Last updated on April 19th, 2012 at 11:05 am
Refusing to be held accountable for his attack on Sandra Fluke, Rush Limbaugh has instead blamed the War On Women on Bill Maher.
Here’s a partial transcript. (Full transcript: Rush Limbaugh):
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RUSH: By the way, you ought to see all the blog posts on the left. “Can we get rid of this phony outrage?” they’re asking. “Can we stop this? It was fine to manufacture phony outrage during Sandra Fluke, and it was fine to keep that going for three weeks, but this? There’s no point here. This is ridiculous. Aren’t we just outraged out? Can we just get rid of the outrage?” Here’s Bill Maher (Snerdley was unaware of this) Friday night on Maher’s program Real Time on HBO.
MAHER: What she meant to say, I think, was that Ann Romney has never gotten her ass out of the house to work. No one’s denying that being a mother is a tough job. I remember I was a handful. Okay, but, you know, there is a big difference between being a mother in that tough job and getting your ass out the door at seven a.m., when it’s cold, having to deal with a boss, being in a workplace where, even if you’re unhappy, you can’t show it for eight hours. That is kind of a different kind of tough thing.
RUSH: How does he know that Ann Romney hasn’t experienced that in her life? Anyway, that’s not the question. Maher has kept it alive. Do you know what the real threat of stay-at-home moms is to leftists? You know what the real threat they are? They don’t need government! They are the essence of individuality. Stay-at-home moms are the essence of rugged individualism, and they don’t need the state. They’re not soccer moms, and that’s why they are a threat….
RUSH: Bill Maher says that what Hilary Rosen really meant to say was that Ann Romney has never had to get out of the house at seven o’clock in the morning in order to get the day started. She had to get the kids out of the house, but she didn’t have to put up with anybody. She didn’t have any dire economic circumstances that she had to deal with.
….
It’s the same argument that they’re advancing about Ann Romney, or me, or anybody else, and notice this censorship always comes from the left. It’s always people to the left who are telling other people what they can and can’t say, or what they’re qualified or unqualified to talk about. And it’s these leftist liberal pundits who are making the claim that Ann Romney and Bill Maher — but I repeat myself — who claim that Ann Romney’s not qualified because life’s been easy for her. Cancer, MS, five kids, yeah, it’s been easy. Yeah, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Well, Lincoln didn’t own slaves. So I guess Lincoln shouldn’t have been allowed to weigh in on slavery. These people on the left, folks, I don’t know any redeeming qualities. There is not one aspect of these people I want to emulate. What’s Obama’s qualification to talk about anything other than agitating people? What else has he done in his life but agitate? Yet we let him be a health care expert?
Remember when Bill Maher caught all kinds of hell for defending Rush Limbaugh and telling the left that they should get over the Sandra Fluke thing because Rush apologized? Maybe that wasn’t such a great idea, because Limbaugh is trying to blame Maher for the Republican War On Women. Limbaugh’s gambit today was the height of desperation. Poor ol’ Rush just can’t get out of the hole that his mouth dug for him with his comments about Sandra Fluke, so he is looking for someone else to blame.
Mitt Romney and the Republican Party can’t get out of the bottomless pit that they fell into with women voters so they have decided that it is best to change the subject and use Hilary Rosen’s comments in order to talk about moms. More specifically, how much Democrats hate moms.
What is really going on here is that Mitt Romney and the Republican Party see that they have no chance of winning back women voters, so they have devised a wedge issue that is designed to fragment the political support of women. They are trying to divide women with an issue straight out of the culture wars playbook. Democrats and the left hate baseball, apple pie, the flag, god, freedom and they especially hate moms.
Judging by the fact that the Hilary Rosen story is already dead, it is a pretty safe bet that this another Republican culture war wedge that is destined to fail, just like Obama’s war on religion, and blaming Obama for gas prices did.
Mitt Romney and Republicans across the country can’t run on their records. They can’t run on their policies, and they definitely can’t run on the past (George W. Bush), so they have to divide the electorate as much as possible and hope to get lucky on Election Day.
After Bill Maher made his donation to the Obama supporting Super PAC he opened himself up to being the right’s scapegoat for everything. The name Bill Maher is quickly becoming what the name George Soros used to be in right wing circles. Maher has made his own sexist comments about women in the past, but he is no more responsible for the War On Women than Rush Limbaugh is for the War On Drugs.
Nice try, Rush, but just as you can’t escape being held accountable for your attack on Sandra Fluke, Mitt Romney can’t escape accountability by using his wife as a political human shield.
Republicans now realize that their War On Women will cost them the 2012 election. They are conniving and trying to avoid the crushing rebuke that will leave them cowering in defeat on Election Day. Limbaugh can blame Bill Maher, but when women and the enlightened men who understand this issue step into the voting booth they will be blaming you, your party, and your presidential nominee.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
