you go.
Why don’t and why didn’t you sell this high-horse outrage to Maher, Olbermann and Eddie Schultz? Rush did it for sarcasm and humorous value. Those three idiots were serious!
I said and say the same things about anyone who stoops to this level of discourse.
If you think what Limbaugh said is “humor”, then you are a sad, sorry person.
Any idiot can call a woman a “slut” if they disagree with her. It takes intelligence to put together a thoughtful, informed rebuttal. Limbaugh, apparently, was too lazy and selfish to do that. He went for the cheap shot because he knew it would appeal to a certain faction (unfortunately, the majority of his listeners, I’m sad to say) of his audience. His comments were not about this country, about the future of America, or about the serious issues facing us all going forward. His comments were about himself in the moment.
It is exactly that kind of behavior, that kind of selfish, shallow, short-sighted thinking, that is destroying this nation, and it’s happening at both ends of the political continuum and at every point in between.
Selfishness is what’s killing us, and the right is equally as guilty as the left.
“It is exactly that kind of behavior, that kind of selfish, shallow, short-sighted thinking, that is destroying this nation, and it’s happening at both ends of the political continuum and at every point in between.
Selfishness is what’s killing us, and the right is equally as guilty as the left.”
>>>Really? Selfishness? That sounds like lazy thinking to me. What is destroying this country is post-modern liberalism. If you cant distinguish between the leftist rhetoric and the right ( I don’t even know what you mean by “every point in between”)then I can only guess that you are one of the left’s trolls that show up here from time to time to nit-pick comments and feign righteous indignation.
The quotes above illustrate to me that you really aren’t very serious.
You don’t think liberals are selfish…???
To me, the greatest problem with liberalism is that it’s inherently a selfish philosophy. People are entirely focused on their own needs, and believe they are entitled to having every single one of them met by the nanny state.
In a broader social sense, however, we’re all more selfish than our grand parents and great grandparents were (generally speaking). It’s selfishness that has led to promiscuity, the falling marriage rate, the shrinking size of families, and the materialist, consumerist society we live in (not that there’s anything wrong with spending the money one has earned as one pleases, but the selfish notion that one is entitled to all sorts of luxuries is one reason why this economy is in the tank — housing bubble, anyone?).
And the current nature of political, religious, social discourse has sunk to increasingly nastier levels each year because, too often, people go for the cheap, easy shot, the one that will get them lots of attention in the moment.
Yep. Selfishness is what we’re here to rise above, Mr. Allnut…
You can keep the insults for yourself. Thank you.
If my daughter tells me that she needs to have sex 11 times a day, every day, for three years in a row, you can think whatever you want of her, but the word is slut.
And since Rush is being burned at the stake for stating the obvious, I will repeat what he said.
All the rest of your arguments is bla bla off topic.
Except Sandra Fluke did not mention the details of her private life. You made them up out of whole cloth in order to giggle and chortle over them with your frat-boy friends.
Your grindingly dull repetition of your silly math equation “proving” Sandra Fluke has sex X number of times a day with X partners is off topic. It is YOU who are thwarting any effort to beat Obama in 2012, and it’s because you’re more excited by the notion of tee-heeing over what you feverishly imagine to be someone else’s sex life than you are about the future of this nation.
Like I said, it’s selfishness that’s the enemy.
Nora,
Your intial comment stated:
“Guess the reality is we’re all just supposed to stoop to the level of grubby little piggies and make sexually degrading comments about women who disagree with us — including, btw, a call to essentially rape the daughters of the Carbonite CEO, found among the comments of “Dr. Helen’s” Mean Girl piece.”
Here is the only comment I found that refers to the Carbonite founder’s daughters: “By the way,Carbonite CEO David Friend says he has 2 daughters who also need $1000 worth on contraceptives that someone else should pay for. Go get some from those Flukes, guys. (hey, he brought his family into this.”
You sound and operate like a progressive, calling people names because you don’t agree with them and making up stuff about what commenters to another post said. Please try to calm down and let’s have a civil, truthful debate.
So, how is that post not essentially a call for the slavering Limbaugh fanboyz to “go get some” sex from the CEO of Carbonite’s daughters? Did he mean Girl Scout Cookies? I don’t think so. Did he mean to tell the RL crowd to court them in a gentlemanly manner? Nope.
He meant go get some sex based on the fact that their contraceptive expenses totted up to a certain amount, which, to his dirty, piggy little mind, meant that they are sluts and fair game for any man.
That’s the truth, dear.
I am sorry, but I am not going to pretend that kind of rhetoric is funny or clever or genuine political satire or political humor.
If it’s disgusting for Letterman to make revolting sexual comments about Palin’s daughters (and it is), then it’s equally disgusting for commenters on the right to make revolting sexual comments about the CEO of Carbonite’s daughters.
People like you continue to reduce a serious political debate, a debate that is necessary to have, to a bratty back and forth over who said something nasty first and how it’s fair to behave badly because the other guy is behaving badly, blahblahblah.
It’s ALL wrong. It’s all repellant, immoral, immature behavior that places the selfish desire to score a cheap shot in the now over what this country stands for. Or used to stand for. I can’t imagine a stranger to the US coming here and reading any of these comboxes and thinking there was ever anything good and decent about this country.
I guess your contribution is just more hysterical, name calling (“piggy, dirty little mind”)and the “people like you” statements. How is that any better than what you are criticizing? You sound like Nora O’Donnell. Come on, fess up.
Not hysterical at all. Men who resort to that sort of rhetoric are piggy and do have dirty minds. Perhaps you will raise your sons to think otherwise, but I raised mine to know that rhetoric like that is not acceptable, decent, good or moral.
No, I’m not Norah O’Donnell.
I hope you teach your sons not to call people degrading names just because you disagree with them, and not to falsely accuse those same people of calling for rape when you know that is a lie. I hope you teach your sons self respect and respect for others, something you clearly lack.
I respect myself and I respect those who’ve earned my respect. I do not respect people who resort to the kind of really sick rhetoric Limbaugh, Maher, Olbermann, and various commenters of all stripes, et al., have engaged in. They do not deserve respect from anyone.
I describe behaviors when I refer to people’s piggery and dirty minds. If a person thinks it’s acceptable to claim as fact that a woman they do not know is a prostitute because the dollar amount she said she spent on contraception over a three year period seems too high for them, that’s piggery. There is not one shred of evidence that speaks to how often Sandra Fluke engages in sex (not that such a thing would be anybody’s business) or how many partners she’s had or currently has. Not. One. Shred. Of. Evidence. Yet is now considered acceptable, serious-minded political commentary, satire or otherwise, to make up false data for fun and call her vile names and demand sex tapes from her. That’s a piggy, dirty behavior, and if you’re engaging in it, you’re a piggy, dirty person.
And when someone is clearly and loudly making comments that can only be interpreted as a gleeful call to rape the daughters of a CEO of a company because a) he dropped the company’s sponsorship of their boy’s show and b) they spent $1000.00 on contraception, therefore they are fair game, I’ll call that comment out for exactly what it is. Again, my words speak to specific behavior, not to someone’s opinions or political leanings.
My sons would stand against any man who even jokingly called for the sexual abuse of women for any reason, I’m proud to say.
If she’s doing all that, but she’s not married, yes, she’s a slut, or at best, a concubine, which is only slightly less unbecoming.
Doing all what?
So far, we have someone lying and stating she “testified” that she spend $3000.00 over 3 years for condoms (she never said this at all).
We have various people claiming the money she spent clearly and definitively means she has sex several times a day with as many partners.
We have name calling, we have claims made by RL that he is entitled to sex tapes of her sexual activity merely because she posits that insurance companies should cover 100% of her contraceptive costs (and yet the insurance she refers to covers 0% of those costs right now, so why Limbaugh feels he’s entitled to anything from her is beyond me).
And we have a man suggesting that now any woman even related to a person who does not share his beliefs is fair game if she spends as much as $100.00 on contraception, even if the cost comes out of her own pocket.
So what evidence — actual, fact-based, provable, documented evidence that Sandra Fluke is engaged in sexual prostitution, or even sexually promiscuous behavior? Explain “doing all that” and why whatever “that” is makes her a concubine (maybe you should look that word up, dear).
Go ahead. I’m waiting.
Of course the Dems want this uproar to continue. They had the plan to start it, they provided the media fuel of feigned outrage at what Rush Limbaugh called the 30-year-old wanting taxpayers to pay for $3,000 worth of condoms for her prolific sexual activities (not because she couldn’t afford it, but because according to Dems, the federal government should have control over all parts of our lives). Now they want to shut Rush Limbaugh off the air. All of this was part of their “war on women” that the Dems want to use against the Republicans because 0bama can’t run on the issues or on his horrible record, but on the media’s hype about how bad Republicans are for women.
All a hoax, like global warming and should be shut down so candidates can talk about how 0bama has hurt the economy, caused the price of energy to go up and to have added trillions to the deficit by giving billions to his union buddies. The Fluke uproar is a distraction like the magician using smoke and mirrors. Nothing to see here.
“…my advice to Republicans: don’t play defense on this issue. Play offense and you’ll win. Bring forward some impressive women, young and old, with the opposing view and let them lead the charge.”
Excellent advice. Now let’s see if the leadership has the savvy and confidence to listen.
“… my advice to Republicans: don’t play defense on this issue. Play offense and you’ll win. Bring forward some impressive women, young and old, with the opposing view and let them lead the charge.”
Excellent advice. Now, let’s see if the Republican leadership (using that term loosely) has the savvy and confidence to put it into action.
“…….This is my advice to Republicans: don’t play defense on this issue. Play offense and you’ll win. Bring forward some impressive women, young and old, with the opposing view and let them lead the charge. As a former Democrat, I can tell you with assurance that most Democrats aren’t even half as smart as they think they are. Take the club from their hands and beat them about the head and face with it……….”
Better advice would be to leave this thing alone and walk away from it. Whichever way this goes, this issue will be resolved and forgotten before the end of this month. Some games are not worth playing, even if you win. Banks all over the world are pumping up debt and when the global economy collapses, just keeping basic social order will become the main focus. Forget about much of the rest. Maybe this contest can handily be won and then on to the important business. But what about the next distraction, and the next one? Focus on the essential priorities – there are things that will hurt and things that will kill. hopefully we will see someone in office that will be able to make that distinction…….
Condoms are a red herring. Condoms are like aspirin — an over-the-counter birth control method that is not covered by any insurance plan. I think too many people assumed she was talking about condoms because everybody knows birth control pills can be had for $100/year. The $1000 per year was phony number that never happened.
Now for the more important issue. The Democrats played this card to soon. It will be old news by the end of the month. If Obama dwells on this issue it will bring his policy failures into the public mind. After all why would he talk about this instead of the economy, energy or foreign affairs? This would have been a great October surprise. So why did he play the card now? I suspect he expects the Obamacare mandate to be overturned by the Supreme Court. It was now or never.
“She planned this whole incident beautifully with or without the help of the Democratic Party. Was she a plant? That remains to be seen, but this much is certain: Sandra Fluke is the wedge that Democrats will use to try and create distance between women and the Republican Party.”
I doubt that Soros’ minions had her go to Georgetown two years ago to create this situation. But she’s a known advocate and someone (like Van Jones) they’ve been keeping their eye on.
Now, Dear Liar’s political machine, the DNC and MMfA have been working together on this. They knew he couldn’t run on his record, so they decided to gin up a controversy. From the out of left field question to Rick Santorum, to the fight with the Catholic Church (and others) to Fluke being a last minute substitute the Fascist-Democrats knew was against House rules, then staging a mock hearing where she gave mock & outright lying “testimony” and then gets a phone call from the president, this has all been a sham and misdirection. Presidents are (should be) busy men, they do not give congratulatory phone calls to people who give nontestimony before noncommittees. And then have that person immediately go on liberal talk shows?
This has been a down Broadway with all lights flashing and horns and sirens bleating sham from the get go. What Rush should apologize for is falling for their trap.
Meanwhile, Obowma’s Presidency has been a miserable failure, with double digit real unemployment, $5 gallon gas and we are not respected around the world.
Don’t pose it even as a moral question. They don’t understand that. It’s a constitutional question, only, and they have means at their disposal to change the Constitution, but they’d rather have it done by executive fiat.
The law of diminishing returns will set in here if the Democrats overplay their hand, since the battle that works in their favor with the swing voters is Fluke vs. Limbaugh, and obviously, the template here is the Cidny Sheehan vs. George W. Bush battle in 2005-06, when Maureen Dowd famously granted Ms. Sheehan Absolute Moral Authority and the rest of the big media outlets went along.
But George W. Bush couldn’t get out of the way of being in the spotlight — he was the President of the United States. In this situation, Limbaugh has the opportunity to get out of the way by dropping Fluke as a subject, leaving her to fight an artificial one-way battle with Rush or, far more dangerously, try to use her new-found Absolute Moral Authority status to widen her target to the original kerfuffle with Georgetown University and the Catholic Church.
Sandra Fluke wins the media battle among against Limbaugh. Sandra Fluke will not win the battle among swing voters if it becomes her demanding that that Roman Catholic institutions pay for her contraceptives. And that’s where the battle is headed if the Dems and the big media opt to keep Fluke as their new women’s rights poster child and Limbaugh is smart enough to stay out of the line of fire.
Limbaugh’s apology seems to be as much as he can do without appearing to validate and glorify the Fluke-as-victim/martyr media narrative.
Of course Democrats will continue the noise and hyperbole — and if true to form — will over-reach.
The Limbaugh kerfuffle is a diversion and the Right will lose a tit-for-tat struggle. I just hope we learn as we go and are ready to rumble when the final campaign is underway.
I think we need to stop with the “She wasn’t a fluke” references, when her name in pronounced “flukk”.
Same vowel sound as the activity she wants the government to pay her to do.
I believe the Fluke is a type of ocean flounder. This one was used for bait. A feminist law student with high potential earnings. Who could resist?
The hook was an inflated estimation of her claim of contraceptive cost. That was just brilliant.
The trick in fishing is to fish where the fish are. Senate hearing on contraception was a sure bet.
Now they are just playing the line out until there is no fight left just because that is the fun part.
Rush may have used unsavory language to describe Sandra Fluke, but Fluke was no fluke. She planned this whole incident beautifully with or without the help of the Democratic Party. Was she a plant? That remains to be seen, but this much is certain: Sandra Fluke is the wedge that Democrats will use to try and create distance between women and the Republican Party.
Which is why Rush screwed up by using the unnecessarily offensive language. Her role in all this is significant enough without compromising the message by saying things that then had to be apologized for. But Rush couldn’t resist going for laughs and bombastic grandstanding and now he’s had to apologize and backpedal.
The real question, and one that is being conveniently ignored even here, does our government dictate the national conscience? Because that is the question that must be answered. Does Congress have the power to tell a Jesuit University how to operate; more specifically, is Congress prohibiting the free exercise of the Catholic religion?
Ms. Fluke’s demand, supported by this feckless and dangerous President and a complicit media, is clearly an infringement of the very First Amendment. Anybody honest recognizes this.
The moral issue is for the Jesuits. Why are you allowing someone admittance to your university that is diametrically opposed to the basic tenets of the Catholic Church and the mission statement you have posted on the front page website advertising your University? Moreso, why aren’t you the Jesuits refunding Fluke’s tuition and immediately firing the staff and administration that has come out in support of this zealot, Fluke – a zealot whose past history would have been part of her resume?
Every Catholic of good conscience
Clearly, the one party that is not stepping up to the plate is Georgetown University. It is high time the Catholic Church
“The real question, and one that is being conveniently ignored even here, does our government dictate the national conscience?”
Hear, hear.
– Jesuits left there, Tex, are buried in the cemetery behind Healy Hall. I know you asked this a few days ago and meant to respond then. Actually, there is still one, a well-known writer and political philosopher, who has been the subject of two recent columns on PJM. Perhaps even now he is writing on this subject.
Is there any actual real polling data, or is the MSM/left just talking the MSM/left into a tizzy? Somehow, I have to think that more Joe Sixpacks are with Rush on this than with the slut.
“I have a very strong hunch that most women, especially older women who regret their promiscuity during their college years, will come down on the side of morality. Actually, it’s more than just a hunch. Try asking some of the women you know who are 40 or older, and you’ll see for yourself. Most of them feel that way.”
What about the men these older women were promiscuous with? Do you think they regret their promiscuity during their college years? You don’t mention the men, so I’m just wondering.