In one of the least remorseful apologies in recent memory,
Rush Limbaugh admitted Sunday morning that his “choice of words was not the
best” when he called Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a slut for testifying
before Congress in favor of contraception coverage. (Here’s the full
text of the apology, if you and your friends need brunch conversation.)
Limbaugh, who chose to interpret the word apology through
its more classical,
defensive definition, argued in an angry triptych that he was attempting to
be “humorous,” and “did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke.” But the radio
host also included a less-personal version of his attack on the student,
continuing to falsely assert that Fluke was asking that the government pay for
her sexual adventures rather than discussing what the Institute of Medicine has
deemed a requisite part of women’s health care. (Fluke’s testimony, the
occurrence of which was already part of a controversy, had nothing to do with
sex.)
The apology should pause the increasing outrage over
Limbaugh’s statement, and will no doubt be included in future
grievances over the power of a largely fictional liberal censorship
movement. My colleague Noah Rothman is
right that Limbaugh will weather this dust-up, and companies that pulled
their sponsorship of his show will receive very little in way of a reward for
doing so—though less established conservative figures, who don’t have the bench
of sponsors Rush does, probably took note of his fate with some caution.
But the true consequences of Rush’s awful tirade are to the
Republican side of the debate over contraception coverage, and to women’s place
in the public sphere in general.
Ever since taking up the issue a month ago, Republicans have
been losing both the legislative and political battles over contraception
coverage, harming their image with women and independent voters at a time when
they need both. The GOP has been adamant that they are standing up for
religious liberty, and while not many bought that defense, it was still keeping
them in the game.
No longer. Limbaugh thoroughly destroyed what remained of
the religious-liberty argument, demonstrating as colorfully as possible that
the contraception debate has more to do with denigrating women and disapproving
of their sexual behavior than any ideal of religious freedom. Now that Limbaugh
has so thoroughly tarred his side of the issue, it will be surprising if the right
pushes it with any of the tenacity they’ve displayed in recent weeks. Since the
contraception mandate goes into effect unless the Republicans stop it, a
forfeit by the right cedes complete victory to the Obama administration, which
means Limbaugh likely just turned this debate over for good.
Limbaugh’s apology, however reluctant and insincere, is most
important because of the impact his initial remarks were fixing to have on
women’s role in political speech. Limbaugh attempted to make Fluke’s sexual
behavior and her political arguments coincident, though the former is
irrelevant to the latter (and to everything else). It nearly worked: many of
those who came to Rush’s defense intimated that Fluke was asking
for it because she testified before Congress, all but announcing that the price
women have to pay for speaking on behalf of their political causes is a sexual
shaming. Had Limbaugh’s comments been allowed to stand, it would have shown the
bar for women entering public discourse to be prohibitively personal and
painful.
So when Rush Limbaugh, who’s not known for backing down,
backs down, it should be taken not as a political or public relations victory,
but a victory for the right of women to speak on behalf of their own causes
without coming under personal and sexual scrutiny. It was not that long ago that women weren't allowed to speak politically at all. Their entrance into the sphere of political discourse was hard-fought, and often against arguments much like Limbaugh's; his retreat in this matter was not a given, but part of a long effort to secure women's place in the discussion over the laws that govern them.
Sandra Fluke stared Rush
Limbaugh down, and Limbaugh blinked. She may have won the contraception debate
in the process, and she certainly won an important battle in the
pointlessly-long war over who is allowed access to political speech. And Limbaugh can now go back to doing what he does best: not owning football teams.
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