Help Meryl Streep Teach Rush Limbaugh a Lesson

Why Limbaugh's words should motivate women

By now the five remaining people on the planet who didn’t know that Rush Limbaugh embodies the very worst in politics, pop culture and possibly all mammals ever, have joined the rest of us in this knowledge. But for those of you that have been under a rock in recent days, allow me to fill you in on this latest dispatch from Rush Limbaugh’s race to the bottom. Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke, a woman he doesn’t know, has never met and knows next to nothing about, a slut. I take that back. He knows something about her now, namely that she’s smarter and more courageous than he is. 

Fluke provoked Limbaugh’s ire when the Georgetown University law student dared to testify in support of contraception coverage before a Democratic hearing after previously being denied the right to testify in a male (and conservative) dominated congressional hearing on the matter. Fluke’s testimony highlighting the fact that many women rely on contraception to address medical issues unrelated to preventing pregnancy, apparently struck Limbaugh as humorous. (Hey-who doesn’t find ovarian cysts hysterical?) He then continued to riff on Fluke, speculating on her sexual habits in a manner I will allow you to read about for yourself because just thinking about the comments and frankly, their source, gives me the creeps. 

On Saturday Limbaugh “sincerely apologized” to Fluke clearly seeing the error of his ways due to some serious self-reflection on his part. At least we’re supposed to pretend it’s due to his self-reflection, and not due to the fact that his advertisers are ditching him faster than he ditches wives. (At last count he’s on number four and considering she’s not much older than Ms. Fluke part of me wonders if perhaps this was all some grotesque attempt at flirting on his part that simply went awry. After all, who wouldn’t want to be the fifth Mrs. Limbaugh? Raise your hands high ladies!)

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As un-amusing as this whole situation has been, I can’t help being amused by the timing of it all. March happens to be Women’s History Month. Talk about starting it off with a bang. While we all know that for at least the next month we can look forward to hearing occasional references to our country’s greatest women sprinkled in speeches, news items and of course, school reports, what you may not know is that despite years of trying we still don’t have a national museum to honor the contributions of women. Before any eye rolling or shouts of “pay down the deficit!” begin, did I mention that the planned National Women’s History Museum won’t cost taxpayers a single dollar? It will however, require congressional approval for the land on which it will eventually be constructed; approval that despite years of negotiations (and efforts of the saner members of Congress on both sides of the aisle), has remained elusive. 

If you need further proof of just how gridlocked and embarrassing Congress has become in recent years, consider this. We have a National Postal Museum which was opened in the nineties but recent efforts at making a National Women’s History Museum a reality have repeatedly stalled. That means that the postal service, which may be the only body in America with a lower approval rating than Congress, was deemed worthy of its own museum honoring its contributions to this country, but after years of near-groveling women still haven’t been deemed worthy of one.