Posted on 03/08/2012 6:15:26 AM PST by SeekAndFind
A conservative man should always strive to be a gentleman, even when dealing with women who are not ladies.
I agree about being a gentleman, but respectfully, I don't think that's where he blew it. I think he blew it by not tearing apart what she actually said and instead claiming she talked about her own sex life and contraception and then attacking her. He could have ripped apart her actual presentation. She threw him some softballs and he never swung at them.
Fluke told the stories of six women. One had been raped and didn't seek testing for STDs because she knew contraception wasn't covered and thought that meant nothing related to 'reproductive rights,' including STD testing, would be covered. That's just stupid; contraception doesn't treat stupid.
Fluke said after another woman:
"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. Women like her have no choice but to go without contraception."
Rush should have torn that apart. We should all be tearing that apart. No choice? There's Planned Parenthood, free condoms in high school, states with $9/month oral contraceptives - and I Googled 'free oral birth control."
Instead, he ignored it and pretended as if Fluke made claims about her own sex life.
Fluke claimed one married woman had to do without any contraception because she couldn't fit it in her budget if it wasn't covered. Again - Planned Parenthood? Free condoms? Skipping Netflix and paying $9/month?
That's where he blew it, by not tearing apart the stories she really told.
Every time conservatives call Fluke a slut and claim she talked about her sex life (she never mentioned it), they miss the chance to dissect her real statements.
Agreed.
I think he blew it in both ways.
There is, whether it is logical or not in today’s world, a widespread perception that it is wrong to “pick on a girl.”
You're tossing around legal terms. Fluke told about six women. You didn't hear Rush Limbaugh calling it hearsay. You heard him claim that she told about her own sex life and make up things about that. She wasn't sworn and neither was Rush. If you're not requiring people to be sworn and hers was hearsay, then are you trying to say his claims she talked about her sex life were perjury?
We should have torn apart what she said.
And by the way, it wasn't technically hearsay if you're using that term in the legal sense. Fluke wasn't sworn and wasn't offering a statement made out of court or a hearing for the purpose of proving the truth of the matter asserted in the statement.
“I think a fair read of what Rush Limbaugh said is that she was promiscuous.”
Not if you read it IN CONTEXT!
If he really thought she was a slut, or super-promiscuous, it wouldn’t be funny. It would be sad. The reason he was laughing was because the idea was so ridiculous.
Yes, if you take individual sentences out of a 3 hour broadcast, you can make it mean almost anything. But if he really thought that Fluke and others at Georgetown were having 1-2000 episodes of sex every year, then it would VALIDATE her testimony rather than refute it.
He used absurdity to highlight absurdity - as he always does. The idea that a coed in law school has time for sex 5 times a day is absurd - thus the idea that a coed in law school needs the government to help her pay for her birth control is absurd.
The first absurdity (she has sex over 1,000 times each year) reveals the second absurdity (she needs help paying for birth control). The first is a funny mental image, but the fact that the idea is ridiculous means her testimony and her argument for sponsored birth control was ridiculous.
I think Rush apologized because it became obvious that people didn’t appreciate the irony. Hard as it is for me to believe, they didn’t realize that the idea of a law school coed having sex well in excess of 1,000 times a year is ridiculous.
What has shocked me is that so many on FreeRepublic also didn’t catch the point...
“However, he contributed greatly to turning the issue being discussed from freedom of religion to whether contraception should be banned.”
Please stop repeating leftist lies.
Rush did not in any way suggest that contraception should be banned. He repeatedly rejected that idea, and pointed out repeatedly that NO ONE in the GOP is suggesting it.
As I pointed out in my previous post to another member:
“He used absurdity to highlight absurdity - as he always does. The idea that a coed in law school has time for sex 5 times a day is absurd - thus the idea that a coed in law school needs the government to help her pay for her birth control is absurd.
The first absurdity (she has sex over 1,000 times each year) reveals the second absurdity (she needs help paying for birth control). The first is a funny mental image, but the fact that the idea is ridiculous means her testimony and her argument for sponsored birth control was ridiculous.”
“Rush should have torn that apart. We should all be tearing that apart. No choice? There’s Planned Parenthood, free condoms in high school, states with $9/month oral contraceptives - and I Googled ‘free oral birth control.”
Rush did. He repeatedly pointed out the free clinics offering birth control, that Wal-Mart & Target offer it for $9/month, and he took callers saying their wives were buying it for $4/month at stores near them.
I rarely listen to Rush more than an hour/week. It was by chance that I clicked on Rush 24/7 and heard his initial comments. My 14 year old daughter in the next room was working on her homework, but she immediately started laughing. We listened to the entire show, and laughed the whole way thru.
Like Rush, it never occurred to me that people wouldn’t catch the absurdity. Or maybe I’m just undersexed, and didn’t realize that most people are getting laid 6 times a day, 365 days/year.
I never said any such thing.
I said what Rush said contributed to allowing the Left to effectively change the subject. I think that, however ludicrous, is an undeniable fact. The subject DID get changed, and what Rush said helped them change it.
Rush seldom loses in a war of words, but he got out-manuevered on this one. The facts are more or less irrelevant in this case. The public perception is what matters.
This means the 'slut' and 'prostitute' comments are gone, as well as all of the things he claimed she said about her sex life (but he made up), and the things he correctly criticized about what she said.
However there are some stray links from other segments where you can find parts of those clips.
I don't think this been picked up on by the left and I do not know if it will be.
I didn't have to make it mean almost anything, because Rush is an excellent speaker and he was specific.
Do you have a copy of the transcripts from 2/29 and 3/1? I do.
You won't find them at Limbaugh's site; he removed them today.
I keep a .pdf or .html copy of things I find on the Internet in case they are deleted.
It wasn't individual sentences, it was paragraph after paragraph, particularly 'double-down' day, 3/1.
He said she was base and immoral based on the amount of sex she was having. It's not being 'absurd' to call someone base and immoral and to say it's based on the amount of sex they are having. "Base" and "immoral" were his words, and he's the one who made up the part about the amount of sex she was having.
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That was then deleted from the transcript on the website. Why? Was it because those of us reading it among the other words weren't reading it in context?
Well, if she was having sex 1-2,000 times a year, then that would be a pretty good description.
But NO ONE looked at Fluke and said, "Yep, she's getting laid 6 times a day, every day of the year!" That would be ABSURD.
Which leaves the other possibility: that she was lying about what goes on in an attempt to get government to mandate free birth control for herself and all other women in the USA. Which is also an absurd idea.
"Now, all of this is what I should have told you last week, 'cause this is what happened. I use satire. I use absurdity to illustrate the absurd. The story at the Cybercast News Service characterized a portion of her testimony as sounding like (based on her own financial figures) she was engaging in sexual activity so often she couldn't afford it. I focused on that because it was simple trying to persuade people, change people's minds."
What made it funny was the absurdity. As a serious character assault, it would be stupid. Why? Because no one would believe she was getting laid 6 times a day...and thus a serious accusation based on that would be absurd.
“Sex-Crazed Co-Eds Going Broke Buying Birth Control, Student Tells Pelosi Hearing Touting Freebie Mandate
A Georgetown co-ed told Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s hearing that the women in her law school program are having so much sex that they’re going broke, so you and I should pay for their birth control.
Speaking at a hearing held by Pelosi to tout Pres. Obama’s mandate that virtually every health insurance plan cover the full cost of contraception and abortion-inducing products, Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke said that it’s too expensive to have sex in law school without mandated insurance coverage.
Apparently, four out of every ten co-eds are having so much sex that it’s hard to make ends meet if they have to pay for their own contraception, Fluke’s research shows.
“Forty percent of the female students at Georgetown Law reported to us that they struggled financially as a result of this policy (Georgetown student insurance not covering contraception), Fluke reported.
It costs a female student $3,000 to have protected sex over the course of her three-year stint in law school, according to her calculations.”
As Fluke said:
"I’m here today to share their voices, and I want to thank you for allowing them – not me – to be heard."
I guess you missed that part when Rush did, eh? Do you understand that she made a point of saying she wasn't going to talk about her sex life or contraception? Do you understand that she didn't talk about her sex life or contraception?
"Women in her law school program."
Mr. Rogers, I don't like Fluke. Read Fluke's statement and then come back to the discussion. Do your own work and go to the source, not another author who didn't pay attention. What group of women did she say she was speaking for?
Once you have the facts, then lets discuss them. When you don't know what the facts are there is no point in discussing them, is there?
You DO understand that Rush often comments on stories he reads????
“Do you understand that she didn’t talk about her sex life or contraception?”
Do you understand that someone who repeatedly says “we” has to expect to be lumped in with those she supposedly is discussing?
And you do understand, don’t you, that if Rush REALLY thought she was having sex 6 times a day, there would be no point in joking about it? That the humor came from the absurdity of the idea, which in turn reflects on the absurdity of her demands?
"Women in her law school program."
No. Mr. Rogers. Read Fluke's statement and then come back to the discussion with facts. What group of women did she say she was speaking for?
That's quite a sense of humor.
I read Fluke’s testimony the day after she gave it. She spent too much time saying “We” to complain she was lumped in with her fellow students.
Further, as I have pointed out and you continue to ignore, Rush made his comments based on an article on CNS - not on a transcript of her testimony.
Further, I have seen no indication that Fluke herself is saying, “But I’m a virgin! I was only talking about others!” On the contrary, she continues to identify with the apparently incredibly promiscuous coeds of Georgetown.
Meanwhile, you continue to ignore the point Rush was making: That her testimony was absurd, because she would have to be a nymphomaniac slut for it to be plausible - and that the media and Democrats were too stupid to realize it.
You go on attacking Rush Limbaugh. Given that your sense of humor ranks right up there with Harry Reid, I suppose it is inevitable.
“I suppose you’re going to tell us that Rush was trying to be absurd and funny when he said Fluke was “a woman who is happily presenting herself as an immoral, baseless, no-purpose-to-her life woman.”
Why? Do YOU really believe Fluke is “an immoral, baseless, no-purpose-to-her life woman”? Because it can only be funny if it is obviously not true.
It is like a college room-mate of mine years ago, claiming he was “A Human Tripod”. It was funny, but if he REALLY had a 36 inch penis, it wouldn’t be funny at all...
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