It's Never Cool To Call
Women Vulgar Names
Gary Gerard,
dumbhoosier.com
It is truly amazing to me how people can rationalize or
justify virtually anything somebody says just because they
agree with that person’s political ideology.
For those who may have missed it – I don’t see how any could
have, it was the lead on CNN for a week – Rush Limbaugh called
a college co-ed a slut and a prostitute. This because she
suggested the cost of contraceptives should be covered by her
health care plan.
The radio talk show bully went even farther by suggesting that
if the taxpayers were funding her contraceptives, then the
taxpayers were funding her sex. So to give taxpayers their
money’s worth, she should post videos of her sex where
taxpayers could view it.
Of course this is patently offensive and blatantly absurd by
any civilized standard. Frankly, Limbaugh came off sounding
like a misogynist pig.
Later, when the waste product from the digestive tract came
into direct contact with the electric air circulation device,
Limbaugh kind of apologized. Losing sponsors for your radio
show – 43 at last count Thursday – tends to make you a bit
more introspective and self-aware.
Now, one would think that no one would make excuses for
Limbaugh’s behavior.
One would be wrong.
Plenty of people, just because they are conservatives, did
just that.
“Well, he did apologize, you know.” “Well, he was just trying
to make a joke.” “Well, I wouldn’t have said that, but you
know, he’s an entertainer.” Blah, blah, blah.
The problem is, lots of peoples’ opinion on whether his
comments were objectionable have little to do with his
comments. It has more to do with the political ideology he
espouses.
He’s a big-time conservative, so some conservatives feel
obligated to defend his indefensible behavior.
By contrast, of course, the ululations of liberals right now
are deafening, and rightly so.
But there was one glaringly jarring exception.
Bill Maher.
Liberal commentator Maher came to the defense of Limbaugh. On
Twitter, he tweeted, “Hate to defend #RushLimbaugh but he
apologized, liberals looking bad not accepting. Also hate
intimidation by sponsor pullout.”
Nice.
But you know why Maher is taking that position, right? It’s
because he says stuff as vile as Limbaugh on his cable TV
show.
He called Sarah Palin – ah, well, how do I broach this
gently in a small daily newspaper – a pejorative vulgarism,
primarily referring to the female genitalia. It starts with
the letter “c” and rhymes with blunt.
He called her a “bully who sells patriotism like a pimp” and
said she would have sex with Rick Perry if he were black.
He also called Palin a “dumb (starts with tw and rhymes with
hot).”
And that’s just Palin. He’s said tons of equally disparaging
things about other conservative females, yet not many of the
liberals excoriating Limbaugh have ever uttered a peep.
So of course Maher is going to defend Limbaugh. He and
Limbaugh are cut from the same cloth.
But not in the world of liberals. Many of them say that
Maher’s behavior is somehow different because he’s really just
a comedian, or that he only aims at public or political
figures, or that he’s not a mouthpiece for the Democrat party
or blah, blah, blah.
President Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod has been
harshly critical of Limbaugh and has been taking shots at
Republicans who have failed to distance themselves from
Limbaugh. Axelrod is scheduled to appear on Maher’s show in
the next few weeks. Most likely because of the cool $1 million
Maher donated to Obama’s superpac.
And Democrat National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman
Schultz – an ardent Limbaugh basher – is a frequent
contributor to Maher’s show. One would think the liberal Ms.
Wasserman Schultz would be offended by all of Maher’s
misogynist slurs.
I even had one person on Facebook criticizing Limbaugh and
defending Maher, trying very hard to explain to me the nuance
and relative acceptability of calling someone a tw**, a c***
or a slut, depending on the implications of your comment.
His take was the word Limbaugh used carries with it a negative
implication while the words Maher used were just words without
any real meaning. Just name calling.
It was priceless – albeit absurd.
I really don’t think of this as a free-speech issue.
Being a newspaper person, I fully understand the value of free
speech. I am not calling for censorship here. I would ardently
defend both Limbaugh’s and Maher’s right to blather all the
misogynistic bile they want.
Of course, if they spew too much, they will suffer the
consequences as the sensibilities of the marketplace rein them
in.
In Limbaugh’s case, he’s losing sponsors over his slut
comments. In Maher’s case, his show on ABC got canceled.
That was in 2002 after he called the U.S. “cowardly” for
dropping bombs on Middle Eastern countries and said what the
Sept. 11 hijackers did “took guts” because they sacrificed
their lives for their cause.
So, by all means, let free speech reign supreme in American.
But here’s the thing.
Can’t we all agree that using a vulgar, pejorative term to
describe a woman – or anybody for that matter – is an affront
to civil public discourse?
Can’t we disregard political ideology long enough to denounce
that behavior regardless of the purveyor?
I guess not.
And I think that’s really sad. Because as long as somebody is
willing to defend or rationalize that type of behavior, it
will inevitably continue.
Certainly Limbaugh and Maher have the right to say these
things. But maybe, just maybe, if we all held them to a little
higher standard, they’d reconsider.
I know. That’s just too much to ask of today’s America.
Archives
|
