So yeah, they have absolutely nothing in common.

Sandra Fluke is a private citizen.

cannot be made.

that does not mean, that when we make excuses for our dems being sexist, and say that these words we assign to women are not sexist, validating our use for them, that there is not a problem.

part of the problem is the ever moving line in our society with the viseral hatred we throw at women with our language. and limbaugh figured he would get away with it. he has been for years. last couple years, women have repeatedly been thrown under the bus. this is just an escalation of what is being created over time.

people of both genders have recognized this for many years. we have discussed it regularly. it is no more excusable for some of us than rush. he has not gone as far as rush did. rush has been voicing sexist bullshit for years and years. there wasnt this outrage. not even a blip on the screen. just like there isnt for stern or maher, here on du. those of us that are actually disgusted with misogynist language have been calling them all out.

are we suppose to pretend all of a sudden that maher isnt a misogynist asshole?

nice job...

sP

It's quite possible that if so MANY people "totally .... missed the point" of your thread, perhaps the message wasn't conveyed very clearly.

She was shown on the evening news last night, calling "leftist radicals" hypocrites for calling out poor innocent Limbaugh, by forcing him to apologize and trying to make him retract what he said in exercising his First Amendment rights.

Last week, Limbaugh began demanding that our president return the million-dollar donation that Bill Maher has made to the super PAC which is supporting President Obama's re-election campaign. Yesterday, Sarah Palin joined in that call, stating, "Pres. Obama says he called Sandra Fluke because of his daughters. For the sake of everyone’s daughter, why doesn’t his super PAC return the $1 million he got from a rabid misogynist?"

The entire rightwing is screaming "Hypocrisy" as they effectively attempt to deflect any criticism of that bloviating, woman-hating gas bag and his radio program.

Women's rights in this country are what is at stake here, not words or any language that misogynists may employ!

i was talking about the duers on that thread.

and she was the one maher called a bitch and a cunt, so yea her calling him out.

...you won't be able to say that anymore.


--imm

I was thinking the same thing. She speaks very well for herself and doesn't get rattled.

She's almost done with law school, and I don't know what her plans are. I don't even know about her politics, though what I have seen leans in a good direction.

She may not want to endure electoral politics. But she drips with competence.

--imm

Bill Maher says some off-color remarks about Sarah Palin on a comedy show, in a context that isn't focusing on her gender or related issues, but on her political positions and statements, which are certainly worth mocking.

Is what Maher did wrong? Yes, but only a little.

Rush Limbaugh went Radio Rwanda for three full days on Sandra Fluke, calling her promiscuous, deliberately humiliating her on the airwaves.

There's no comparison.

but if the issue is about someone using their position in the media to launch a personal attack against a private citizen then you're right, there is no comparison.

Maher didn't spend 3 hours a day for 4 days attacking women.

Maher didn't end his screed by demanding a Palin sex tape. Instead he ended it with an actual apology. Limbaugh still hasn't apologized - the crap he released on the web was the usual, "Sorry if anyone was offended" non-apology.

To claim they are equivalent is to claim a murderer who kills a single victim is the same as the Nazis killing 6 million. Yes, they're both murder. But there nowhere near the same scale of bad.

it doesn't really matter WHO the attack is directed to or what kind of person they are. In this case, the issue isn't the attack itself, but the character of the person making it. You can certainly argue that Limbaugh did MORE to demonstrate his character than Maher, but to use your analogy, if murder a kills one person or 6 million people, they're still a murderer. If murders should be in jail, then BOTH should be in jail. Maybe one murder is more horrific than another, maybe one killed more people than the other, but the general punishment for both is the same (jail time).

Now, if your issue is the ATTACK itself (as it sounds like it is), not just the character of the person making the attack, that's different, just as I said in my first post.

Maher apologized. He seemed to learn what he did wrong. That basically gives him a mulligan in my book. He screwed up, he figured out that he screwed up, he's not gonna do it again.

Limbaugh hasn't. At least so far. And with his history, I severely doubt he will. So he's gonna do it again and again and doesn't give a damn.

What makes it different in my mind is both the scale of the offense and the lack of contrition. I also find the desperate search for some liberal, any liberal, to compare to Rush to be a moronic quest for "both sides do it so we don't have to do anything to Rush".

"apologizing" (if you want to call it that). While you may consider it insincere (as I'm sure some felt about Maher and Ed Schultz as well), it does meet the definition of an apology. Can you really say Maher apologized and I'm giving him a mulligan, Limbaugh apologized, but I don't like the way he did it, or didn't feel he was sincere, so it doesn't really count as an apology (well, I guess there's no reason you can't)?

By all means, boycott if you want, and I'm not suggesting that since both sides do it, it's a wash, but there are comparisons to be made. They may not be equal in degree, but whenever anything happens and people disagree over what the response should be, you're always going to see people looking to make comparisons as a means to explain their response, or as a reason to cry hypocrisy.

the most prestigious law schools in the country. Princess Dumbass of the Northwoods (thank you Charlie Pierce) couldn't get in to Georgetown law if she promised to buy them a new building. They have standards, after all.

rant...

it's a good thing she asked for it by being a public figure.

calling someone a cunt OR a slut is never ok, I don't give a fuck who you are or who your target is.

sP

you don't like it when someone points out the bullshit...sorry. it is not ok. and for you to try to suggest i or anyone else are making the Palin / Fluke 'equivalent' is idiotic. it isn't about equivalence. it is about the blatant hatred expressed by anyone on either side through the use of those terms and the 'oh, well, she is a public figure' horseshit you are spewing in defense of it.

nice job of making the point of my thread so beautifully with your OP. gymnastics at its best.

sP

The words 'slut' and 'prostitute' are mere ornament in this matter. The range of deliberate, malicious, personal sexual insult employed was breath-taking. It included statements on the order of 'Who paid for your condoms when you were in middle school, Ms. Fluke?' It included a claim men were lining up around the corner to fuck the young woman, an expression of wonderment that she was still able to walk after the frequency with which she engaged in coitus. Statements like this, disseminated in the manner they were, meet every legal standard of slander, and would, even against a public figure, which Ms. Fluke certainly is not under the law. No one ever seriously alleged that comments by Mr. Maher regarding Palin came near that legal standard.

As always, I might add.

<3

and over the top blathering on about things she has no idea of, sara palin is the undefeated champ

...is saying bad things about people.
Period.

Folks around here are tying themselves into logical knots this week in an effort to justify why it's OK when "our guys" do it, but a horrible breach when "their guys" do it. I find that more ugly than the name calling.

If you say something bad about another human being, you have said something bad about another human being. It doesn't matter if they are famous or not. Calling a famous woman a cunt is just as bad as calling a non-famous woman a slut. It pains me how many people simply don't understand that.

And for the record... I have called people, both famous and not, bad names. And I will most likely continue to do so. But I'm not going to play the "false equivalency" bullshit game...

say, I smack 'em on the arm and create a bruise. In your mind, I am exactly the same as someone who tortured the hell out of hundreds of people for years?

Yes, we both caused injury. We both committed assault and battery. But you're going to have a hell of a time convincing me that those two are exactly the same level of 'bad'.

What is so fucking hard for people to understand about that? It doesn't MATTER which woman one is insulting with misogynist terms or what kind of person they are or what they've done or whether or not they're a public figure. The use of bigoted terminolgy slanders an ENTIRE GROUP of people.

Limbaugh and Maher are both EQUALLY guilty of using disgusting misogynist terms against specific women they want to put their hate on, and that is bigotry against ALL women. It is NOT ok to call a woman you dislike whether or not that dislike is justified a "bitch", "cunt", "slut", "whore" or whatever convienent and popular sexist slur BECAUSE they are bigoted terms against ALL women. Just at is not ok to use racist words to degenerate a specific African American person REGARDLESS of how terrible a person they are or whether or not they're a public figure because racist terms are bigoted against ALL people of that race. We seem to have THAT one figured out here with no problem but can't seem to figure it out when it comes to bigoted terms for women and very often with the LGBT community and quite a bit with overweight people. It's ALL bigotry regardless of what group, and it ALL needs to stop.

Just what the hell is it that people here don't seem to get that bigoted terms slander entire groups of people which is WHY they are bigoted and WHY they should never be used?

Jesus barking Christ on a cracker, why the fuck does this shit even need to be explained on a supposed progressive board?

Ouch, this gentlemen sure don't pull punches. I never even thought about Sara Palin when I heard news about Sandra Fluke until this thread.

that used the public eye to enrich herself,no comparison at all.