Rush Limbaugh has apologized for calling Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke a slut and a prostitute for supporting health insurance coverage of contraceptives.
He was immediately swamped with outrage from the Left and from several sponsors of his radio talk show who announced that they would sponsor no longer.
Rush posted an apology on his website yesterday. After explaining his position against insurance coverage of contraceptives, he concluded:
“My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.”
I’ve written before about the three types of apologies:
Category 1 is the defiant apology:“I’m sorry if you think I did something wrong.”
Category 2 is the evasive apology:“I may have made an innocent mistake, and I’m sorry for it—if I actually did it.”
Category 3 is the real apology:“I did something wrong, and I’m sorry for it.”
Rush gets only provisional credit for a Cat. 3—provisional until we see whether his subsequent behavior shows the apology to be insincere.
Sadly, Republican criticism of Limbaugh has been rare. Conservative icon George Will lamented today on ABC This Week:
“[House Speaker John] Boehner comes out and says Rush’s language was inappropriate. Using the salad fork for your entrée, that’s inappropriate. Not this stuff. And it was depressing because what it indicates is that the Republican leaders are afraid of Rush Limbaugh. They want to bomb Iran, but they’re afraid of Rush Limbaugh.”
And Kathleen Parker, the Washington Post’s in-house Republican, warned,
“Republicans need to stand up and condemn what he said. They need to truly distance themselves, and it’s going to take courage.”
Kudos to these two people of the right for speaking up about Limbaugh’s ugly talk. Now I wonder— where were all the Democrats who jumped all over Limbaugh when liberals labeled conservative women with these ugly sexist terms:
- MSNBC host Ed Schultz called Sarah Palin a bimbo and Laura Ingraham a right-wing slut
- Rolling Stone’s new star reporter Matt Taibbi wrote about Michelle Malkin, “When I read [Malkin’s] stuff, I imagine her narrating her text, book-on-tape style, with a big, hairy set of balls in her mouth.” And about Ann Coulter, “you know you’re reading someone who would fuck a hippopotamus if she thought it would boost her Q rating.”
- And liberals’ favorite political commentator, Bill Maher, (he of the million dollar donation to the Obama super-PAC) called Sarah Palin a “dumb twat.”
It would be a good thing if serious people of the Left would combine their condemnation of right-wing slur mongers like Limbaugh with just a tiny word of protest over slur mongers of the left.
______________
Thanks to Kirsten Powers of the Daily Beast for some of the epithets cited.
Tags: ABC This Week, Ann Coulter, apology, Bill Maher, bimbo, contraceptives, Daily Beast, Democrats, dumb twat, Ed Schultz, ethics, George Will, health insurance, John Boehner, Kathleen Parker, Kirsten Powers, Laura Ingraham, Matt Taibbi, Michelle Malkin, MSNBC, prostitute, Republicans, Rolling Stone, Rush Limbaugh, Sandra Fluke, Sarah Palin, slut, types of apologies, Washington Post
Ethics Bob 
March 6, 2012 at 2:39 am |
Schultz and Taibbi should be scolded, but neither of them is followed avidly by hundreds of thousands of voters. And criticizing a political humorist for crudeness is not exactly aiming high. Did you know Maher also calls adherents to Tea Party philosopy “Tea Baggers?” (look it up on urbandictionary.com, meaning #2)
March 7, 2012 at 7:04 am |
Andy, in a contest for ugliness Rush wins hand down. But don’t let Maher off because he’s a humorist–not when he sits with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and other serious figures and talks straight politics. And they sit there and smile at his ugly slurs. I stopped watching him when he called the Pope a child molester.
But Maher isn’t the issue–I repudiate people who criticize Republicans for not speaking up to Rush, while they haven’t a word to say about ugly commentary of the Left. That’s just plain hypocrisy.
July 27, 2012 at 7:58 pm |
[…] off from him. And after sponsors started pulling his ads from his program, he issued an apology. Sorta. But that didn’t stop the exodus. This morning the toll was continuing, CNN was […]