The Backlash Against Limbaugh It’s Been a Long Time Coming

THE NEWS: Rush Limbaugh has lost close to 100 sponsors since he called a Georgetown University law student named Sandra Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute," while calling for her to post sex tapes of herself online.

THE PROVOCATION: A lot of people are mystified at the level of backlash over Rush Limbaugh's latest statements. They've demurred that Bill Maher and others have used similar language and "gotten away with it." What these critics don't seem to realize is that this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Limbaugh. (The durability of said iceberg is probably the reason Limbaugh is in denial about global warming.)

Limbaugh has been at this for decades. No, this does not excuse Bill Maher from using demeaning terms to describe Michelle Bachmann or Sarah Palin. But one must note that Maher's a comedian by trade and both of these women are public figures. The person Limbaugh attacked, by contrast, was a private citizen simply seeking to be involved in the process of affecting government. And Limbaugh's no comedian. He's a political attack dog who appears to relish demeaning and defaming people.

(No, I'm not letting Maher off the hook - more on him a bit further on.)

My characterization of Limbaugh is neither idle nor rashly made. Just consider, if you will, some of the bile that "El Rushbo" has inflicted on his audiences - a cavalcade of rude, disrespectful and barbarous insults surging up from a seemingly bottomless pit of invective and spilling forth unimpeded through the floodgates of his cavernous maw. A partial list of said invective appears further down.

Then consider for a moment a different case: that of former National Public Radio commentator Juan Williams. Not so long ago, Williams was fired for the following single statement: "When I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

A lot of people get nervous when they see people dressed in a certain way. Is it an expression of prejudice? Yes. But isn't it better to be honest about one's own emotional prejudices than to mask them behind a politically correct veneer?

"Aha!" my critics will say. "We've backed you into a corner! Limbaugh is just being honest: He's got the guts to say what no one else will because they're all constrained by political correctness."

Not so fast. There's a huge difference between considered civility and blind political correctness. And it should be pointed out that, in the same interview, Williams emphasized how absurd it would be to blame all Muslims for the actions of a few extremists, comparing such broad-brush generalizations to blaming all Christians for the actions of Timothy McVeigh. Williams hardly deserved to be fired for a single statement that was taken out of all context. Yet he was. And Limbaugh (who is hardly blameless when it comes to insulting Muslims) remains behind the microphone.

And unlike Williams, Limbaugh issued no such qualifying statements in his tirade on Fluke. He seldom, if ever, does. Instead, he insists on stereotyping women, minorities, Democrats and everyone else with whom he disagrees. It's as though they belong to some dense, undifferentiated monolithic slab. Apologize? Consider what Limbaugh told a caller after he declared, “I’m like a woman when you get to numbers. I don’t follow them too easily.” (And this from a man continually criticizing others' economic policies.)

Limbaugh's response when the caller indicated she was chagrined at his overtly sexist remark? "I’m not going to apologize. People in my position never apologize. But we just acknowledge that you were upset and offended by it. I’ll apologize you were offended." In other words, Limbaugh's actions weren't wrong, the caller's reaction was - and he had the audacity to apologize for her behavior, as though he were some all-powerful deity with the ability to forgive the wayward caller's sins.

Perhaps that's how he views himself. According to the Christian belief system with which so many of his callers identify, asking for forgiveness is pretty high on the list of core ideals. Interesting, then, that he considers himself above doing so. Even Jesus, when approached by someone who addressed him as "good," demurred by asking the fellow, "Why do you call me good? No one is good, save God alone." One could picture Limbaugh arguing this point, based on his "no apologies" policy.

It's a policy he finally violated when he decided to apologize to Sandra Fluke for calling her a "slut" and a "prostitute" ... but only after he spent the entire day after the incident defending himself. And only after sponsors began to stop paying for a "privileged" place amid the cacophony of combativeness that is his radio program. Can you say, "disingenuous?" What the god of Christianity couldn't convince him to do, the god of capitalist greed commanded. He heard and obeyed.

Maher's tweeted defense of Limbaugh on the grounds that "he apologized, liberals looking bad not accepting" was as phony as a $3 bill. The lack of sincerity in said apology makes Limbaugh look bad, not liberals. (And let's not even mention the fact that liberals have no place in accepting or rejecting the apology - that's Sandra Fluke's prerogative alone.) In fact, Maher seemed to be covering his ass by the Freudian admission, "Also hate intimidation by sponsor pullout." In other words, he's afraid that if Limbaugh is taken to task for being rude and demeaning, he'll be hit in the pocketbook, too.

There's a word for that: cowardice.

Maher attempted to elaborate on his position by declaring that "I don’t like it that people are made to disappear when they say something or people try to make them disappear when they say something you don’t like. That’s America. Sometimes you’re made to feel uncomfortable, OK?”

Excuse me, Mr. Maher, but no one is going to make me feel uncomfortable. Is the concept of free speech really that hard for people to comprehend once they get paid millions for putting a microphone in front of their faces? If so, here's a refresher course. Yes, this is America. That means you have a right to say rude and obnoxious things. You do not have a right to do it in front of a microphone. That's called a privilege. Got that straight? Good. Because I have the right to ignore what you say - to my face or into a microphone over some "50,000-watt blowtorch." I have the right to change the channel. I have a right to shop wherever I please for whatever reasons I choose - even if those reasons include the fact that I don't like your show and want to send your sponsors a potent message. You can't make me listen to you, and I won't allow you to make me uncomfortable. Capish?

Or, as John Scalzi put it in his blog, Whatever, "The First Amendment guarantees a right to speech. It does not guarantee a right to respect. As I am fond of saying, if you want people to respect your ideas, get better ideas. Likewise, freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequence. If you’re going to parade around on television engaging in hateful bastardry, then, strangely enough, people will often call you out on it."

That's a big part of what this column is about: calling bullies and hypocrites on their shit. And Limbaugh's verbal excrement is more putrid than most. This isn't just about Sandra Fluke. It's about a pattern of bigotry, racism, sexism and brutish incivility that few others can match - either for intensity or duration (though Ann Coulter - another friend of Maher's - comes close in the former category). So without further ado, let me offer up a few quotes from Limbaugh over the years to illustrate why the outcry in his case is so intense.

• “Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?”
• “The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.”
• To an African American female caller: “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.”
• “We need segregated buses… This is Obama’s America.”
• “Women should not be allowed on juries where the accused is a stud.”
• “Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women access to the mainstream of society.”
• “Socks is the White House cat. But did you know there is also a White House dog?” (while holding up a photograph of 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton on his 1993 television show)
• “Let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do — let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work.”
• “I’m a huge supporter of women. ... I love the women’s movement — especially when walking behind it.”
• “ We need to shut down this Gitmo prison? Well, don't shut it down  —  we just need to start an advertising campaign. We need to call it, 'Gitmo, the Muslim resort.'  ”
• “There are more American Indians alive today than there were when Columbus arrived or at any other time in history. Does this sound like a record of genocide?”
• “The only way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons is to use them.”
• “I think this reason why girls don’t do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, ‘All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what’s it going to be?’ We all know what was chosen.”
• “When a gay person turns his back on you, it is anything but an insult; it’s an invitation.”

That's just a sampling. Many more examples are readily available. But the point is made. Everyone makes mistakes and crosses the line now and then. But a pattern of rude, demeaning behavior followed by a half-assed, forced apology doesn't constitute grounds for a second chance. Insult me once, shame on you. Insult me repeatedly, and I pull the plug. And don't dare try to play the victim. The backlash is long overdue. We all should have said "enough" to this abomination years ago.
theprovocation.net/