This is rant. Rants are by their very nature not well thought-out, finely crafted pieces of writing: This guy really pissed me off this week.
This week the right wing "entertainer" Rush Limbaugh took on a young woman college student because she said something he didn't like.
At the request of elected lawmakers Sandra Fluke spoke to a small sub-committee about the cost, financial and physical, of not having insurance coverage for contraception. While she may be "an activist", in this case she was responding to an invitation, a request, from lawmakers to speak. She did not seek this particular podium. Rush called her a "slut" and a "prostitute" and demanded that if insurance companies were forced to provide contraception coverage for all women then " we ought to get something for it. She should post the videos online" so he could watch.
This man is a boor. A boor is a male pig that wallows in mud and slime and roots with his snout for the best piece of rotten refuse to feast on. Rush is a boor.
Sandra Fluke was brave enough to speak in a hearing room while Rush hides in his sound-proof, window-less, climate controlled booth while broadcasting his thoughts to the public. She had a few minutes in front of a few people, while he attacked her for hours with an audience of millions. What a brave and courageous American he is.
Rush will huff and say, “but I’m an entertainer”. I find nothing entertaining in name-calling and the degradation of women. If Sandra Fluke were his daughter would he find it “entertaining” to have his daughter called a slut on public airwaves? Would he find it entertaining to imagine “watching” the videos he “paid for”? Since when did slut and prostitute become entertaining names for women? No, Rush is nothing more than a schoolyard bully who makes millions and millions of dollars by taunting those less powerful.
Part of his remarks included poking at her parents, sarcastically wondering how “proud” they must be of their daughter for having so much sex. I wonder how proud Rush’s mother must be. Whether she is still living or has passed, I’m sure she can’t be very proud of the man her boy has become. I can’t imagine that she hoped for a boy who would bully girls and make a lot of money by belittling and berating people who can’t respond.
The rest of the republicans can’t seem to bring themselves to call out Rush for being a boor. The men who want to be Commander in Chief are not quite brave enough to say publically that calling women sluts is wrong and that Rush is wrong to do it. Rick Santorum could only respond with “that’s absurd” as though Rush is just being silly. While Mitt Romney said that Rush’s words are not the one’s he would have used. Does that mean it is okay with him that Rush degraded this young woman in public? That it is okay that he stated she sold her body for money? Rush just should have used better language? Really? I think both Rick and Mitt need to look further down than the “fire in their belly” and see if they have any manhood left. How can they defend us against a real enemy if they are not men enough to confront an entertainer? Or do they share Rush’s opinion of women as sluts, prostitutes and feminazies?
Today the Republicans are in a righteous snit because the Democrats are fund raising around this episode. Well, damn right. When women are being attacked and degraded on the public airwaves (which by the way women also pay for) then yes, something needs to be done. And while Rush makes millions doing this we will also need millions to stand up to the bullies and the boors who have once again decided to use women’s bodies as a battleground.
