Rush Limbaugh and Sandra Fluke

I have been ignoring this, thinking it would either die down or that Limbaugh would react more.  To remind everyone, Limbaugh called Miss Fluke a slut and a prostitute because she wanted to go before congress and testify about her hardship in paying for contraceptives at Georgetown University Law.

Well, the news cycle continues, Limbaugh is losing sponsors - appropriate considering - and the left is calling on all Republicans to denounce his conduct.  It is the latter point that I want to address.

First, my views on Limbaugh are that he is a self-promoter and an entertainer, not a serious political figure.  Also, I don't like him and have rarely heard anything repeated that he said with which I agree.  Repeated is the only way I would hear his commentary because I don't listen to the guy or read anything he writes.  I did read a book of his in 1992 loaned to me by a friend at work.  I had never heard of him and his book did not convince me that he was worth the effort to listen.  Nothing I have heard in the intervening 20 years convinces me otherwise.  Unfortunately, there are a lot of "dittoheads" out there who do listen to this guy.  He has the ability to reach out and plant an outrageous soundbite in the minds of many right-leaning Americans.  He is not a king maker but he can swing the polls by a few percentage points.  In a tight election, that is significant and the left knows this.

Expecting any substantive criticism of Limbaugh from the current crop of Presidential candidates is pointless.  Also, they did not make the statements that he did.  None of them have supported his statements.  The fact that they are running to the right before gaining the nomination is just the way the two party system works.  Once one of them gets the nomination, they will run towards the middle.  This is a mirror of what the Democrats do.

The current furor over the statements of the candidates by Debbie Wasserman and the left-leaning media are disingenuous.  They are calling for outrage not because of Limbaugh's comments but as an attempt to weaken the GOP slate.  The good news is that the candidate's responses will be long forgotten in a month.  Limbaugh's troubles may drag on as he has so far lost seven (7) sponsors.  Whether you like him, hate him, or are ambivalent, it will take more sponsors leaving or another case of oral diarrhea to bring him down from his position.