Are Liberals Just as Bad as Rush? Yes, Says One Liberal Blogger
With all of the fallout surrounding Rush Limbaugh after his controversial remarks about Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke, it’s hard to imagine many rushing to his side to support him. Limbaugh’s attack on Fluke is pretty hard to defend, even if you happen to like the shock-jock. But as we’ve covered before, a handful of supporters have come out of the word-work to stand by Rush (well, sort of) and the most shocking twist is that they happen to be liberals.
Slate contributor Katie Roiphe, a liberal, points to those on the left who are as guilty as Rush of making women feel bad about their sex lives and personal choices and convictions on the matter. “There is a comforting sense of us and them, with us being tolerant, sexy, fun-loving, and them being puritanical, straight-laced, chauvinistic. Except that’s not quite how it is. In fact the trope of “sluts” is perpetuated in liberal circles as well as conservative ones,” she writes for Slate.
According to Roiphe, liberals tend to “hunt down women we think are sexually unacceptable, and very articulately and persuasively express our extreme disapproval of everything about her without resorting to the word [slut]”. She mentions John Edward’s mistress Rielle Hunter, who received shady eyes in much of the lame-stream media (not just FOX), and even some from smaller pubs (Slate included). She brings up Mimi Alford’s confession of an affair with John F. Kennedy, and how television interviewers – while not coming out and calling her a slut – hammered her, implying that the fault was all hers, and that Kennedy should be spared any culpability.
Roiphe says that judgment and condescension “persist through all age groups and social strata, in big cities and small towns, on television news programs watched by millions, and on liberal blogs.”
She concludes by saying, “Rush Limbaugh, in other words, is the least of our worries. It’s time the mattress companies started boycotting the rest of us.”
Now maybe Fluke didn’t do anything wrong; after all, she only stood up for her beliefs, meaning Rush’s comments are still on a strata above what Roiphe is talking about. Nevertheless, it is interesting to me that handfuls of liberals here and there are trying to find a way to let Rush off for his offensive comments.
Katie Roiphe is a professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, and most recently authored Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Marriages, and penned the upcoming In Praise of Messy Lives.
Do you think more liberals will come forward to defend Rush Limbaugh?
