EASTON, Md., March 5, 2012 — Some days you just shouldn’t even try to get out of bed. Today was one of those for controversial Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh.
Here is the latest bad news for radio’s bad boy:
1. 12 Advertisers have now yanked their sponsorship:
- Sleep Number Beds
- The Sleep Train
- Legal Zoom
- Quicken Loans
- Citrix Systems/Go To Meeting
- ProFlowers
- Tax Resolution Services
- AOL
- Carbonite
- Bonobos
- Sears/Kmart
- Allstate
What does Rush have to say about his sponsors heading for the hills in the wake of his attack on the Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke, whom he called a “slut,” for her testimony before a Congressional panel?
“…I’m sorry to see them go,” Limbaugh explained. “They have profited handsomely from you. These advertisers who have split the scene have done very well due to their access to you, my audience, from this program. … Now they’ve chosen to deny themselves that access, and that’s a business decision and it’s theirs alone to make. They’ve decided they don’t want you or their business anymore.”
When Is An Apology Not An Apology?
2. Yes, Limbaugh did make an apology of sorts last week, which pleased some, went too far for others, and not far enough for even more folks, one of them being the target of his verbal assault, Sandra Fluke. “I don’t think that a statement like this, issued saying that his choice of words was not the best, changes anything. Especially when that statement is issued when he’s under significant pressure from his sponsors, who have begun to pull their support from the show,” Fluke said on TV Show “The View.”
Rush once again made an apology on his show earlier today, proclaiming that it had nothing to do with his fleeing advertisers. The apology was simply "heartfelt" and "sincere," he said.
Yet in the next breath, Rush was at it again, once more attacking Sandra Fluke this time insinuating she is a pawn of the radical Left to undermine Georgetown University. Something, by the way, the president of the university, obviously didn’t believe as evidenced by his heartfelt support for her even though they have been on the opposite of the contraception issue on the campus.
Here is how Rush explained Fluke: “But the point here is that this was an issue that represents a tiny, tiny slice of what the Democrats really want here. They used Sandra Fluke to create a controversy. Sandra Fluke used them to advance her agenda, which is to force a religious institution to abandon their principles in order to meet hers.”
3. Rush continues to embarrass the GOP presidential candidates, putting them on the spot. This is not what they want to talk about. It is one day before Super Tuesday with 10 states up for grabs and what are they hearing as they stump around the country: What do you think of Rush Limbaugh’s attack on Sandra Fluke? Do you agree? Does he speak for the Republican Party? Should he have apologized? And so it goes.
They try very hard to get back to the issues they want to talk about and not what the folks in the audience or the media armed with microphones are asking, but it is not easy.
Mitt Romney tried very hard to pivot back to jobs. Rick Santorum tried to dismiss Rush as an “absurd entertainer.” Newt Gingrich thought it was good Rush apologized but that the controversy is “silly.” Ron Paul was the most honest, saying on "Face the Nation," "I don't think he's [Rush Limbaugh] very apologetic. I think he's doing it because people were taking their advertisements off his program.” Amen, Dr. Paul.
Hawaii Radio Station Says Aloha
4. The first radio station has just dumped “The Rush Limbaugh Show.” Hilo radio station KPUA-AM 670 in Hawaii pulled the plug today, issuing this statement: “We are strong believers in the First Amendment and have recognized Mr. Limbaugh's right to express opinions that oftentimes differ from our own, but it has never been our goal to allow our station to be used for personal attacks and intolerance. Regardless of one's political views on the issue being discussed, we feel the delivery was degrading and the continued comments over several days to be egregious. As a result, we are discontinuing the Rush Limbaugh program on KPUA effective immediately.”
5. Don Imus attacked Rush Limbaugh earlier today. And when the pot calls the kettle black, you know you are in trouble. Remember Imus is the same man that back in 2007 got in hot water with his own verbal attack on a women’s basketball team that he called “nappy-headed hoes.”
But it was a different kind of Imus at the mike today. Here’s some of what Imus, whose show broadcasts over Fox Business Network, had to say: “Here is the problem with all of this — it was a vile personal attack on this woman. And it was sustained over, again, and it was Wednesday, come back and double down on Thursday and come back and double down on Friday and then issue a lame apology on your website in which you say, ‘I didn’t mean to personally attack her,’ when you did attack her. So, were it me and I ran a radio station or whatever, I’d make him go down there and apologize to her face-to-face. He owns a Gulfstream 4. Get on it, go to Washington, take her to lunch and say, ‘Look, I’m sorry I said this stuff and never do it again, period.’”
Imus actually had much more to say, but it gets pretty nasty, but knowing Imus, you can probably imagine what he else he had to say.
But there was one bright spot in Rush’s bad day: He is to join the Hall of Famous Missourians in the Missouri State Capitol. In fact, even as you read this, the finishing touches are being put on the busts of Limbaugh and Dred Scott by Kansas City, Mo. sculptor E. Spencer Schubert. Yes, that Dred Scott, the slave who sued, although unsuccessfully, in 1857 for freedom for his family and himself. They would join such Missouri greats as President Harry Truman, writers Mark Twain and Laura Ingalls Wilder, musicians Scott Joplin and Charlie Parker, scientist George Washington Carver, and General Omar Bradley.
So maybe Rush didn’t have a hard time getting out of bed after all. At least he’s loved in Missouri or so you’d think.
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