Gingrich: Limbaugh right to apologize for remarks (AP headline)

KGW - Portland ^ | March 4, 2012 | AP

[Cincinatus' Wife]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says Rush Limbaugh was wrong to call a college student a "slut" and "prostitute" in the debate over contraception coverage, and was right to apologize for the comments.

Gingrich tells CNN's "State of the Union" that he's glad the conservative commentator issued the apology on Saturday and that it's time to move beyond the controversy.

Gingrich says it's "silly" to suggest that Limbaugh speaks for the GOP. Gingrich contends the media are "trying desperately to protect" President Barack Obama.

[lentulusgracchus]

Yes! The hosts were drooling with delight.

"Conservatives = woman-haters" and "Republican War on Women" are a major new meme-lie/theme-lie/LIElie that the 'Rats rolled out last week with the phony "hearing", coupled with the attack on talk-radio advertisers.

You know it's a major Obama theme when Axelrod comes on Clintonopoulos's weekend show to trumpet it, even bending the conversation they were having, to get to that theme and launch a double-fortissimo bassoon blast, "War Against Women".

[trebb]

You may be right - I still think there might - might being the key word - be a chance that on Monday Rush will run a double reverse on this - especially since Bill Maher has chimed in with some idiotic comments today that will support Rush’ case.

I'm hoping Rush does dedicate Monday to pointing out the hypocrisay of the Left andgives them a chance to howl all the louder to illustrate the truth of his words. If he does, the "apology" will resonate all the more because it's something the Left never offers no matter how wrong.

[editor-surveyor]

Rush’s comments were not “absurd,” they were simply improper, although truthful.

Santorum is absurd by the minute.

[Jacquerie]

Yes, Newt screwed the pooch on this one.

You, an experienced freeper, accept an AP/CNN story at face value?

Newt was immediately hit with Rush questions, including today's yik-yak shows. He handled them very well. In characteristic style he turned them back on the lib questioner and Obama. Sheesh.

[lentulusgracchus]

Now [Rush Limbaugh] is old obese and ugly and even if he talks like Thomas Jefferson he comes across as a clever stand up comic Lou Costello to America's MSM brain damaged majority...

In the 90's, Rush was middle-aged and obese. I don't think that's a distinction you can hold against Rush -- that he's older and not as .... fresh-looking? less aged-looking? whatever ..... I don't get your distinction there.

And if the majority of American voters are brain-damaged by following the MSM, whose fault is that? Rush's? He should go off-air, retire, go away, and just quit the field and hand victory to a class of professional liars and spinners and witch-doctors of political "truth"?

I think you're taking pragmatism over the edge.

[editor-surveyor]

Drop the emotion.

You were right, but you’re beating a dead horse now.
.

[Pinkbell]

Bingo!

[advertising guy]

thought you were gonna call..

[editor-surveyor]

>> “Well today Newt has joined Santorum.” <<

.
No, Santorum was completely wrong; What Limbaugh said was correct, but he shouldn’t have said it, and Newt spoke way too soon, although reasonably.

[Pinkbell]

The only one on a high horse is you, because you completely miss the double standard around here. Both publically disagreed with the comments, but it’s ok when your guy does it because he worded his disagreement differently. The outrage directed at Santorum on here wasn’t so much that he used the word “absurd” but that he spoke out agsint the comments at all. Additionally, “absurd” was an interesting term. Look at the text of Rush’s apology: “For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week.”

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/03/03/a_statement_from_rush

[Hot Tabasco]

Much as I like Newt, I would strongly suggest he avoid offering any commentary or opinions on promiscuous individuals

So how should he answer the question when posed to him? No comment? Yea, that will really work..........

He answered it perfectly........

[lentulusgracchus]

In our headline driven world, he unfortunately gave the world the impression he was throwing Rush under the bus. Obviously that’s not the case, but look at all the Freepers who think he did.

1. Heard Rush's original comments on my way out the door on Friday.

2. The sponsors' Saturday moves were news to me -- it sounds like a coordinated 'RatRoots strike by Axelrod, Emanuel et al. on Obozo's behalf, an Astroturf campaign.

3. I didn't know Rush had apologized until I heard Newt on ABC's This Week when Clintonopoulos brought the subject up. (Didn't see MTP or Mace the Nation.)

4. It sure sounded to me -- not having all the background going in, not having heard about Rush's apology and sponsor moves until that moment -- like Newt putting Rush under the bus. I gathered from the questions that Santorum had already abandoned Rush, and now Newt was taking a turn at the invitation of the Pres_ent's henchman, Clintonopoulos.

I agree with you and trappedincanuckistan that this is all a dark Democrat victory, in which precious time is chewed up before Super Tuesday,and with PSYCHO-FREEP that this is the beginning of a big, three-ring-circus, diversionary proxy war (using young female 'Rat-activist trollopes) against Rush Limbaugh, to damage, delegitimize, and (they hope) damage him financially, and divert attention from Afghanistan, from Obozo, from the economy, and from what Joe Arpaio is saying about Obozo's fundamental ineligibility for the office.

[Happy Rain]

I was talking about Newt and not Rush. Being old fat and ugly doesn’t apply to radio anyway and I’m not saying Rush is old fat and ugly.

Now on TV—a visual medium—looks do matter. Remember,to the radio listeners of the JFK RMN presidential debate Nixon won and to the TV viewers Kennedy did.

[lentulusgracchus]

Thanks for posting that transcript of Newt duelling with Little Georgie Clintonopoulos on This Week. I saw the original exchange, and the transcript shows even better than one can get an impression of at the time, the degree to which those sorts of exchanges are actually a form of fighting, and how Clintonopoulos was trying to corner Newt and get him to abandon Rush Limbaugh, to isolate Rush (as if Georgie were some kind of Alinskyite working for the White House and exchanging 100 phone calls a week with Carville, Begala, and the WH chief of staff!).

That's helpful, thanks.

[lentulusgracchus]

And how does Rick [Santorum] thank [Rush Limbaugh]? By calling him an entertainer.

Good point. This was not the time to fall into media-laid traps by "reacting" to flaming curve balls.

[lentulusgracchus]

Now on TV—a visual medium—looks do matter.

Conceded. Remember, tho', Newt had grey hair back in the 90's, too, so he was never a movie star.

Remember the green- and red-gel uglified "portrait shot" TIME magazine did of Newt when they made him "Man of the Year" in 1994? Pure hatred in that photo. Shot him with loose tie, day-old five o'clock stubble, looking tired, then uglied up the shot in the lab as much as they were able. Pure "hate-photography" anticipating the OJ cover TIME (was it?) took so much criticism about ..... but not a peep of protest about the Newt cover.

[C. Edmund Wright]

You are poster 184. There are, oh, I dunno, maybe 15 posts from me before post 184 that fully flesh out what I mean. Try 129 and 141 and if you still have a problem, get back to me.

[Jacquerie]

Join the Conservative Circular Firing Squad as you wish. I decline.

[C. Edmund Wright]

How deep do you want to dig yourself.

My whole point is that I fear Newt did that with his one statement about the apology. See, you and I agree. You just didn’t read long enough to figure it out.

[Scoutmaster]

Except that Rush was correct

I beg to differ. Rush blew this one big time. Sandra Fluke possibly (probably) invented women and their medical ailments. She may have made up the percentage of female Georgetown students who complain about the financial burden of contraception. She talked as if she were a medical and statistical expert.

But Sandra Fluke never said she, personally, took or paid for contraceptives. Sandra Fluke never said that she, personally, had sex with one partner or many. How can you be a slut or a prostitute if you aren't having sex?

I listened to the testimony. I read the transcript. I went back and read the transcript and watched a replay of the testimony.

Fluke talked exclusively about other women and about women in general; she didn't talk about herself.

Other specific women and (rarely) women and general were the entire premise of her testimony. Right after the introduction, Fluke said:

"When I look around my campus, I see the faces of the women affected by this lack of contraceptive coverage. [I]n the last week, I have heard more and more of their stories. On a daily basis, I hear yet from another woman from Georgetown or from another school or who works for a religiously-affiliated employer, and they tell me that they have suffered financially and emotionally and medically because of this lack of coverage.

“And so, I’m here today to share their voices, and I want to thank you for allowing them – not me – to be heard.

Fluke talked about other women (who may or may not exist). When she went to the first person the one or two rare times, it wasn't even directly tied to having sex. The first time, it was to demonstrate how much $3,000 was to a law school student. Fluke said:

Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school. For a lot of students who, like me, are on public interest scholarships, that’s practically an entire summer’s salary.

That's not a definitive statement that Fluke's on birth control, only that public interest interns make only $3,000 per summer (as opposed to summer clerks at large firms, who are making many multiples of that).

When Fluke talked about the Georgetown policy later, she didn't say what she thought about it, she said what another woman thought about it:

“As one other student put it: ‘This policy communicates to female students that our school doesn’t understand our needs.’

Rush blew it. People who said Fluke talked about her sex life aren't sticking to the facts. Fluke never mentioned her own contraception; Fluke never mentioned her sex life, the cost of her contraceptives, whether she was on contraceptives, whether she's straight, or anything.

Here's what Fluke said. I ask: Where do we get the "Fluke is a slut" part? Fluke said:

(1) one woman (not Fluke) felt embarrassed and powerless when she 'learned for the first time that contraception was not covered on her insurance and she had to turn and walk away because she couldn’t afford that prescription';

(2) a married female student told Fluke that she had to stop using contraception because "she and her husband just couldn’t fit it into their budget anymore;"

(3) 'women employed in low-wage jobs without contraceptive coverage can't fit contraception into their budgets;'

(4) a friend has polycystic ovarian syndrome, and her birth control prescription is 'technically covered by Georgetown’s insurance because it’s not intended to prevent pregnancy', but the *gay* friend was denied coverage because the insurance company decided that she really wanted birth control to prevent pregnancy;

(5) a woman said doctors believe she has endometriosis, but that can’t be proven without surgery, so the insurance won't cover birth control pills for endometriosis;

(6) another woman told Fluke that she also has polycystic ovarian syndrome and Georgetown quit paying for it last August;

and (7) one woman (a really bright woman, apparently) allegedly knew about Georgetown's unwillingness to cover birth control, so when she was raped she didn't seek medical attention because she thought Georgetown didn't cover women's health issues.

Then she said that when 'we' women came to Georgetown we expected women to be treated fairly and to care for all of 'our' medical needs.

So . . . where is the "I'm a slut" part of the testimony?

Limbaugh said about Fluke: "she's having so much sex she can't pay for it, and we should."

Yet Fluke didn't say she was having any sex.

Limbaugh said: "So the woman comes forth with this frankly hilarious claim that she's having so much sex" that she can't afford it.

Fluke never said she had sex, much less 'so much sex she can't afford it.'

Limbaugh asked, "didn't anyone ever tell her: 'did you ever think about maybe backing off the amount of sex that you have?'"

Again, Limbaugh wasn't paying attention. He could have attacked Fluke on many grounds. He went after her sex life. Fluke never mentioned her sex life.

I could go on, because Limbaugh went on and on about Fluke personally; and none of it was based on anything that Fluke said about herself. When Limbaugh called Fluke a slut and a prostitute, he meant that she was having sex, and lots of it. And that she wanted to be paid for it.

And yet Fluke only talked other women and their need for contraception - and in almost every case, she talked about how birth control pills needed for medical reasons (a Democrat bait and switch), not for contraception.

In Fluke's testimony was there exaggeration, yes? Idiots who get raped and think that they won't get medical attention because birth control's not covered? Yes. Throwing out the $100 per month out-of-pocket figure (specifically for the pill, not condoms) for a birth control pill, and not mentioning $5/month birth control pills? Check. Claiming the ovarian cyst story was not rare? Check.

But telling stories about her own sex life that would merit branding her a slut? No. Not any. She didn't even mention whether she was on birth control or if she had sex.

Limbaugh blew this entire topic for conservatives. The attention was on the fact that Obama was forcing Roman Catholic health care plans to pay for contraceptives (and other plans with a religious objection to pay for care over religions objections).

We lost that argument now because of Rush. Now the issue is Rush's apology, and calling Sandra Fluke a slut because he wanted to be cute and didn't pay attention to what was said. He could have attacked her presentation on any one of a number of different (and factual) points.

But he didn't. He got cute by 100% too much and slandered a lefty plant about being a slut, claiming she testified about having too much sex . . . when she didn't say a word about having any sex.

And now he has to apologize and any moral high ground conservatives had on the entire 'Obamacare forcing Roman Catholic healthcare plans to pay for contraception' issue is lost due to his buffoonery.