I think Chuck Colson nails it. You can listen to his Breakpoint Commentary below:
[audio:http://www.breakpoint.org/images/content/breakpoint/audio/2012/030612_BP.mp3]Here’s a bit of the transcript:
Radio host Rush Limbaugh had a bad week last week.
And thanks to his imprudent, unkind, and rude outburst against a female Georgetown University law student, so did the cause of religious freedom…
A reasonable response to Ms. Fluke’s statement would be to ask why a Catholic institution’s First Amendment rights should be overturned just because Ms. Fluke and her fellow law students want free contraception.
But Mr. Limbaugh’s response was anything but reasonable.
Instead, he called Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute.”
And in so doing, he violated the rules of charity and civil discourse — and he gave the Obama Administration and the supporters of so-called “reproductive rights,” the ultimate political weapon: a symbol, a sympathetic victim, a martyr for the cause.
Read the rest here.
13 Comments
Bruce H.
“The President didn’t miss his opportunity: He called Fluke and told her that her parents should be proud of her.”
If the President is a Protestant Christian he just started another Catholic/Protestant war by his approval of this woman’s resistance to the Catholic Church beliefs. He is undermining all religions when he does this.
Paul
I understand the hatred of all things Obama…but that’s a bit much.
Don Johnson
I agree Colson nailed it.
Joseph
The man, Rush Limbaugh, made a bad decision. Don’t we all. He apologizes for his mistake. He has experienced a loss of advertising on his program. He has had to work through a fair amount of consequences. Is’nt this the same or similar experience we all would go through when we speak without thinking. Granted he has a large audience and can accomplish alot of things. We all need to be careful when we point fingers because the old addage of one finger pointing at someone or something else while three fingers are diffinitely pointing towards ourselves. We need to be careful and yes we are human. As much as I heard all this criticism I haven’t heard anyone coming alongside him to encourage nor support him for doing the right thing. Forgiveness goes a long way folks.
Paul
when has Rush done the right thing? Let’s look at that apology (using all paraphrases, I don’t have it in front of me)…
1) I exercised poor judgement in the words I used: all this means is that he should have called her a hussy or a trollop instead of a slut and a prostitute. The proper apology is “I stepped way over the line and I should have never said anything which questioned Ms. Fluke’s character.”
2) the democrats made me stoop to their level: I am going to start using this excuse whenever I mess up anything, anywhere.
The only legitimate apology would be one of true contrition, taking no opportunity to slam the opposition or its ideology. You have all the time in the world to do that apart from the apology he said he offered. Not to mention, it wasn’t even directed directly to Ms. Fluke. it should have been. In short, there was absolutely no apology here, and any attempt to say that there was is completely disingenuous.
Derek
Paul,
Were you concerned or upset when Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman were called the s word and much worse? You want to parse Limbaugh’s apology for further critique, but I don’t remember many sincere apologies coming from the misogynists of the left. Do you have any comment about Bill Maher’s repeated usage of worse terminology (words I won’t repeat here for obvious reasons) used to describe Palin? Not only is he not sorry, he is proud of himself. Same type of questions could be asked about Ed Schultz and Chris Matthews. What about Keith Olbermann, who said that conservative S.E. Cupp “should have been aborted by her parents” and called Sarah Palin’s daughter the “worst person in the world”? Were you outraged and ready to boycott MSNBC or HBO then, Paul? Were you concerned? Was there an apology in the first place to parse?
Paul
Derek,
First off, the “they did it too” game is what people usually use when they don’t have a legitimate leg to stand on. Rush was wrong, and he needed to make a real apology for it. END OF STORY. END OF ARGUMENT.
Secondly, since you’ve asked…I have called people out for making personal attacks on Palin, Bachmann and the rest. It is one thing to point out the obvious – Palin isn’t very smart and has no business on the national stage; “what newspapers do you read?” is not now, nor will it ever be a “gotcha” question. And Bachmann is clearly not playing with a full deck – liberals need to take a loyalty test? She can get gas back down to $2/gallon? These are not things that people with any understanding of politics or the US’ role in the world say out loud.
As for a boycott, I didn’t call for a boycott of Rush’s show. I’d have to listen to it first before I could stop listening to it (I even pointed this out to a rather well-known patron of the arts here in Chicago when I got an email from her about this). And I think Barbara Walters hit it on the head the other day on the view: sponsors shouldn’t be pulling out of Rush’s show unless they don’t agree with the whole of his message. At which point, why were you advertising on his show in the first place? But, I can say that the only thing more offensive than an uncalled for character assassination is a non-apology masquerading as an act of contrition.
And as for Olbermann, when I heard about the S.E. Cupp thing and his subsequent non-apology, I just shook my head and said “what a moron.” Idiocy on the left is even worse than idiocy on the right, because we should be smart enough to know better. But sadly, given the opportunity, people, regardless of their place on the political spectrum, will act like buffoons given half the chance.
Paul
Denny – I hope the first three words of this response were to your liking.
Bruce H.
The legitimate apology would have been to call Miss Fluke and apologize one on one and if she accepted it come public together and announce another apology with her to the world. If she didn’t accept his apology then he could apologize to the world with a bit more specifics.
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donsands
Rush is not one of the people I listen to. Too much pride in this man, who has done quite well in worldly posessions, making a nmae for himself, etc. I wonder if this man knows the Savior?
Wayne Roberts
I have listened to Rush since around 1990, and in the last few years I have noticed his comments having a more religious rationale. Then within the last year or so he has taken to calling himself a Christian. I believe maybe two weeks ago he even said he was Methodist. So it really pained me when he attacked the character of Miss Fluke. I have not heard anyone take Rush to task as a Christian…maybe no one believes his claim. That would be most tragic.
Larry Geiger
“And thanks to his imprudent, unkind, and rude outburst against a female Georgetown University law student, so did the cause of religious freedom…” Chuck is wrong.