WASHINGTON, D.C. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Last Wednesday, February 29, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh set off a media firestorm by attacking a Georgetown Law student, Sandra Fluke, for her advocacy of making contraception available to all women. Limbaugh chided Fluke for arguing before Congress that the expenses for her birth control should be covered by her employer's health care plan. He then called her a "slut" and accused her of "having so much sex she can't afford her own birth control pills." On Thursday, March 1, following of day of censure and demands for apologies, Limbaugh took his position with Fluke a step further and said: "If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it, and I'll tell you what it is: We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch." Limbaugh faced harsh criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike. The rare exception was Mitt Romney, who said, "It’s not the language I would have used." He allegedly sent Limbaugh a more family friendly list of slurs for loose women on Monday evening.
Limbaugh's statements generated so much ire that the bomb squad had to be called to his home to investigate a suspicious package. It turned out to be a giant box of pornography and Oxycontin that Limbaugh boastfully admitted to purchasing himself, "without crying to the government to help bankroll my deviant predilections -- unlike that horny Feminazi, Ms. Fluke."
Not only did Limbaugh endure almost a week of public outrage, he also lost several advertisers including Quicken Loans, the maker of Sleep Number beds, Citrix, Carbonite, LegalZoom and ProFlowers, which said it was pulling its sponsorship to ensure that its product "wasn't causing Mr. Limbaugh to think his s**t smelled like roses."
Even Rick Santorum and John Boehner rebuked Limbaugh for his inappropriate on-air name-calling. However, it appears that the conservative icon still has a friend and ally in White House hopeful Mitt Romney.
On Monday, representatives from Mr. Romney's campaign said they had been tasked with helping Mr. Limbaugh select more appropriate aspersions.
"As Mitt said, those weren't the words he would have chosen," a campaign aide told reporters. "Mitt understands that a public-facing figure must choose derogatory names more carefully. So, at Mitt's request, we've compiled a list of synonyms for Mr. Limbaugh to use against Ms. Fluke and others in the future. The new names include 'tart,' 'strumpet,' 'hussy,' 'shameless hussy,' 'harlot,' 'floozy,' 'Jezebel' and 'tramp.' We've run these humiliating labels by regulators and clergy, and they agree that these ignominies are a lot less offensive to audiences."
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