From berkleyhouse.gov: Washington, D.C.) Congresswoman Shelley Berkley added her signature Thursday to a letter calling on Speaker of the House John Boehner and Republican leadership to denounce attacks by radio host Rush Limbaugh against student Sandra Fluke. A full copy of the letter authored by Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, and signed by Berkley and dozens of House colleagues, can be viewed here and the letter's text appears below:
"We write today to request that Republican House leadership repudiate the comments made by Rush Limbaugh, host of The Rush Limbaugh Show, regarding Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke. Ms. Fluke was denied the opportunity to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and later spoke before a Democratic Steering and Policy Committee Hearing on Women's Health. On his February 29, 2012 show, Mr. Limbaugh repeatedly used sexually charged, patently offensive, and obscene language to malign the character of this courageous young woman who has chosen to be the voice for many of her peers.
"This kind of direct attack on a private citizen is unacceptable. Mr. Limbaugh is as free as any American to speak his mind about the political and social issues of our time, but using his radio show as a means for blatantly insulting a hard-working American with obscene and indecent language because he disagrees with her personal choices is an abuse of the public airwaves. As leaders of the House that initially denied Ms. Fluke the right to speak, the Republicans have a special obligation to condemn the atrocious and hurtful words spoken by Mr. Limbaugh." http://berkley.house.gov/2012/03/berkley-house-republican-leaders-must-denounce-rush-limbaugh-attacks-on-student-sandra-fluke.shtml
Apparently, Berkley doesn't know that not only Fluke is a private citizen, so is Rush Limbaugh. Just as Fluke was able to spout her views, so does Rush Limbaugh. Both have the right to speak out on issues, no matter where it is done.
Fluke was never denied her "right" to speak out on her subject- women contraception. She got her view points out and they were widley read and listen too.
But where is Berkley on the issure Bill Maher? This huge fan of Democrats also, apparently hates women and women who have Down Syndrome babies:
Until Berkley comes out against Bill Maher, who is far ore hateful that Rush Limbaugh ever was, then Berkley just should shut up and crawl under the rock where she lives.
Berkley is just using this issue to shield her from her scandalous behvior in the House, where she steered hundreds of thousands of dollars to her husband, who is a surgeon.
Note to hubby Berkley: Can you please do a brain transplant for Shelly- she obvioulsy needs a few more brain cells in that noggin of hers.
I'm still not getting how Bill Maher is analogous to Rush Limbaugh. Bill Maher isn't the defacto leader of the Democratic party, he's a comedian. And there isn't a clean analogy between Sandra Fluke and Sarah Palin either. Worlds apart. And, there's a huge difference between using a very, very, very public person as a punch line, and using a--yes, private citizen--as a punching bag for three days.
ReplyDeleteAnd the one thing that wasn't being paid attention to, was what Fluke actually had to say. Rush's rant (and "jokes") were utterly fact-free in regard to that. This is SO not my issue, but the false equivalence and the misrepresentation of the controversy is driving me up a wall.
Couple things:
ReplyDelete1. I somehow doubt that Maher donated ANYTHING to Obama's campaign. Yahoo! broadcast the show on which Maher "donated" the $1 million to Obama. Most likely, this is a roundabout donation from Yahoo!, with Yahoo! "paying" Maher $1 million that he turned around to "donate" to Obama. This is just speculation I heard on a recent episode of the No Agenda podcast, not proven fact, an educated guess.
2. No Agenda also brought up the idea that Limbaugh and Fluke planned this "feud" between themselves to change the focus of the GOP debate from religion to contraception. I would think that this was designed to make the GOP election more exciting.