Mark Greene has a message for Rush Limbaugh and the men who are beating up on women over birth control: You are cowards.
We are looking at a turning point in the career of Rush Limbaugh. I know its been said before, but his latest tirade against women who are asking for access to birth control in their health plans is stoking a backlash against women that is vastly more hypocritical than any of his previous forays into the toxic realm of wedge-issue politics.
The man has outdone himself. And I think I know why.
The likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and other commenters of their stripe used to have the divisive, binary world of extra crazy single-issue politics to themselves. (I won’t label these guys as right wing because the right/left political divide is just more binary labels designed to set Americans against each other.) But regardless of how you label these guys, things have changed. The GOP Presidential field has raised the anti-government, anti-immigrant, pro-birther, election-by-paranoid-wedge-issue ante so high that folks like Rush Limbaugh need to push even further into crazy land just to be heard above the general din of hyper-religious, hyper-reactionary political rhetoric that has taken over the Republican Presidential primary.
But Rush really did shit the bed this time. Why? Because he has made the point several times that Americans should not have to pay for birth control for “sluts”. Did I get that right? I think I got that right.
But let’s let Rush speak for himself. In the following quote, Limbaugh responds to testimony by Sandra Fluke before an unofficial Congressional panel. Fluke was talking about the challenges of paying for contraception at a Jesuit University which will not provide it as part of student health plans.
“What does it say about the college co-ed Sandra Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, 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. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps.”
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First, I will quickly note that Sandra Fluke gets health insurance because she is a student at the university and has opted for that coverage. She is not asking for people to “buy her birth control”. She is asking that it be part of her health plan. A reasonable request.
But forget that. That’s like, a sane argument in an insane world and I’m not gonna get bogged down in talking logic to the crazy squad. I have seen more INSANE posts on the net this week by men who are “not going to pay for sluts to have sex”. These rants are everywhere. And what I note more than anything else about these posts is the rage. I mean these comments boil over with rage; rage that is way out of scale with the issue of birth control. Rage by men against women.
And let me take a moment to say something very clearly here. You guys who are saying this stuff? You are not men at all. You’re cowards. Because real men don’t beat up on women. Ever. You can share your opinions if you like in a civil and gentlemanly way, but this stuff you’re doing is disgusting.
As for Rush destroying his career, he’s unleashed a firestorm of woman haters. And he’s unleashed it on the issue of sexual intercourse between unmarried men and women. And ten thousand raging nut jobs are out there are now insulting every woman on the net.
And this is my favorite part: Its all being linked to the Republican Party. Why? Because the GOP refused to allow Fluke to speak before their house committee on contraception and religious liberty. A panel that created yet another twitter firestorm when the folks who were allowed to address the issue of contraception before this Republican controlled committee turned out to be all men. The photo of those five schmucks circulated ten billion times. And women love that “men telling them what to do with their bodies thing”. They just love it.
So here’s Rush and that big bed of his that he has so thoroughly shat. The problem Rush has unleashed is two fold. One, is the INSANE level of hypocrisy that is landing right at his front door. Rush says women who are requesting birth control as part of their health coverage are sluts. And this begs a very clear and simple question. Has Rush Limbaugh ever had sex out of wedlock? Ever? Did he ever fumble with some girl’s bra strap in the back of his dad’s Ford? Did he ever find his way into some women’s bed in college? Did he ever engage in sexual intercourse with any one of his four wives BEFORE he entered into the blissful state of holy matrimony? It is four, right?
And two, Rush has managed to crystalize the horror of a Republican world for every woman in America. The issue of abortion rights has always been a darker more ambivalent issue for many women. But birth control? These guys want to take away birth control? And thanks to Rush we can see the agenda for what it is. We can see the ugly anti-women mindset that lurks behind the “religious freedom” argument. It ain’t about religious freedom, it’s about sluts, whores and prostitutes.
And having birthed this refreshingly honest display of his ilk’s true attitude toward women, Rush is going to get what’s coming to him. The media elites are going to do their cold cynical math on this one. They’re going to calculate the damage control, look at the numbers and they’re going to cut bait on Rush Limbaugh. Because he just lost them the 2012 Presidential and Congressional elections.
And here’s an added note on the cost of providing “universal free birth control” via private or public insurers.
Maggie Mahar writes the following over at Time.com:
“if an insurer makes birth control totally free for all of its customers, it avoids having to reimburse them for countless unplanned pregnancies and births. Overall, then, it’s cheaper for the insurer to pay a little upfront to save a ton down the line.”
So good luck Rush, and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out to fuck-all-nowhere. Cause it wasn’t nice knowing you. Not at all.
For more on Rush Limbaugh’s sexist tirades, read Matt Crowder’s “A Dad Defends Danica Patrick“
For more on Politics and Birth Control, read Lauren Hale’s “How Did We Get to Where We Are in the Political Birth Control Debate? A Short History.”
Photo: AP/Brian Jones
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288 Comments on "Rush Limbaugh Finally Sh**ts The Bed."
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[…] Congressman Todd Akins “legitimate rape” comment, Rush Limbaugh’s attempted slut shaming of Sandra Fluke over access to birth control, and this most recent anti-abortion rationale by Illinois Rep. Joe […]
[…] message was carefully crafted. After months of massive GOP missteps on birth control and rape, Ann Romney’s job was to reach out to women and convince them that she understands […]
[…] First, what has come to be framed as evidence of the Republican “war on women” is Rush Limbaugh’s notorious attack on Sandra Fluke wherein he called her a slut for wanting access to birth control via her health care […]
Sandra Fluke was advocating that birth control should be covered by health insurance (which policies are paid for by the insured and/or their employers) not that the government should GIVE her FREE birth control. It had nothing to do with “government handouts” or “free” anything. Honestly, try getting the facts straight before being so condescending to everyone on the comment board with whom you might disagree.
You seem to miss the cause and effect. The government mandating that all private insurance cover birth control (meaning no organization can “opt out”) is exactly the same as “government should (be/is) GIVE(ing) her FREE birth control”, by proxy. To explain, If the government mandates that something MUST be included then it is making it effectively FREE for the recipient while making someone else have to figure out how to pay for it.
I dunno, maybe they can toss that less important prostrate cancer screening.
[…] would support the GOP, as apparently all Republicans are sexist bastards. Rush Limbaugh certainly didn’t help that cause when he called Sandra Fluke a prostitute for wanting her birth control to be covered by her student […]
Ah, yes, the “anti-Planned Parenthood” movement…they only netted (profited) $18.5 million in 2010. http://www.lifeissues.org/pp/report_09-10.pdf
I can’t take time to read every comment here in case this has been covered… Even though I am generally in favor of Ms. Fluke’s position, it is possible to work for, or study at, an institution that does not have the same feelings as the Catholic Church along these lines.
Exactly. Rush Limbaugh is an admitted drug addict and a Vietnam draft dodger…Which is to say he’s an inveterate liar and a coward. No wonder so many people who voted for Bush II support him so vociferously.
Technically, everyone’s a liar and a coward, so I can’t quite see the usefulness in saying he is. I was too young to be drafted for Viet Nam. I’m pretty sure I would’ve tried everything I could to get out of going to Viet Nam if I were in that position. I’m not in a position to judge that part.
(I happen to know a man who dodged the draft, got caught, and got sent ot VN anyway. He’s a draft dodger AND a Viet Nam vet. The ethics of conscription can get pretty complicated.)
Drip. Drip. Drip.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/06/rush-limbaugh-advertisers-leave-show-fluke_n_1323358.html
Cindy.
Your comments are spot-on.
In addition, normal human beings think it’s kind of odd that Greene and his symps won’t post their contemporary records of their outrage at Maher, Schultz and Letterman.
You’d think, if they had principles….
What, am I crazy?
[…] ever reaching gender equality. Mark Greene brilliantly explains just how fucked up Limbaugh is in “Rush Limbaugh Has Finally Shits The Bed”. This isn’t going to change unless every man makes it his moral responsibility to stop slut […]
Well, we now know what the most powerful lobby and voting block is in America today, and it’s not men.
Funny how the powers that the powers that be have convinced us that we actually have soooo much power, yeah the power to do our duty to be a real man and work till we die of a heart attack…
[…] using the birth control. It’s beyond slut-shaming. As Mark Greene has already pointed out here, Rush has gone around the bend, and the move was a business decision that has blown up in his […]
[…] the birth control. It’s beyond slut-shaming. As Mark Greene has already pointed out here, Rush has gone around the bend, and the move was a business decision that has blown up in his face. /* Filed Under: […]
[…] In this spirit, I have written this response to Mark Greene’s article: Rush Limbaugh Finally Sh*ts the Bed. […]
Mark. It is about contraceptives. See Fluke’s words. It’s about the other stuff only in your own mind.
Who do you think you’re fooling? Jeez.
The question remains, should Obama return Maher’s million dollars?
Richard. Rush said “slut”.
Who do you think you’re distracting/diverting? Jeez.
LOL
Well, Kirsten. We’ll see. Attacking drug addicts is easy. No one really cares about them. (Sad but true.) Rush’s latest trick is about attacking women. I see it as having a MUCH bigger downside politically for Rush and by extension, for the GOP.
Oh, and you get the AWARD for posting a comment on that actual subject of my article. Most of these guys posting here are trying to divert the thread to a discussion of contraceptives.
Federal funding for recreational sex? Selective condemnation in the of Bill Mayer? Done Here!!!!
Federal funding for recreational sex would not be new if birth control were to be covered. I refer to you, for example, to Medicare coverage of Viagra for men, mostly who are not using it for reproductive purposes: http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-204_162-670833.html
Now that I think about it, Maher called Palin a c&*t. Should Obama return Maher’s million bucks?
Clear point is, when libs do it to conservative women, the ostentatiously sensitive are otherwise engaged. Thing is, they think nobody notices.
BTW, if public health is an issue that the feds, or at least employer-sponsored health plans must address by providing it free, where’s my red wine allowance?
[…] Rush Limbaugh Finally Sh**ts The Bed. […]
[…] list of cultural awareness micro-adjustments, we’ve blown our cool entirely. Hence the whole Rush Limbaugh/Tea Party thing. But regardless of where you come down on the political spectrum, these are tricky […]
As I said before, I think it got posted, Bill Maher called Palin a “c^&t, and Eddie schultz called Laura Ingraham a slut.
Keith Olberman has been a cornucopia of abuse.
Nice to see your sensitivities finally woke up.
Melissa. Medical conditions are a different matter. See Julie and Mark and others talking about contraception. You need to get them to knock it off before the cat’s out of the bag.