Quotes of the day

“Well, so much for that: Louis C.K. has abruptly pulled out of the annual Washington dinner of the Radio & Television Correspondents’ Association, where he was scheduled to perform on June 8.

“Why? His rep told a CNN reporter Friday, apparently without elaboration, that the comic ‘just didn’t want to do it anymore.’ But by dropping out, he may have sidestepped a fledgling controversy over his gig. Fox News host Greta Van Susteren blogged Thursday that she would urge journalists to boycott the dinner because of C.K.’s ‘filthy language about women,’ and Sarah Palin in particular.”

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“[T]his is all a typical conservative stunt. When one of their people is caught doing something bad, they immediately try to take the heat off by changing the subject to say ‘Hey, remember when a liberal did the same thing? Waah. Waah. Waaah.’ Sounds like tit-for-tat whining from a playground.

“The fact is, Limbaugh was a bully in his remarks about private citizen Sandra Fluke. And Maher is hardly the face of the Democratic Party, like Limbaugh is for Republicans. And Maher, albeit very crudely and wrongly, went after a woman who wanted to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, not a private citizen.

“The same thing as Limbaugh? Hardly. The money shouldn’t be returned.”

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“Then there’s the ‘liberals do it too and get away with it’ defense. Yes, there has been some vile misogyny on the left toward conservative women (notably Sarah Palin). Generally, the perpetrators of these slurs have been far less visible than Limbaugh. The more visible ones, such as the chronically sexist Bill Maher of HBO’s ‘Real Time’ and Hillary-hating MSNBC host Chris Matthews, have been harshly criticized by many fellow liberals.

“What’s more, attempts to pit Limbaugh’s male chauvinist piggery against that of assorted leftists ignore the fact that this was not Limbaugh’s first offense (take his jokes about Hillary Clinton having a ‘testicle lockbox’ for emasculating men) and that he also has company on the right. In 2008, singer and conservative activist Ted Nugent brandished two rifles onstage during a concert and invited Hillary Clinton to ‘ride this into the sunset, you worthless bitch.’ Fox News host Sean Hannity defended Nugent’s stunt as free speech, and Nugent has remained a frequent guest on Fox and on Glenn Beck’s radio show.

“The only effective way to police misogyny (and other ugliness) in politics is to call out the offenders in one’s own camp.”

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“The whole affair has now begun to appear to me fairly interesting. The defense of Sandra Fluke is so shrill that it is almost as though many of her defenders actually believe there is a vicious taint of self-indulgence, if not sluttiness, in a female student’s clamoring for a federal mandate of subsidized contraceptives. How else to interpret such a welter of special pleading? They believe she actually needs defending…

“This whole Limbaugh business epitomizes our confusion and our hypocrisy. The folks who depicted George Bush as a chimp, and Sarah Palin as a skank, are indignant when these same words are used against their people in the virtue industry, and that includes the troopers in the Reproductive Rights Activist Service Corps. The trouble with Limbaugh is that he is not a satirist – hasn’t the brains or the humor for it – and his earnestness, and his vanity, always gets in the way. He seems to believe that he is an opinion leader, but even as a gas bag on the sidelines he has a role to play, because not many other people are playing that role. If only he knew more about the power of satire, how it can do more than mere mockery. But, as a mocker – the Fluke affair is proof – he has an effect, and I think it uncovered one of our greatest weaknesses and our weirdest tendencies.

“You have to give Limbaugh a pass, otherwise you lose the right to go on calling Gingrich and Eric Cantor pimps for Israel, and Rick Santorum a mental midget, and if you foreswear colorful, if not robust or wicked language altogether you might as well shut up.”

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“I must stand up to defend Rush Limbaugh. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer came out and said that Sandra Fluke should sue Limbaugh for defamation for famously calling her a ‘slut.’ A Pennsylvania attorney, Max Kennerly, told his local newspaper that he thinks Fluke has a case.

“She has no such thing, and shame on those who say that she does…

“This incident is unfortunate for those on the Left who have, at least since 2000, considered their side of the aisle to be the place where free speech can feel safe and secure. It has exposed the liberal and academic Left to be as hypocritical and as bad as the dirty Right wing when it comes to free speech. Sandra Fluke’s statements were worthy of some criticism, and I lobbed some of my own. Rush Limbaugh could have done a much better job of criticizing Ms. Fluke. But, the fact is that those on the left, defamation lawyers trolling for clients, and Rush Limbaugh haters alike have set aside their desire to understand or support free expression in a hysterical pile-on of the prick from Palm Beach.

“They are all wrong. They are not only wrong on the law, but they are also morally wrong because someone, somewhere out there is listening to them – and will believe that when someone gets butthurt, that they are a victim, and that someone has to pay for their thin-skinned indignation in court.”

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“Limbaugh doesn’t just call people names. He promotes language that deliberately dehumanizes his targets. Like the sophisticated propagandist Josef Goebbels, he creates rhetorical frames — and the bigger the lie the more effective — inciting listeners to view people they disagree with as sub-humans. His longtime favorite term for women, ‘femi-nazi,’ doesn’t even raise eyebrows anymore, an example of how rhetoric spreads when unchallenged by coarsened cultural norms…

“This isn’t political. While we disagree with Limbaugh’s politics, what’s at stake is the fallout of a society tolerating toxic, hate-inciting speech. For 20 years, Limbaugh has hidden behind the First Amendment, or else claimed he’s really ‘doing humor’ or ‘entertainment.’ He is indeed constitutionally entitled to his opinions, but he is not constitutionally entitled to the people’s airways.

“It’s time for the public to take back our broadcast resources. Limbaugh has had decades to fix his show. Now it’s up to us.”

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“There is shellshock on the left. They thought this was the time. This was the gonna be that moment when they finally succeeded. Right now they’re sitting out there in stunned confusion trying to figure out why it hasn’t happened, why am I still here.

“… This event turned out to be… It wasn’t a fluke. It was purposeful. All they ended up doing was calling attention to their own constant misogyny. All they ended up doing was focusing the attention on all of their people on the left who are constantly and every day in the gutter. They’re not there by accident or by mistake, like I was for five minutes. They live there, and that’s what’s been made plain this week.”

Via the Daily Rushbo.

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Via the Daily Caller. Content warning.

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