It's Always A Conspiracy: Rush Limbaugh's Reliable Misogyny Edition
Written by Ben Dimiero
Published
Many conservatives are attempting to prove that the White House has been pulling the strings on the Sandra Fluke story since the beginning. Apparently, they are somehow under the impression that unearthing White House involvement would lessen the abhorrence of Rush Limbaugh's three-day misogynistic tirade against her.
Last night on The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly set out to determine “Who Is Running Sandra Fluke?” Based on the fact that she is now being represented by former White House communications director Anita Dunn's PR agency, O'Reilly alleged that “this whole deal comes back to the White House, at least indirectly.”
O'Reilly segment has since been touted a potential smoking gun by conservatives. As interpreted by The Daily Caller, O'Reilly suggested “that the young woman was indirectly planted at the center of the contraception controversy by the Obama administration.” But O'Reilly's story proves nothing.
Responding to conservatives' questions about whether he knew of Anita Dunn's involvement when he interviewed Fluke last week, ABC's Jake Tapper explained that Dunn's PR firm started representing Fluke “pro bono on Monday of this week.” Prior to that, per Tapper, she was fielding media requests herself, which effectively destroys the conspiracy theory that the White House has been orchestrating the Fluke saga through Dunn's firm since the beginning.
More importantly, whether or not the White House was involved in Fluke's appearance is beside the point; these theories are nonsensical. Conservatives are the real reason Fluke has become a national figure.
She was denied a spot testifying at a congressional panel on the contraception mandate by House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA). Fluke was then invited to testify at a meeting arranged by Nancy Pelosi. Fluke's testimony would have garnered a brief flurry of coverage and almost certainly have long faded from the news cycle had it not been for one thing: Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh's now-infamous ranting about how Fluke is a “slut” and a “prostitute” turned the Fluke testimony into a major, week-long (and counting) national news story.
If conservative conspiracy theorists are to be believed, Rush Limbaugh's rampant misogyny is reliable enough to somehow be part of the master plan.
On Tuesday's The Five, Fox's Eric Bolling alleged, that “President Obama, on the ropes with the economy, and specifically with women voters, gets Mrs. Fluke to create a controversy, and the liberal mainstream media puppets play along as scripted.”
Diabolical.