Obama in personal phone call to Sandra Fluke: Your parents should be proud

Hotair ^ | 03/02/2012 | Tina Korbe

[SeekAndFind]

The president clearly thinks it’s advantageous to keep conservatives preoccupied with his contraception mandate because he sure ensures the topic stays in the spotlight. Today, he did that with a rare personal phone call to Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student who earlier this week testified in support of the mandate by saying that she and her peers are “going broke” to buy birth control.

In response to Fluke’s congressional testimony, radio host Rush Limbaugh called the Georgetown coed a “slut” and a “prostitute.” With those comments, he touched off a larger controversy. The DCCC and Emily’s List raised funds off Rush’s comments, while Congressional Democrats immediately demanded that Republican leadership disavow his words. House Speaker John Boehner did so tepidly, calmly calling Limbaugh’s remarks “inappropriate,” while also condemning any attempt to use his provocative rhetoric as a fundraising tool.

Today, Obama decided to weigh in, as well, calling Fluke to praise and encourage her and to say her parents should be proud of her activism.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said, “The president called Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke because he wanted to offer his support, express his disappointment, that she was the subject of an inappropriate personal attack and thank her for exercising her rights as a citizen to speak out on public policy.”

Carney said they spoke “for several minutes. It was a good conversation. Like a lot of people said the personal attacks directed her way are inappropriate. The fact that political discourse has become debased in many ways is bad enough. It’s worse when directed at a private citizen simply expressing her views on a matter of public policy.”

Asked what Obama thought about Limbaugh’s comments, Carney said, “They were reprehensible. They were disappointing. It is reprehensible that those kinds of personal and crude attacks could be leveled at someone like this young law school student who was simply expressing her opinion on a matter of public policy and doing it with a great deal of poise.”

Fluke also relayed the substance of the call to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. (Incidentally, Fluke might not be the wide-eyed, 23-year-old she purports to be; sounds like she had the intention to raise this issue before she ever enrolled at Georgetown.)

(Also, note that, according to the lower third in the video, conservative backlash to the contraception mandate amounts to a “War on Women’s Health.” How far we’ve come from the first days after the mandate, when conservatives more successfully framed the issue as Obama’s “War on Religious Freedom.”)

Rush brushed aside the president’s phone call.

Amid his reaction though, Rush makes a great point. He says that he has been asked why he was so insulting to Fluke. He responded by making the point that his whole “free contraception” movement, on top of the “rich aren’t paying their fair share” movement is highly insulting to him. He likened it to a woman he didn’t know knocking on his door asking for money for contraception because she wanted to go and have sex with 3 guys that evening. Rush explains:

“Where is it written that when all of a sudden if you want something and don’t have the money for it, somebody else has to pay for it. I think the whole notion of being insulted here – there are a lot of us insulted by this whole idea that is growing throughout the Obama administration, that the people who make this country work are somehow doing their fair share, not paying their fair share, that we have to be punished even more. Here’s the latest example of it.”

Of course he ends the segment by suggesting, tongue-in-cheek, that he is waiting for Bill Clinton to call Sandra Fluke to see if she’s OK. Ha!

Dare I suggest that, somewhere along the line, this has gotten a bit — to borrow a word from Ron Paul — “silly“? Don’t misunderstand me: The contraception mandate is very, very serious. As conservatives have said from Day One, it represents an unconscionable assault on religious freedom. Similarly, sexual morality is a very serious issue. But this has become nothing more than a top-my-trauma contest, in which both sides attempt to make it sound as though they’ve been more seriously insulted than the other side.

Let’s not forget who started all of this. Nobody ever threatened to take away anybody’s contraception. Nobody (except George Stephanopoulous) was even talking about contraception until the administration reiterated its mandate to religiously-affiliated employers to provide insurance coverage that covers contraception against their religious beliefs.

The president knew what he was doing when he made the contraception mandate the first detail of Obamacare to be truly “felt.” He was willing to risk that it would rouse religious leaders because he knew it would rouse those who would perceive opposition to the mandate as a threat to consequence-free sex. It’s not — with or without the mandate, any two consenting adults are free to have sex and with contraception as much as they can afford – but don’t tell Sandra Fluke that. To her and to others like her, sex is apparently not consequence-free unless it’s also flat-out “free” for the folks having it.

The best bet for conservatives is to try — somehow — to rise above this fray and to espouse a higher, better way. That necessarily entails advocating conscience protections for religious employers and patiently, repeatedly explaining that contraception is widely accessible and affordable, but not a medical necessity. It might also entail (and I duck as I write this) the willingness to love women (and men!) by inviting them to lives as something other than moochers who can’t see past their own desires for instant gratification. “Hey, kids, try a life of personal responsibility and earned success! You might like it!”

CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO

[nascarnation]

She’ll graduate law school and go to work for some left wing outfit, make 200 grand a year, and donate a big slice of it to Dems.

[Dallas59]

3000 dollars worth of sex is alot. Why doesn’t her 3000 sex partners pay for contraception ?

[jesseam]

She looks like a lesbian

[BilLies]

Old Joke:
“Fella tells his girl she’s going to have to turn some tricks because they are out of money and need to buy something to food.
When she comes home she throws a twenty dollar bill and fifty cents on the table.
The boyfriend say who was the cheap SOB who gave 50 cents?
She answers: “All of them!” “
Now if that woman was a Fluke the boy friend and girl friend would have had to go hungry because she had to pay for her condoms in the Georgetown world.
NEVER FEAR THE OBAMA MAN IS HEAR/HERE.
OBAMA TO THE RESCUSE!!!

[BilLies]

Obviously they are not Gentlemen.

[eddie willers]

Why doesn’t her 3000 sex partners pay for contraception ?

Punchline to old joke:

Who gave you the dime?
All of them.

[Deo volente]

Is law school different these days? When I was there, we had so much reading to do each night that I was too exhausted at the end for anything but sleep.

[grey_whiskers]

Cheers!

[GOPJ]

Did Obama call the parents of the men executed - mob style - in Afghanistan?

Any calls to wounded soldier’s parents about cuts in funding?

Any calls to families trying to make ends meet with the massive increases in costs of gasoline and food?

[healy61]

She will testify at incurable STDs if she doesn’t clean up her act. And I’m not talking soap and water here.

[Qbert]

8% unemployment? 16% real unemployment? Iran getting nukes? The country drowning in debt?

Naw, the most pressing issue of our time: taxpayer-subsidized contraceptives and abortifacients for future lawyers...

[APatientMan]

To a hammer...

[grey_whiskers]

Cheers!

[thouworm]

Short Chicago Tribune article (with Flukes video) supplies the salient details of the Limbaugh/Flukes firestorm, including:

"Fluke had attempted to testify last month at a congressional committee hearing on the Obama administration’s new rule requiring employers to offer health plans that include birth control coverage, but she was excluded from the panel. She testified instead at a mock hearing organized by Democratic lawmakers...."

Rush Limbaugh: Obama calls Sandra Fluke to express 'support'

Little Reported BACKGROUND: Who Is Sandra Flukes?

The GateWay Pundit now linking to same source as thread below:

THREAD: Sandra Fluke’s Appearance Is No Fluke ( Rush & the Slut Fluke, Mega Leftist)

Sandra Fluke’s Appearance Is No Fluke

Posted by Just a Grunt on Mar 02, 2012 at 10:49 am

For me the interesting part of the story is the ever-evolving “coed”. I put that in quotes because in the beginning she was described as a Georgetown law student. It was then revealed that prior to attending Georgetown she was an active women’s right advocate. In one of her first interviews she is quoted as talking about how she reviewed Georgetown’s insurance policy prior to committing to attend, and seeing that it didn’t cover contraceptive services, she decided to attend with the express purpose of battling this policy.

During this time, she was described as a 23-year-old coed. Magically, at the same time Congress is debating the forced coverage of contraception, she appears and is even brought to Capitol Hill to testify. This morning, in an interview with Matt Lauer on the Today show, it was revealed that she is 30 years old, NOT the 23 that had been reported all along.

In other words, folks, you are being played. She has been an activist all along and the Dems were just waiting for the appropriate time to play her.

While she is described as a “third year law student” they always fail to mention that she is also the past president of Law Students for Reproductive Justice.

July 30 2011

Does your campus’s LSRJ chapter face opposition in regard to facilitating a comprehensive conversation about reproductive justice? Well mine definitely does! While my campus has a mix of people with different backgrounds, and a rich liberal arts community, the Midwest doesn’t exactly scream bleeding liberal. Some LSRJ chapters at conservative campuses face opposition in the form of other, more conservative, student run organizations; some face it from their administrations, and others from their peers, or the community in general. Whatever the opposition is, it can be incredibly frustrating and disheartening.

The question is, how do we combat this conservative opposition and oppression, in order to facilitate a discussion and educate others about the RJ movement? I am obviously not alone in facing these problems, as Sandra Fluke of Georgetown lead a packed room in a discussion on this question at the first Issue Caucus that I attended at the Leadership Institute, LSRJ’s national conference at Berkeley.

While no solution was definitively reached, and I personally don’t begin to have the “right” answer, I was really charged by the discussion and feel many great ideas were presented. Some campus chapters decided to take an adversarial approach, feeling it important to use those “scary” words the opposition fears.

Further background research on Ms Fluke reveals that she got her start in government in New York in 2009.

Sandra Fluke’s professional background in domestic violence and human trafficking began with Sanctuary for Families in New York City. There, she launched the agency’s pilot Program Evaluation Initiative. While at Sanctuary, she co-founded the New York Statewide Coalition for Fair Access to Family Court, which after a twenty-year stalemate, successfully advocated for legislation granting access to civil orders of protection for unmarried victims of domestic violence, including LGBTQ victims and teens. Sandra was also a member of the Manhattan Borough President’s Taskforce on Domestic Violence and numerous other New York City and New York State coalitions that successfully advocated for policy improvements impacting victims of domestic violence.

As the 2010 recipient of the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles Fran Kandel Public Interest Grant, she researched, wrote, and produced an instructional film on how to apply for a domestic violence restraining order in pro per. She has also interned with the Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking; Polaris Project; Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County; Break the Cycle; the Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project; NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund; Crime Victim and Sexual Assault Services; and the Human Services Coalition of Tompkins County.

Through Georgetown’s clinic programs, Sandra has proposed legislation based on fact-finding in Kenya regarding child trafficking for domestic work, and has represented victims of domestic violence in protection order cases. Sandra is the Development Editor of the Journal of Gender and the Law, and served as the President of Law Students for Reproductive Justice, and the Vice President of the Women’s Legal Alliance. In her first year, she also co-founded a campus committee addressing human trafficking. Cornell University awarded her a B. S. in Policy Analysis & Management, as well as Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies in 2003.

My only question is, how does someone go from being a champion of domestic violence issues to an expert of women’s reproductive health issues?

[jwalsh07]

Did Obama call Sarah Palin after Bill Maher called her a #unt? Of course not unless it was to say ‘hehehe, good one Bill!’.

[jwalsh07]

I would like to know what she drives, what her data plan costs and where she lives. This bitch is an entitled to a good airing on what money she spends and why folks busting their asses making 40k per year should be paying for her recreational sex.

[grey_whiskers]

Cheers!

[Tzimisce]

Bet her parents are good little liberals and are very proud.

[Kickass Conservative]

She should spend the $3,000 on a good Hairstylist, Makeup Artist and Wardrobe.

[Brown Deer]

The slut needs to get into Sex Addicts Anonymous. I spend less than $3000/year on food! Why should we pay for her sex addiction?