From the Huffington Post Saturday morning:
From the Huffington Post Saturday night:
On Friday I listened to Limbaugh explain why his “illustrating absurdity by being absurd” dodge was sufficient to cover for his calling a young woman a slut and prostitute and desiring to see her perform sex on Internet-posted videos.
“The left wants to pretend they have no sense of humor,” the GOP spokesman said yesterday. It was all a big joke that chumps like us don’t get:
If anybody doesn’t realize that we are illustrating absurdity here by being absurd and that that is the trademark of this program… But oh! No! “Oh, of everything else you’ve said, that’s the lowest of the low. Demanding sex video? Who do you think you are?” Lighten up.
While Limbaugh has used this dodge for years to get him out of some tight spots, this time some of his advertisers, who have made him wealthy, aren’t finding the humor in his comments. They are abandoning his leaking ship of hate.
But I also listened to Sean Hannity, a Catholic Obama-hater, explain on Friday why Rush’s “illustrating absurdity by being absurd” ruse was simply misunderstood by the Democrats and (guess who?) the Liberal Media. Of course Rush “did not mean it” when he said he wanted to wildly masturbate while watching porn videos of young plaid-clad Catholic college girls.*
Then I found out that Bill O’Reilly had his own, uh, more restrained, plan of attack against law student Sandra Fluke:
Let me get this straight, Ms. Fluke, and I’m asking this with all due respect. You want me to give you my hard-earned money so you can have sex?
The sex angle, which seems to fascinate conservatives, is one that Limbaugh just couldn’t get away from. Here was Limbaugh on Friday:
Obama just called Sandra Fluke to make sure she was all right? Awwww. (kissing sound) That is so compassionate! What a great guy. The president called her to make sure she’s okay. What is she 30 years old? Thirty years old, a student at Georgetown Law, who admits to having so much sex that she can’t afford it anymore.
“So much sex that she can’t afford it anymore.” As if the amount of birth control pills a woman takes is commensurate with the amount of sex she is having. That kind of mentality is what we are dealing with here, whether it be talk radio or Fox “News.” Rachel Maddow destroyed Limbaugh on this point on Friday night.
Limbaugh continued:
The president tells Sandra Fluke (chuckling), 30-year-old Sandra Fluke, that her parents should be proud. Okay. Let me ask you a question. I might be surprised at the answer I would get to this question. Your daughter appears before a congressional committee and says she’s having so much sex, she can’t pay for it and wants a new welfare program to pay for it. Would you be proud? I don’t know about you, but I’d be embarrassed. I’d disconnect the phone. I’d go into hiding and hope the media didn’t find me…
By the way, if he had said that about my daughter, hiding might be a good idea.
More:
It’s no different than if somebody that I don’t know knocked on my door and said, “You know what? I’m outta money. I can’t afford birth control pills and I’m supposed to have sex with three guys tonight.”
“Well, why are you coming to me?”
“Well, because you’ve got the money.”
“Well, have you ever thought maybe you shouldn’t? If you can’t afford it, you can’t do it.”
Now, all of that is bad enough, but what is worse is that not a single word of it addresses what it was that Sandra Fluke actually testified to in the hearing arranged by Democrats. Most of her testimony involved third-person accounts of women who couldn’t get access to the healthcare they needed to treat, say, polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is a hormonal disorder. She relayed the account of her friend who has the condition:
For my friend, and 20% of women in her situation, she never got the insurance company to cover her prescription, despite verification of her illness from her doctor. Her claim was denied repeatedly on the assumption that she really wanted the birth control to prevent pregnancy. She’s gay, so clearly polycystic ovarian syndrome was a much more urgent concern than accidental pregnancy. After months of paying over $100 out of pocket, she just couldn’t afford her medication anymore and had to stop taking it. I learned about all of this when I walked out of a test and got a message from her that in the middle of her final exam period she’d been in the emergency room all night in excruciating pain. She wrote, “It was so painful, I woke up thinking I’d been shot.” Without her taking the birth control, a massive cyst the size of a tennis ball had grown on her ovary. She had to have surgery to remove her entire ovary.
Not a word about wanting to have unlimited sex without consequences and have conservatives mystically pay for it. And speaking of that, here are some statistics from the Kinsey Institute relevant to this issue:
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* I’m just using Limbaugh’s not-so-clever “illustrating absurdity by being absurd” trick.
The Erstwhile Conservative: A Blog of Repentance 
Jim Wheeler
/ March 3, 2012I blogged on this issue too, Duane, and I also hit Limbaugh for his style. Your term, absurdity, is a better one. I was taken aback though at the notion of birth control hormonal pills costing $1,000 a year. Seems like it should be simpler and cheaper by now, after all these years, but Pied Type set me straight (I guess) by pointing out that hormonal balance is tricky and requires a doctor’s attention. I’m sure that’s true for some, but I have to think it is straightforward for the majority and there ought to be a cheap generic by now, wouldn’t you think?
In any case, the problem is not that reproductive healthcare should be part of an insurance package – that’s a no-brainer. The problem is that the healthcare industry is on an out-of-control monopolistic profit binge on must-have services and meds.
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R. Duane Graham
/ March 5, 2012Jim,
Here is a link to your blog post and the following is a most helpful reply from one of your readers:
Jennifer Carey-Lockett says:
March 4, 2012 at 8:02 am
Okay, I’m going to explain this in a way that is going to be way too much information for most men out there and I apologize for the ick factor that is about to follow. Birth Control pills are not all the same, they all have different levels of estrogen and progesterone. The pills of today are not the same pills our mothers took in the 70s. I can tell you that I take the pill for several reasons – both as a method of birth-control as well as to manage some ‘women’s health issues’ (without going into too much detail there). I have had to switch pills about six times in the last two years due to problematic side-effects (mood swings in one, others gave me problems like spotting, skin irritation, dryness, etc). One would work for about a six months and then problems would creep up. I just went to the pharmacy last week to get a new type of BC filled (and it’s generic) and the pharmacist told me that my health insurance denied it, so I needed to pay the full price: $108 (that’s $1250/year). Now, on my fancy teaching salary that’s nothing but women of less means may not be able to afford it. So now I”m on the hunt for a new brand (and those problematic pain issues – I’m having to deal with using more dangerous means like opiate pain killers – which are $5 for 30 in spite of their other problems). Birth control pills are not just a method of birth control, they’re used by doctors to treat a variety of legitimate medical health problems: severe cramping, severe PMS, poly-cistic ovaries, endometriosis, interstitial cystitis, various forms of cervical and uterine cancers, just to name a few).
I would also highly argue against their use as an over the counter drug because birth control pills can have severe and deadly side-effects that should be measured by a doctor – blood clots, high blood pressure, etc. It’s also a good way to get women in for their annual well-woman’s exam (just like my doctor on prescribing contact lenses requires that I get to the eye doctor once a year).
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sekanblogger
/ March 5, 2012Speaking of absurd, I had one person comment that Obama created all of this just to get women’s votes and that Obama controls the media.
Ya’ can’t fix stupid.
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R. Duane Graham
/ March 5, 2012That is exactly what Rush Limbaugh said today, Monday, as he apologized for calling Sandra Fluke names. It was all because of Obama wanting to get right with women.
Duane
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Rawhead
/ March 5, 2012Never cared much for Limbaugh, even when I was… more conservative than I am now. Kinda enjoying watching him crash and burn, even if it is temporary. His comments in this case really don’t offend me, in fact I find them pretty damn hilarious but I’m glad he finally said something that offends the common person’s sensibilities.
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