I can’t offer inside information on El Rushbo’s motivations, but I strongly suspect that the apology stemmed not from wounds inflicted on his own interests, or pain visited upon Sandra Fluke, but from his undeniably damaging impact on the conservative cause.
On the hot issue of the Obamacare mandate that forces even religious charities to provide free contraception coverage as part of their insurance policies, Republicans could win the argument as long as the conversation focused on religious liberty and freedom of conscience. When the administration succeeds in shifting the discussion to access to birth control, we lose. If they’re able to frame an even more extreme narrative—that conservatives side with Catholic charities as part of an over-arching “war on women” —then we lose, big time. By attacking an articulate if sanctimonious law student as a “slut,” and suggesting that she post her sex “videos online so we can all watch,” Limbaugh made it vastly easier to characterize the conservative position as misogynistic and hateful.
Why should he care, if even more listeners tune in to his radio show for the next installment of troglodytic tastelessness?
Because, contrary to Rick Santorum’s dismissal of Rush as a mere “entertainer” (“an entertainer can be absurd,” Righteous Rick suggested), Limbaugh feels committed to conservatism, not just to his own success.
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