Rush is down at least 36 advertisers, and radio insiders think they’re not coming back, so it’s audience preservation time for him. Since Sandra Fluke is a radioactive topic, he found another woman, Traci McMillan, whose book on the politics and economics of food inspired Rush to say:
What is it with all of these young single white women, overeducated — doesn’t mean intelligent.
My guess is that Mitt Romney wouldn’t have phrased it quite that way, Rick Santorum thought it was entertaining, and Newt Gingrich would call the act of cutting and pasting Rush’s words from yesterday’s transcript another example of how coastal elites are ruining this country.
There is one piece of good news for Rush: Ashley Madison offered to buy his canceled ad inventory. Ashley Madison is like OK Cupid for married people who want to cheat. Going from Geico, Citrix and Quicken to an adultery hook-up site in less than a week tells you all you need to know about the Rush’s near future on the radio.
Elizabelle
He needs to lose Armed Forces Radio, too.
Any news on how that’s going?
Suffern ACE
Oooh. OK Cupid should sponsor a cheater of the day competition. Winner to be announced each day on his show.
Zach Pruckowski
Ashley Madison being the primary advertiser for Limbaugh would actually be awesome. If that happens, we can get subtle call-in trolls to push the topic towards monogamy and the importance of not cheating on your spouse. Limbaugh will be torn between what he has to say as a conservative and what he has to say to keep his advertiser.
“Adultery is wrong folks, it’s just plain immoral and sinful. But if you’d like to cheat on your spouse, I’d recommend AshleyMadison.com”
RossInDetroit
Wasn’t Ashley Madison involved in a prostitution case? I understood that a lot of their female members weren’t married women ‘legitimately’ looking for hook-ups but professionals trolling for business.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I wonder if Rush will take them up on their offer? Newt would probably be interested…
If Rush looks at the letter where it says:
and asks what #2 is, I hope Biderman responds with “You.”
I heard that Rush sent Rush a cease and desist letter, no more Rush tunes on Rush’s show. Peter Gabriel led the way on this boycott…lol! Poor Rush probably feels like his world is falling apart around him.
Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person.
Bill ORLY
Wasn’t Traci McMillan Arthur Dent’s love interest in “Hitchhiker?”
butler
@Bill ORLY: Only in the movies. Not in the novels.
vtr
Would you please stop linking to pages containing photos of Limbaugh? Some of us are eating.
Zifnab25
But it does mean you know how birth control works. :-p
Shawn in ShowMe
All the guy had to do was to confine his attacks to the “Feminazis” and he could have dominated the radio waves for another 10 years. Instead he took Elmer Fudd’s gun and shot himself in the face. Either he’s completely lost his fastball or Sandra Fluke is really Bugs Bunny.
ET
Unless the show is cancelled, Rush will survive. There will be sympathetic advertisers and plenty of bottom feeders.
Jay C
@Bill ORLY:
No, that was her sister Tricia (aka Trillian)….
While it’s indisputably a Good Thing that Rushbo El Gordo is losing “respectable” advertisers left-and-right*, I think it’s way too early to expect (still less celebrate) his long-overdue retirement from his particular form of air pollution. Given that he still claims a large listening audience, and has cost somebody (Clear Channel) a bloody fortune in contracts already, it’s too much, I think, to think that he can’t or won’t make lemonade out of this particular contretemps, and find some well-heeled “sponsor” to keep him on the air (i.e., anyone who’ll kill enough airtime for his
Oxycontinbathroom breaks).*ETA In Rush’s case, mainly “left”
jibeaux
@Bill ORLY: Tricia McMillan. Trillian.
MikeTheZ
When does rentboy.com get in on this?
Southern Beale
I thought Ashley Madison was a fake site.
MikeJ
36 isn’t actually right. He didn’t lose Geico over this incident. They did indeed get fed up with him, but it was in 2004.
In addition, some of the others are also not advertisers on Limbaugh’s show. Sears for instance, buys run of day spots on local stations. They’ve added a directive to not run their spots during that show, but they never bought it specifically anyway. It’s good to have people refuse to advertise during that slot, but it’s not “losing” an advertiser as he never had them. I don’t know how many on the list fall in this second category.
butler
McMillan should be thrilled, I’m sure this will move a lot of copies. There are worse things to have coincide with a book release.
Birthmarker
Young, single, white and overeducated–isn’t that the pool Rush has pulled his 4 wives from?
Personally, I think his show will survive, though it may be wounded as Beck’s was. I think Ms. Fluke will get a healthy check from Rush’s insurers.
Just for fun, I think I would harass Patricia Heaton’s attorneys too, though I don’t think that is as clear cut.
muddy
@MikeJ: I don’t think it matters if they are in the 1st or 2nd category, they are stating out loud that they don’t want to be there. That’s the main thing.
Schlemizel
ETA:
never mind – late to the party
cmorenc
First, Glen Beck finally self-destructs with his own verbal excesses, then Rush Limbaugh…
It would probably be too greedy to hope Sean Hannity, Neil Cavuto, and Charles Krauthammer would also stumble into the same self-destructive verbal tar pit sometime over the next six months.
MikeJ
@muddy: It is good that they are saying they don’t want to be on his show, but if they aren’t paying to be on it, you aren’t costing his show any money.
It’s good, but it’s not *as* good.
Kirbster
@Elizabelle: I wrote to both my Senators and I still need to to fire off a few more letters to my House Rep, the head honcho of AFRTS, and Leon Panetta. Even though I signed it, I don’t think anyone really pays attention to petitions on the whitehouse.gov website. I don’t do Facebook or Twitter.
The art of effective complaining is mostly knowing who to complain to (i.e., the person or people who actually have the power to change things).
I still believe there’s a case to be made that Limbaugh undermines morale and discipline of the troops and damages America’s image abroad.
JGabriel
mistermix @ Top:
That’s gonna be hilarious when even Ashley Madison’s clients revolt and demand that it stop advertising on Limbaugh’s show.
I’m dead serious. Outside of back-to-the-Principle Mormon fundamentalists, I kind of doubt the polyamory crowd is a big fan of Rush Limbaugh or his brand of conservatism.
.
jibeaux
Weird question, what’s up with Rush pointing out that they’re white? Are his listeners supposed to nod and go “yes…white people…that IS very suspicious…..”
MikeJ
@JGabriel: Polyamory implies everyone involved knows about and approves of activities with multiple partners. People who choose those relationships may be more liberal and not fans of Rush.
Cheaters aren’t polyamorous, they’re cheating on somebody who thinks they’re in an exclusive relationship. Scumbags seem like the ideal target market for his show.
danielx
This gets better and better….he just can’t help himself, he’s on a roll where he simply has to say at least one thing daily that translates to “I’m a roaring, flaming, screaming asshole”.
JGabriel
Limbaugh via mistermix @ Top:
Oh, look. Something K-thug and Limbaugh can agree upon. Overeducated doesn’t mean you’re intelligent, it means you had more money and better access — as Krugman points out here.
.
JGabriel
@MikeJ:
Yes, I know. From I what I understand, Ashley Madison is a hub for polyamory adultery as well as cheating adultery.
.
Shawn in ShowMe
@ET:
Thanks to this self-inflicted wound, Rush’s star is in decline but we’re stuck with his blatherings until his core listeners die off. What I want to see is how the next politician that crosses Rush behaves. Will they walk back their comments or has the status quo been broken?
Cacti
Rush has been a sexist pig for 2 decades.
Why is it only now that the mainstream is acting shocked by it?
Linda Featheringill
What exactly is “over-educated”? How much learning is too much?
Signed,
Outspoken Slut with Way Too Much Education
rikyrah
ok, this was hilarious
JGabriel
jibeaux:
Not such a weird question, believe it or not.
It’s a dog whistle. The stab-in-the-back or dolchstosse theme is a common motif of fascist and far right rhetoric.
By pointing out that the women are white, Rush reinforces the idea that his audience is being stabbed in the back! by people who are supposed to be on the same side (the white side) as them, but who are traitorous back-stabbing liberals instead.
.
muddy
@MikeJ:
True enough, but I don’t want to belittle good for not being better, that’s all.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Cacti:
Because this isn’t his normal bashing of public figures, this is bullying of a regular citizen 2) Women and their families were already amped after the Komen fiasco 3) The President put even more light on it by calling Fluke and praising her at his press conference
The Republic of Stupidity
@RossInDetroit:
Then Rush Limbaugh and Ashley Madison are a perfect combination…
Peanut butter… meet chocolate.
quannlace
What is it with all these uppity wimmen who go to college, write books and such and think they got a right to shoot their mouths off?
Birthmarker
He couldn’t say young, single, slut and overeducated, now could he?
jibeaux
@JGabriel: Ah. Kind of like, “Here we have young, single, white women. Instead of making sex tapes with us which we can then send to our buddies, they’re writing books and shit! TRAITOR SLUTS!”
Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity
@jibeaux: I know the answer to this and wish I didn’t. He’s calling them race traitors.
Elizabelle
@Kirbster:
Good on you.
Limbaugh’s a Koran incident waiting to happen.
maya
TFRA [Tailored For Rushbo’s Audience]
scav
Well, by knocking down young single White women, maybe he’s making a play for the young single Oriental mail-order bride seeking demographic and ad-contracts.
MikeJ
@muddy: Not belittling them, I just don’t think you can say he’s lost advertisers when they weren’t advertising with him anyway.
Another Halocene Human
@Kirbster: Kirbster, can you post a sample letter I can
crib off ofuse as a model?Another Halocene Human
Two decades ago, Limbaugh had an audience. According to generation surveys, GenXers were much more conservative leaning than baby boomers. However, millenials are more progressive than GenXers. And Limbaugh’s audience has dried up.
He appealed to lower-class (in more than one meaning of the word) FYIGM types, but most of them have gotten screwed by Republican policies under Bush after they eagerly put him in power. Hell, if you’re unemployed you’re not driving around from job to job listening to Rush, now are you?
I think the reason is that society has progressed a bit… the oldest cohort of virulent racists is dying (Helms, Thurmond), the gay-baiters are dying off (Falwell, yet Robertson still lives–still, he’s really old), the youngest generation (which I believe is bigger than the Xers) is very progressive and knows how to use social media, and I think a lot of boomers have returned to political activism, as they are either retired or forced into retirement, seem to be hard-hit by job loss and layoffs meaning plenty of time to get up to trouble.
Things change. Even the dittoheads grow up and have children of their own and start flinching at misogynistic screeds.
(Of course, we can find young misogynists in dark, creepy corners of the internets. You won’t find them listening to Rush because while many of them are pretty racist their racial politics have nothing in common with Rush… plus he’s old and fat and they imagine that they are hip and cool.)
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
i think ashleymadison fell for an old picture and a cleverly worded profile of who the rush limbaugh audience is. when the real rush fans show up they are going to be bitterly disappointed. they will find them exaggerators at best and complete liars in many cases.
Nancy
@Cacti: Many were outraged by the Chelsea “joke”, the Parkinsons “joke”, etc., etc., etc. If he had just called Sandra Fluke a slut or a prostitute once, there would have been some outrage, but it would have passed pretty quickly. This was a three day tirade that pissed off a lot of women and the men who love them.
Signed,
Another over-educated white slut.
ETA: I am a little old to manage much slutty behavior, but one can dream.
Gin & Tonic
@Nancy: I think it’s not just that it was repeated over days, but that he was “punching down.” Making fun of Michael J. Fox was odious, but at least you could say he was a “celebrity.” Sandra Fluke was just your random woman, really (although obviously has proven to be pretty awesome) and, as has been pointed out repeatedly, lots of people in Rush’s demographic said “hey, he’s talking about *my* daughter, too.” Like me. Not that I ever listened to that gasbag, but I have two educated, professional single daughters in Sandra Fluke’s age bracket, and they are categorically not sluts, regardless of the medicine they take (or not), and that shit really pisses me off.
Martin
@Gin & Tonic:
Republicans always punch down. Katrina was the fault of gays. The housing crisis is because of black people. They always, always, always punch down. That’s what they do.
So the problem can’t be that he punched down. The problem is that our prejudices say it’s okay to punch down. It’s okay to shit on the poor, on black people, on gays, etc. The only mistake Rush made was to punch someone that white middle class women identify with – a white Georgetown law student – she’s aspirational. If Sandra Fluke was black, do you think the backlash would have been this bad?
PeakVT
@Linda Featheringill: Is it legal to be both a slut and a snob?
Nutella
@Linda Featheringill:
The author he sneered at has a B.A. so apparently any college is too much. Makes the gals uppity and doesn’t do a thing to improve their sandwich-making skills.
Gin & Tonic
@Martin: Maybe it would have been. Shitting on a class of people isn’t the same as punching down on one name/face. It’s the personal nature of the punching down that I think made it egregious.
Nutella
@Martin:
You’ve got a point there. The ‘it could have been my daughter he was talking about’ response would have been much less common. I had that response to Imus and the nappy-headed ho flap and was shocked at how few other white people felt the same.
MCA1
@Another Halocene Human: I think I disagree. I think it’s that media has changed, along with his core audience aging. Now that they’ve been retiring, semi-retiring, spending less time in their cars, and finally learning what the intertubes are, they’ve realized they can get their hate fix without having to turn on the radio (which they have only in their bathroom and cars, anyway). The basic ethos of dittoheads hasn’t changed, however, and his listeners haven’t grown apart from his underlying messages: fear of the other, demonization of apostates and heretics, sophomoric shorthand mythology language in place of actual reasoned argument, and scapegoating. During the Clinton years when they were all making money and feeling upwardly mobile it was despite the traitor in the White House (because of the courage of Newt, I guess), and the downfall of the mid-’00s to today is solely the fault of nasty libruls (primarily Feminazi Uber Alles Nancy Pelosi) and more recently the (now negro!) traitor in the White House. I have an uncle who’s a rabid dittohead who’s fallen on rather hard times. It’s not his fault, though. It’s the industrious ant/lazy cricket fable and despite all real life evidence to the contrary, Rush Limbaugh has convinced him he’s actually the ant and that the crickets are living it up with their cable TV and cell phones. That mindset’s not changing, and I suspect most of the people who listened to him 15 years ago have the same unbending mentality. They just can feed their appetite for soul-soothing, rage-flavored catnip elsewhere now.
The real question re: Rush is one of legacy – did he create and inculcate that mentality in millions of now (politically-speaking) irredeemably lost reactionaries, or is 27% an immutable law of the universe and he just found their ear and whispered to them what they wanted to hear in a new way? I’m torn on this. I go mostly with the former. Probably no one in America has done more to corrode the national discourse than he. It is today so polarized, polemical, and childish mostly due to Rush Limbaugh. That didn’t have to be the case, even if there’s always been a chunk of people susceptible to his sort of preaching. But then again, why then wasn’t he marginalized 15 years ago?
Martin
@Linda Featheringill:
Just a guess, but when you feel entitled to critique while you’re getting nailed.
Martin
@Gin & Tonic: No, as Nutella points out, there wasn’t that kind of backlash against Imus when he called out the Rutgers players. That was every bit as personal and punching down, just not prolonged.
But that was a different kind of response. Imus had an implied ‘nigger’ in his statement, and we’ve institutionalized the consequence for that kind of racial slur because nobody can really survive that kind of a PR failure if you don’t fire someone over that. And because the NAACP and other groups are quite well organized at handling these situations sheerly out of practice. But the personal public outrage wasn’t there. It’s not like it made Imus a pariah – he was back on the radio before too long.
But there was no real moral outrage by white people. It was viewed as a technical foul “caught saying nigger, 5 yard penalty, loss of down”, the rule applied, and everything is as it should be. In the case of Sandra Fluke, even a lot of guys could look at her and say ‘She’s just like my daughter’. White people still have trouble looking at a black person being beaten down and saying “She’s just like my daughter”. And that’s the only thing that Rush can’t get away with – he usually plays into our prejudices and gets a pass, and this time he slipped up.
Kirbster
@Another Halocene Human: More or less:
Mike G
@Another Halocene Human:
Sad to say, my old employer was one of Rush’s earliest advertisers when his show was first syndicated to a handful of cities in the early 90s. The Rush-voiceovered radio ad was still running years later and customers would ask how we could afford big-famous Rush to do an ad for a small local business.
I’m GenX and was in my early 20s at the time. My peers, even the Repuke-leaning ones, weren’t listening to Rush — it was middle-aged guys, Boomers or older, the Korean War or WW2 generations like my boss.
harlana
tru, and most apropos – not that i like to bring up the subject but if we could peel back the layers and look into Rush’s own, um, personal habits, there would be some really, really sick, disturbing, vomitous stuff — also, he seems obsessed with the idea of paying for sex — is it really just that he resents like hell that he has to pay for whatever sick activities he engages in because no one finds him desirable enough to do it for free? in reality, he is paying his very young and attractive (although, apparently, devoid of scruples) wife for the same.
Elie
@Jay C:
Oh, I agree to some extent. However, he encountered a hard stop — for the first time. He may need another encounter with a hard stop but even an amoeba learns to avoid the shock and modifies or avoids certain things. No different here. Yes, he may ultimately return to his completely unchecked ways, but he has one eye open and he certainly can’t afford another encounter with “the stick” in the short term. Given his narcissism, he is still processing what happened. It would be a great time to give him another taste of the stick — . Lets see if he gives us that opportunity to “reinforce” his new conditioning…
mdblanche
@Linda Featheringill: If you are a woman and you can read this, Rush Limbaugh thinks you are overeducated.
forked tongue
Wonkette broke the news last night that another heaux site wants to buy up as much of that sweet Rush advertising action as it can glom onto:
http://wonkette.com/465855/free-speech-martyr-rush-limbaugh-gets-advertising-offer-from-hooker-site
I SO hope one of these fine companies starts advertising their nards off on Limbaugh’s show.
harlana
i guess there aren’t that many educated white women in the DR, which explains his fondness for visiting the place laden with off-market Vy-AG-ruh. he’s got the wife to keep up appearances but otherwise, you know, he’s just not that into it.
educated white women all over the world breathe a collective, heavy sigh of relief.
AA+ Bonds
I believe this speaks for me on the topic of Rush, women, and what we could expect from him in the days following the Fluke attack
Arclite
Heh, has Rush been watching Susie Sampson and the Tea Party Report again?
Julie
@Mike G: I agree on this. I’m kind of in that ‘shoulder season’ between GenX and the millennials — depending on which sociologist you believe, I’m either at the tail end of one or the very beginning of the other. 15+ years ago the only person my age I knew who listened to Rush was the president of the Young Republicans at my high school… well, and me, because my parents listened to him religiously (pun intended).
Everything I’ve ever read about GenX-ers says they trend more contrarian and cynical than the baby boomers, not necessarily more ‘conservative’ in political terms.
The Populist
@ElRushbo’s comment:
LOL, this coming from a guy who barely went to college. For the record, I am a classic “some college” guy. I found success and decided school wasn’t for me. I DO respect people smarter than me AND those who finished.
I believe you can’t judge people like that. Rush is just pissed that he sees all these educated people and deep down knows he’s not one.
I went back to school off and on for years to brush up on things or learn new ideas. I am a fan of educating oneself so it seems all too likely that Rush has an achilles heel, his lack of schooling.
I know guys who I went to high school with that get all defensive and uppity when the subject of degrees and college comes up. This is why I will be like Rush and assume this as fact because of my small sample size proof!