Monday, March 05, 2012

New Update: Rush Limbaugh says something outrageous

And the liberals only just noticed?

29 comments:

KyCobb said...

No, we've been noticing Limbaugh's racist and sexist comments for quite awhile. It just took a vicious, disgusting personal attack on a woman for her testimony before Congress for the rest of the nation to notice.

Lee said...

It also took a conservative saying something mean about a liberal for the rest of the nation to notice, apparently.

You can still get away with calling Sarah Palin a sl*t, a b*tch, or a tw*t, so long as you're a liberal. So act now.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

We can always count on you to invoke the magical balance fairy. So its good with you for Rush to use the #1 radio show in the nation to tell vicious lies about any woman he wants, like maybe your daughter or wife, as long as there is some liberal somewhere saying bad things about someone? Its good to know that your absolute God-given morality justifies doing anything you think someone else is getting away with.

Lee said...

At one time, the lady in question would definitely have qualified for the descriptive term in question. But now that there are no standards, apparently, the only standard left is thou shalt not invoke any standard. It's okay for her to live like one, but not okay for Rush to notice out loud.

But of course, now we're applying a standard to Rush. It's so hard to keep up.

All I want to know is, why is there a big media uproard when Rush calls the lady a sl*t, but barely a peep when Bill Maher, David Letterman, et al throw the same or similar epithets at Sarah Palin?

> Its good to know that your absolute God-given morality justifies doing anything you think someone else is getting away with.

Where did I say anything of the sort?

KyCobb said...

Lee,

" It's okay for her to live like one, but not okay for Rush to notice out loud."

Quite obviously, you have not read her actual testimony, but rather only the right wing smear campaign against her. She didn't talk about her sex life at all. She testified to Congress about the difficulties women enrolled at Georgetown University had getting contraceptive medicine covered, even when they had a medical reason other than preventing pregnancy. One of her friends lost an ovary to cysts. You should read her testimony. The despicable things Limbaugh said about her were absolutely nothing but lies.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

"Where did I say anything of the sort?"

Its implied by the fact you couldn't care less about what Limbaugh said, but instead immediately invoke the MBF.

Lee said...

> She testified to Congress about the difficulties women enrolled at Georgetown University had getting contraceptive medicine covered, even when they had a medical reason other than preventing pregnancy.

I've been getting lectured my entire life that what goes on in the bedroom, behind closed doors, is none of my business. Okay. So then, why do I have to pay for it? And the consequences of it? It is none of my business, right?

> The despicable things Limbaugh said about her were absolutely nothing but lies.

Do you think that calling Sarah Palin a sl*t, a c**t, or a b**ch is the truth?

> Its implied by the fact you couldn't care less about what Limbaugh said, but instead immediately invoke the MBF.

Well, normally, I couldn't care less about anything Limbaugh says, so you're half-right. As usual.

But I didn't say word one about Ms. Fluke or her testimony. I'm not at all interested in her. I'm much more interested in the lamestream media's somewhat tendentious outrage. Say something nasty about a liberal woman, get the third degree; say something nasty about a conservative woman, crickets chirping.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

"I've been getting lectured my entire life that what goes on in the bedroom, behind closed doors, is none of my business. Okay. So then, why do I have to pay for it? And the consequences of it? It is none of my business, right?"

You are continuing to miss the point. Ms. Fluke's testimony had absolutely nothing to do with what goes on in the bedroom. It had to do with the fact that women can't get coverage for medicine they needed for reasons other than birth control. Second, you don't have to pay for it; the issue is not, as the Right lied, about getting special taxpayer subsidies for birth control. Its about getting medicine women need for a variety of health reasons covered just like any other medicine is covered by health insurance. The rest of your post merely confirms my point that you don't care if Limbaugh uses the #1 rated radio show in the nation to try to destroy any woman he chooses to target; for you this is just another reason to rant about the Rightwing obsession with the notion that the media is biased.

Lee said...

> The rest of your post merely confirms my point that you don't care if Limbaugh uses the #1 rated radio show in the nation to try to destroy any woman he chooses to target

Actually, the point you started off making was, quote, "my absolute God-given morality justifies doing anything [I] think someone else is getting away with" -- i.e., that I *do* care, very much.

So you've since shifted your position regarding my motivations, but without acknowledging that fact. It's a more defensible position, granted, I just think you should have retracted your former statement before coming up with this new line of assault.

As I explained, personally, I'm indifferent to Ms. Fluke. She's a political activist, and she's a big girl, thirty years old and the child of privilege, and not incidentally appears to be winning this issue with the help of the liberal media. I'm personally indifferent to Sarah Palin, too. I see in her neither a great conservative savior nor a drooling dunce at the same level that smirking TV liberals imagine. I wish neither woman harm, and though I tend to be more sympathetic to Ms. Palin's agenda, she's a big girl too.

But at a more abstract level, I am of course concerned about defamation of character. And that's why I think the rules should be the same for everyone.

If they're not, then my first suspicion is this issue has little to do with basic human decency, but more to do with political axes being sharpened.

Either it's acceptable to do what Rush did to Ms. Fluke, or it's unacceptable for Bill Maher to call Sarah Palin a c***. You tell me: which is it?

And if Maher was wrong, where o where has the liberal outrage gone? Or am I wrong about liberals and can rest confidently in the knowledge that the President will return Maher's $1 million campaign contribution, tainted as it is with myogyny?

Lee said...

> myogyny?

Misogyny. :)

KyCobb said...

Lee,

"Either it's acceptable to do what Rush did to Ms. Fluke, or it's unacceptable for Bill Maher to call Sarah Palin a c***. You tell me: which is it?"

What Bill Maher said was wrong. But lets look at the differences. Bill Maher made apparently one comment to a limited audience about a public figure. Limbaugh spent three days telling despicable lies about a private person on the #1 rated radio show in America. Maher is an anti-vaccer kook who doesn't speak for anyone but himself. Limbaugh is the voice of the Republican Party. It doesn't help to improve the nation's political discourse to say that the nation's most influential political talk show host is justified in wallowing in raw sewage as long as there is some left-of-center comedian somewhere getting away with making crass jokes.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

" Or am I wrong about liberals and can rest confidently in the knowledge that the President will return Maher's $1 million campaign contribution, tainted as it is with myogyny?"

Just to clarify another factual error on your part, Maher didn't make a million $ contribution to the President's campaign, he made an unlimited contribution to a superpac which supports the President. As you should know, the President is barred by law from coordinating with the superpac, so he couldn't return Maher's money even if he wanted to; that's entirely up to whoever runs the superpac. This is the world created by the Citizens United decision you conservatives love so much.

Lee said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lee said...

> What Bill Maher said was wrong.

Let's see...

Rush was: "racist", "sexist", "vicious", "disgusting", "despicable", targeting women for destruction, telling "absolutely nothing but lies", "wallowing in raw sewage".

Very colorful. Now that we've calibrated the ol' outrage-ometer, just trying now to get a reading on Maher thing...

Maher was: "wrong", "crass", a "kook".

We have measured your concern for women slandered by Maher and found it to be, um, palpable.

> But lets look at the differences.

I thought you might want to.

> Bill Maher made apparently one comment to a limited audience about a public figure

HBO has 28 million subscribers. And this wasn't Maher's only misogynistic outburst. In addition to calling Palin a "sl*t" and a "dumb t**t", he called her and Michelle Bachman "boobs" and "bimbos". He made a joke about Rich Santorum's wife using a vibrator.

> Limbaugh spent three days telling despicable lies about a private person on the #1 rated radio show in America.

A private person? Sorry, she is a political activist.

So the implicit proposition here is that the news media would have given Limbaugh a pass, perhaps, if he had only been telling despicable lies for one or two days. Sorry, but it doesn't fly, either; there were on him from day one.

> Limbaugh is the voice of the Republican Party.

Limbaugh is not the voice of the Republican Party.

> It doesn't help to improve the nation's political discourse to say that the nation's most influential political talk show host is justified in wallowing in raw sewage as long as there is some left-of-center comedian somewhere getting away with making crass jokes.

But of course I didn't say Rush was justified. That's your own straw man shaking his fist at decency, not me.

But, again, of course, it's not just a lone leftist comedian. It's Keith Olbermann calling Michelle Malkin a "mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it," and that S.E. Cupp's mother should have had her aborted. It's Ed Schultz saying Sarah Palin sets off a "Bimbo alert!" and calling Laura Ingraham a "right-wing sl*t." It's Chris Matthews calling Michelle Bachmann a "balloon head". It's NPR contributor Matt Taibbi blogging about Michelle Malkin, I can't even half-spell out it without almost certainly inciting Martin to delete my post.

All I want to know is, where were the boycotts? The indignant calls for censure? The non-stop and breathless coverage from the news media?

If you're really concerned about the national discourse, you can help by upholding the same standards for liberals that they gleefully enforce against conservatives.

Lee said...

Correction: Matt Taibbi is a Rolling Stone writer, and has been quoted on NPR, but don't think he's a regular.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

I guess you missed the fact that Schultz got immediately suspended for his comment about Ingraham. One comment. Rush spent three days calling a college student a slut and is still on the air. And if Limbaugh isn't the voice of the GOP, how come everytime a GOP official has criticized him, the official has had to apologize to Limbaugh? And why does Boehner consult him about legislation?

And "balloon head"? Really? Is that some sort of sex euphemism I don't understand, because I don't get your moral outrage about that. You think that's comparable to Rush spending three days dragging a college student through the mud and demanding she produce sex videos for him? You are frantically waving the MBF's magic wand to think that's comparable to what Rush did. I guarantee you, if any liberal commentator spent even one day engaging in the kind of vile attacks on a college student that Rush kept up for three days, he or she would be off the air immediately, because not one of them has Rush's ratings.

Lee said...

> I guess you missed the fact that Schultz got immediately suspended for his comment about Ingraham.

I supppose I did. How about all the others? Were they suspended too?

> And if Limbaugh isn't the voice of the GOP, how come everytime a GOP official has criticized him, the official has had to apologize to Limbaugh?

You're a lawyer, right? I've been told that lawyers understand logic very well, but don't mind arguing illogically if they believe it helps them win their point. I don't know if that's true. All I can say is, surely, you must understand that being afraid of someone's influence, and anointing him as your spokesman, are two different things. I'm sure the Democratic Party doesn't like to offend Al Sharpton either, but that's not the same thing as making him a Democratic Party spokesman.

> And why does Boehner consult him about legislation?

I don't know. Why did Congress consult Sandra Fluke?

> And "balloon head"? Really? Is that some sort of sex euphemism I don't understand, because I don't get your moral outrage about that.

What have I said so far that makes you think I feel moral outrage over the issue of political name-calling, one way or the other? I thought we had settled already that I "don't care." If I feel moral outrage, then I must care. But I don't.

People who participate in the political arena need thick skin, and if they don't have it, they'd better get it. It's a requirement of the job. It's part of the deal.

I *do* care if someone's innocent spouse or child is being flayed, e.g., Sarah Palin's kids (late night comics have joked about underage sex with one of them), or even Chelsea Clinton (right-wingers made fun of her teenage gawkiness before she blossomed) when her dad was President. Thick skin was not part of *their* deal.

Now, on the flip side, maybe there are times when name-calling is appropriate. If it ever is, though, it's about maybe one out of every thousand uses. Maybe ten thousand. Yes, some insults are worse than others. "Balloon head" is a bizarre one, to be sure, you'd have to ask Chris Matthews what he meant by it. (But you sashayed right past the other insults to single that one out.)

The point is, when someone is reduced to name-calling, it means they've lost the argument. It's at about the same level as putting words into someone's mouth he didn't say, or ascribing motives to someone that he doesn't have, and we've seen that before, haven't we? It's a distraction.

Worse than that, calling a woman a s**t is ungentlemanly, even if it is true. But that's just the sexist in me talking, right?

Worst of all, it's un-Christian. It is recorded in the scriptures that Jesus spoke on more than one occasion with ladies of ill repute, and He did not call such names at them, even though He is the only person who ever lived who is truly entitled to do so. When epithets synonymous with "prostitute" are hurled in the Bible, usually it's in a figurative or an analogous sense; actual prostitutes tend to come away in one piece.

But nobody listens to what I say when I invoke Christ, so I must be wrong there, too.

Lee said...

But as I said, this whole issue is all a distraction anyway. The liberal media has been setting its snares since the South Carolina primary and Stephanopoulos' seemingly (at the time) bizarre question to Romney about whether states have the Constitutional power to ban contraception. Romney seemed puzzled that someone would ask that question, given that no candidate was promoting such a policy, and no state had expressed any desire to do so. But George kept pressing the point.

Now we know why.

It's a distraction. If I were in the White House, I too would prefer that everyone be talking about Rush Limbaugh and contraception instead of the national debt, joblessness, and the price of gasoline.

I'm sure Rush gets all this, now that he's gone and blown it. My personal opinion, for what it's worth, is that Rush is a very skilled broadcaster, but only a reasonably bright individual. A truly bright individual asks questions before crossing the Rubicon; Rush sees things clearly now, I'm sure, after he waded right in. He's Epimetheus, not Prometheus. That's better than nothing, but not ideal. Contrary to popular belief, hindsight is *not* 20/20. Unfortunately.

> You are frantically waving the MBF's magic wand to think that's comparable to what Rush did.

You have a gift for seeing the worst in your opponents and not seeing the worst in your allies.

> I guarantee you, if any liberal commentator spent even one day engaging in the kind of vile attacks on a college student that Rush kept up for three days, he or she would be off the air immediately...

Oh please. Ms. Fluke is thirty years old and a student at one of the country's most prestigious law schools. She is also a veteran political activist. You're trying, unsuccessfully, to evoke a paternal sense of defense toward her. I get so tired of the "Have you no decency?" crowd.

> ... because not one of them has Rush's ratings.

So the morality is dependent on someone's success, is that what you're saying? So, I can say anything I want, and it's not immoral if it has no impact? Not buying it, sorry.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

"So the morality is dependent on someone's success, is that what you're saying?"

If you can come up with any other reason why Rush is still on the air when anyone else would have been at least suspended, I'm all ears.

Lee said...

Well, I'm not sure I buy your premise. Keith Olbermann was eventually fired, but not for anything he said about Michelle Malkin. He had maybe three people in his audience, and still he kept his job.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

"Well, I'm not sure I buy your premise. Keith Olbermann was eventually fired, but not for anything he said about Michelle Malkin. He had maybe three people in his audience, and still he kept his job."

I'm very confident in my premise. All your examples are one shot insults of high profile public figures that say more about the crassness of the speaker than about the person being insulted. When Rush spent three days calling Ms. Fluke a slut, prostitute and prospective porn star, he wasn't just throwing out an insult; he was expressly commenting on what he imagined her personal sex life was like based on his false premise concerning her testimony. The closest example to what Rush did is the comment Don Imus made about a women's college basketball team (and even then he wasn't claiming to have any knowledge about the their sex lives), and his show was canceled. I hope you can look past which team Rush is on and recognize that what he said is qualitatively different than your examples.

Lee said...

It has been very amusing watching you thrash around for any reason to come up with two different standards, one for Rush, another for liberals, without just coming out and stating the obvious one: Rush is a conservative.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

Sorry that you can't see past the team Rush is on. Of course its just because Rush is a conservative. That's why every single corporate sponsor of his program has pulled their ads; Corporate CEOs are notorious radical socialists.

"If I were in the White House, I too would prefer that everyone be talking about Rush Limbaugh and contraception instead of the national debt, joblessness, and the price of gasoline."

This is a fight that the GOP chose. Even after the President placed the obligation on insurance companies to provide contraceptive medicine rather than religious institutions, the GOP pushed to allow women's health care to be subject to the whims of their employers in the hopes they could use religion as a wedge issue against the President. Instead its blown up in their faces. With the economy continuing to improve and the President's approval rating reaching the highest level since the Bin Laden bump faded, the GOP appears to have stumbled into a minefield of misogyny with its renewal of the culture war.

Lee said...

> Sorry that you can't see past the team Rush is on.

Class, we call this phenomenon here 'projection'.

Funny you should bring that up. Apparently, one of those corporate sponsors wanted to mend fences with Rush. Rush told him no. I guess Rush feels he has to be concerned about his brand name, too...

> "Unfortunately, your public comments were not well received by our audience, and did not accurately portray either Rush Limbaugh's character or the intent of his remarks. Thus, we regret to inform you that Rush will be unable to endorse Sleep Train in the Future."

> "This is a fight that the GOP chose..."

But it's a fight the President started.

Lee said...

Interesting article...

http://decoded.nationaljournal.com/2012/03/conservatives-cite-bill-maher.php

Never heard of the National Journal, so I looked it up in Wikipedia, and it says...

> "National Journal is a nonpartisan American weekly magazine that reports on the current political environment and emerging political and policy trends..."

> "Some of its best known current and former contributors have been:... Richard E. Cohen
Charlie Cook
Clive Crook
Jonathan Rauch
Stuart Taylor Jr.
Major Garrett
Susan Davis
Matthew Cooper
Marc Ambinder
Patrick Pexton
Murray Waas
William Powers
Yochi Dreazen"

Not, at first glance, a conservative bullpen.

One of their writers, a Mr. George Condon, concluded:

http://decoded.nationaljournal.com/2012/03/conservatives-cite-bill-maher.php

> "But even the most ardent Obama supporter would have to admit that if Limbaugh crossed the line on acceptable discourse, then Maher obliterated that line, even acknowledging the difference between a political talkmeister and a comedian."

But well, to be fair, I doubt that Mr. Condon has ever met KyCobb.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

"Apparently, one of those corporate sponsors wanted to mend fences with Rush. Rush told him no."

Do you have any confirmation from the corporation of that? Because Rush isn't exactly a reliable source.

Lee said...

Yeah, I'm quite sure everything Rush says is a lie, because after all, he's a big fat liar, a lying liar, and have I mentioned he's fat? He's fat!

But here's the link:

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/08/4323061/limbaugh-rebuffs-attempt-by-sleep.html

And by the way, Rasmussen has something to say about your confidence in the President's re-election prospects...

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

Lee said...

Another interesting article, this one on the precipitous drop Carbonite stock took after dropping Rush...

http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/03/carbonites-saturday-night-massacre/comment-page-1/#comment-320640

The world is a complicated place, isn't it?

KyCobb said...

Lee,

"Another interesting article, this one on the precipitous drop Carbonite stock took after dropping Rush..."

"So the morality is dependent on someone's success, is that what you're saying?"