[Vision2020] The GOP can no longer avoid its Rush Limbaugh problem.

[Art Deco]

The GOP can no longer avoid its Rush Limbaugh problem. By Editorial
Board, Published:
March 2

IN A DEMOCRACY, standards of civil discourse are as important as they are
indefinable. Yet wherever one draws the line, Rush Limbaugh’s vile
rants<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-buzz/post/rush-limbaugh-calls-georgetown-student-sandra-fluke-a-slut-for-advocating-contraception/2012/03/02/gIQAvjfSmR_blog.html>against
Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke crossed it. Mr.
Limbaugh is angry at President Obama’s efforts to require the provision of
contraception under employer-paid health insurance and the White House’s
attempts to make some political hay out of the policy. His way of showing
this anger was to smear Ms. Fluke, who approached Congress to support the
plan, as a “slut” seeking a government subsidy for her promiscuity.

Like other “shock jocks,” Mr. Limbaugh has committed verbal excesses in the
past. But in its wanton vulgarity and cruelty, this episode stands out. Mr.
Limbaugh’s audience, and those in politics who seek his favor as a means of
reaching that audience, need to take special note.

We are not calling for censorship. Nor are we suggesting that the
ostensible policy issue here — mandatory provision of contraception under
health insurance paid for by religious-based institutions such as
Georgetown — is a simple one. Those who questioned President Obama’s
initial decisions in this area — we among
them<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/respecting-religious-exemptions/2012/01/22/gIQA0ZESJQ_story.html>—
were not waging a “war on women,” as Democrats have alleged in
strident
fundraising appeals.

What we are saying is that Mr. Limbaugh has abused his unique position
within the conservative media to smear and vilify a citizen engaged in the
exercise of her First Amendment rights, and in the process he debased a
national political discourse that needs no further debasing. This is not
the way a decent citizen behaves, much less a citizen who wields
significant de facto power in a major political party. While Republican
leaders owe no apology for Mr. Limbaugh’s comments, they do have a
responsibility to repudiate them — and him.

House Speaker John Boehner took a step in that direction Friday: “The
speaker obviously believes the use of those words was inappropriate, as is
trying to raise money off the situation,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel
said in an e-mail Friday morning. But there’s no moral equivalency between
the Democrats’ hyperbolic but abstract “war on women” line and Mr.
Limbaugh’s targeted attack. Mr. Boehner and others of his stature need to
say unequivocally that such gutter rhetoric has no place in their party or
in American politics.

Incivility is not a one-way street in America. Far from it: Mr. Limbaugh’s
left-wing equivalents have trashed any number of conservatives over the
years. Conservatives have a point when they protest that the “mainstream
media” don’t always heed their legitimate grievances.

Yet under the influence of Mr. Limbaugh and his ilk, the Republicans risk
coming before the voters in 2012, and after, with nothing but grievances.
This is what former Florida governor Jeb Bush was trying to tell his fellow
Republicans when he observed, apropos of a recent discourse in the GOP
primary: “It’s a little troubling sometimes when people are appealing to
people’s fears and emotion rather than trying to get them to look over the
horizon for a broader perspective, and that’s kind of where we are.”

For the good of U.S. political culture — or at least its own political
self-interest — the GOP must distance itself from Mr. Limbaugh. In response
to listener complaints and, apparently, the promptings of its own corporate
conscience, Sleep Train Mattress Centers has quit advertising on Mr.
Limbaugh’s show. Dare Republican leaders show less decency?


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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