Is Rush Limbaugh damaging the Republican Party?

Before Rush Limbaugh spoke up, the Republicans thought they had a winning issue on contraception in health-care plans. Now, everyone is on the same side: against Rush Limbaugh. 

|
C-SPAN/AP
Sandra Fluke, a third-year Georgetown University law student, testifies to Congress in Washington in this file photo from last month. Rush Limbaugh drew fire Friday for his depiction of Fluke as a 'slut' because she testified before Congress about the need for contraceptive coverage.

Is Rush Limbaugh damaging the Republican Party? On Friday Limbaugh drew withering criticism from all colors of the political spectrum for his comment that Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke is “slut” and a “prostitute” for testifying in favor of mandatory coverage of contraception in employer-provided health insurance.

National Republican Senatorial Committee vice-chairman Carly Fiorina called the talk show host/provocateur’s language “insulting,” “incendiary,” and “a distraction.” House Speaker John Boehner called the words “inappropriate,” while also hitting Democrats for trying to raise money off the issue.

President Obama called Ms. Fluke in support, while the president of Georgetown University sent an e-mail to all the school’s students that said Mr. Limbaugh’s words were “misogynistic, vitriolic, and a misrepresentation of the position of our student.”

In short, Limbaugh at least for the moment appears to have taken a complicated issue on the beliefs of religious groups versus the powers of government and reduced it to a discussion of schoolyard epithets.

“Yesterday’s topic: legitimate rights of [Roman Catholic] church. Today’s topic: calling women ‘sluts.’ Good job Rush,” tweeted David Frum, a journalist and self-described conservative Republican who at times has jousted with his party’s right wing.

Limbaugh himself remains unapologetic for his comments. On his radio show Friday he said, “This isn’t about contraception anyway. This is about expanding the reach and power of government into your womb, if you’re a woman.”

Meanwhile, opponents flooded the web and Twitter with comments aimed at getting advertisers on Limbaugh’s show to pull their support. At least two firms, mattress companies Sleep Train and Sleep Number, said they would do so.

Mr. Obama’s phone call to Fluke further escalated the public visibility of the controversy. Having made clear where his sympathies are in the matter, Obama may force GOP rivals to make their own statements on the issue. Indeed, it’s possible Democrats are gleeful about what they consider Limbaugh’s rhetorical overreaching.

“Reporters now have just the hook they need to ask Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum for comment on Rush’s remarks,” noted liberal Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent today on his Plum Line blog.

Others on the left charged that Republicans were now reaping the results of inviting shock-jock hosts such as Limbaugh into the inner circle, in essence. At Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum opined in a post titled “Has Right Wing Media Become an Albatross for the Right Wing?”

Limbaugh “plumbed some new depths of loathsomeness” with his comments, said Mr. Drum.

Even some of Limbaugh’s defenders did not defend Limbaugh's choice of words. Over at the conservative RedState site, editor Erik Erickson wrote that, “Well of course Rush Limbaugh was being insulting. It is not something I would do and I do think we’re going to now be focused on what he said for a while and that it will be a distraction from the central argument.”

This central argument, according to Mr. Erickson, is that the Obama administration wants to force taxpayers to foot the bill for couples’ contraception by forcing health insurers to include it in coverage.

“So of course Rush Limbaugh was being insulting,” writes Erickson. “He was using it as a tool to highlight just how absurd the Democrats’ position is on this.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Is Rush Limbaugh damaging the Republican Party?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/Vox-News/2012/0302/Is-Rush-Limbaugh-damaging-the-Republican-Party
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe