So Rush has "apologized," but has he really hit the limit to how far he can go? I wish I believed it

I'm not much of a petition-signer myself,
but here's the Credo Action petition link.

by Ken

Well, it's something that Rush went far enough that he's had to apologize. As the AP reported this evening:

Limbaugh apologizes to law student for insult on sex, says he intended no personal attack

By Associated Press, Updated: Saturday, March 3, 7:46 PM

WASHINGTON -- Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh apologized Saturday to a Georgetown University law student he had branded a “"slut" and "prostitute" after fellow Republicans as well as Democrats criticized him and several advertisers left his program.

The student, Sandra Fluke, had testified to congressional Democrats in support of their national health care policy that would compel her college to offer health plans that cover her birth control.

"My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir," Limbaugh said on his website. "I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices."

The thing is, Rush is "forced" to apologize frequently, but it never matters, because his listeners know he has his fingers crossed. Intended no personal attack? What could possibly be more ridiculous? Of course he intended a personal attack, as personal as possible. His attackee belongs to two of the groups he loathes most: non-Right-thinkers and women. He meant to vilify and demean her, and his listeners know it, and they love it. "My choice of words was not the best"? Well, perhaps, but only in the sense that those words have caused him some minor embarrassment. Rush is one of the media's more careful word-choosers.

You probably also got this e-mail from Credo Action Political Director Becky Bond:

Tell Limbaugh's advertisers to stop supporting his unforgivable attacks on women.

Dear ---------,

When Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown Law School student, testified before Congress to protest rightwing attacks to limit women's access to birth control, Rush Limbaugh called her a "slut" and a "prostitute."

Here's what Limbaugh actually said:

"What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. . . She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception." [New York Daily News, March 1, 2012]

Unfortunately, what Rush Limbaugh says matters. He has a bigger audience than any other commercial radio host in the country, and what he talks about on air has the power to drive the Republican agenda -- an agenda that is already obsessed with radical backslides of womens' ability to protect their own health. [Wikipedia]

Tell Rush Limbaugh's advertisers: Stop Supporting Rush Limbaugh's attacks on women. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Sandra Fluke's testimony before Congress included important points about why access to affordable birth control is so crucial, including the story of a friend who had lost an ovary because she couldn't afford the birth control needed to manage her ovarian cysts.

Rush's unforgivable translation of that was "slut" and "prostitute." Sandra Fluke rightly has called Rush Limbaugh's comments "an attack on all women." [New York Daily News, March 1, 2012] We agree.

Every American enjoys the right to free speech, but that doesn't mean that advertisers who are accountable to their customers should pay people like Rush Limbaugh who make such appallingly hateful and sexist comments.

Already the mattress retailer Sleep Train has pulled its advertisements, explaining in a Tweet: "We are pulling our ads with Rush Limbaugh and appreciate the community's feedback." [Politico, March 2, 2012]

Rush's other advertisers need to hear from us loud and clear — if you advertise on Rush Limbaugh, you are supporting his reprehensible attacks on women. . . .

And so on.

In a follow-up e-mail this evening, the Credo Action team says:

Thanks for taking action.

Here are some ways you can spread the word to make advertisers on the Rush Limbaugh show know there is a price to pay for financially supporting Rush's unforgivable attacks on women.

If you are on Facebook, click here to post the petition to your Wall.

If you have a Twitter account, click here to automatically tweet:
Tell Rush Limbaugh's advertisers: Stop supporting Rush's unforgivable attacks on women: http://bit.ly/x51N7Y @CREDOMobile

You can also send the following e-mail to your friends and family. Spreading the word is critical, but please only pass this message along to those who know you -- spam hurts our campaign.

Thanks for all you do.

--The CREDO Action Team

There's even " a sample message to send to your friends," with the subject line "Tell Rush Limbaugh's advertisers: Stop supporting sexist attacks on women." Sorry, I can't find an on-line link, but maybe you can find it from one of the Credo Action links in this post.

I'm kind of at a loss to know what to say. As I've suggested in the title of this post, I'm sure there is a limit beyond which Rush can't go but I'll be damned if I know what it is. That is, beyond that venerable prescription: being caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy. Short of that, I just don't know.

Why? I guess because the very act of listening suggests that you prize nothing more than his particular smorgasbord of lies, ignorance, immorality, and indecency. So why would you recoil from intimations that your hero is just the tiniest bit dishonest, ignorant, immoral, or indecent? These aren't his potential Achilles heel, they're what his listeners crave, it's what they tune in for.

Oh sure, a few advertisers might be embarrassed into slinking away, at least temporarily. But for advertisers who lust after Rush's audience, the raw meat he throws his listeners probably makes his hold on them more valuable, and I mean in a literal dollars-and-cents way. After all, it's what makes hate-talk radio a viable commercial proposition, and nobody makes it more viable than Rush. It very well may be that when he's at his worst from the standpoint of people with even a modicum of knowledge and decency, he's actually at his most compelling commercially.

I guess it's a good thing that the president has stepped in. From the Washington Post:

Obama calls Georgetown law student attacked by Rush Limbaugh to offer support

By David Nakamura and Paul Kane, Published: March 2

President Obama called a Georgetown University law student on her cellphone Friday in an attempt to seize the political high ground in the national debate over contraception.

Framing the issue squarely as a fight for women’s rights, Obama called Sandra Fluke to express solidarity after she was vilified by conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh for her public support of the administration's health-care rule. The rule requires employers to provide free contraception to women as part of their health insurance coverage.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Fluke said Obama was concerned about her in the face of what he called Limbaugh's "very inappropriate" remarks. "He expressed concern for me personally," she said. "I assured him I was doing okay despite the personal attacks."

Fluke said she viewed the Limbaugh remarks, and others like them, as an assault on women’s rights. "I realized very quickly what this was -- an attempt to silence me and to silence all women," she said. . . .

But the extreme Right has so messed with the brains of Rush's listeners that this is likely only to confirm them in, even stoke, their reflexive Obama-hatred. I guess the idea is that less extreme Right-leaning Americans will be peeled off, and the crazies will be isolated. It's a neat theory; I just don't see any evidence for it. As Becky Bond says in her e-mail:

[W]hat Rush Limbaugh says matters. He has a bigger audience than any other commercial radio host in the country, and what he talks about on air has the power to drive the Republican agenda -- an agenda that is already obsessed with radical backslides of women's ability to protect their own health.

The propagandists of the Far Right, including the engineers of the Right-Wing Noise Machine, may have unbounded contempt and limitless loathing for the suckers who make up their captive target audience, but they've proved themselves masters at manipulating them.

Still, you keep thinking, there must be a limit. And maybe I'm wrong. I have been in the past when it came to assuming that people like Rush could, practically speaking, get away with just about anything. Having no access to the mindset of a person who would listen to more than 30 seconds of Rush's lying filth, I may simply be disqualified from diagnosing what might constitute that famous "too much." Maybe this diatribe on sluttitude is it. I wish I were more convinced.

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