On the national weekend radio show "Both Sides Now With Huffington and Matalin," Arianna Huffington was replaced this weekend with disgraced former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. So when the topic of Sandra Fluke came up, radio listeners were treated to Eliot Spitzer declaring that Republicans will lose "moderate, centrist, independent women" due to Rush Limbaugh's language.
Spitzer also attacked the Virginia statute requiring an external ultrasound as part of informed consent before an abortion, insisting it went "way beyond" what was medically necessary and was a "dramatic invasion" of a woman's rights. Spitzer is best known for being on the wrong side of the prostitution statutes at Washington's Mayflower Hotel. The fact that Arianna or any other liberal media figures (like the executives at CNN) think he can credibly discuss outrage toward women is something to behold. The "moderator" of the radio show, Naderite leftist Mark Green, asked Spitzer to describe how Limbaugh would hurt the GOP:
GREEN: Did it entrench a view among moderate women that Republicans, he’s a big Republican, are hostile to women’s health issues?
SPITZER: I think it certainly was part of the arc of a larger story that has been out there for weeks and therefore it does crystallize something, now whether that lasts until November as an electoral matter, I don’t know. But if you add it together with the Virginia contraception [sic] law that had been a debate point for a few days, if you add it to all the defunding issues on Capitol Hill, it all begins to become part of one larger storyline. Obviously, his [Limbaugh's] language – reprehensible, and of a different sort. The others are legitimate policy debates, but I think it does have a very negative political impact on a Republican party that needs moderate, centrist, independent women, and it's gonna have a hard time persuading those women to vote for that party this fall with this backdrop.
Like all the other Democrats, Spitzer pretends that President Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius had nothing to do with raising the issue of contraceptives by mandating that health insurance companies must pay for everyone's contraception. It mysteriously all starts with conservatives. Obama (or in this case, the Democrats and media outlets that promoted Sandra Fluke's horror stories) didn't push any buttons:
SPITZER: In this instance, it wasn’t the president who was doing the aggravating or pushing any buttons. I think it was Rush Limbaugh’s language. But at a larger level, take out the pure financing of it, which as I said, is a legitmate issue for people to debate on Capitol Hill. But the Virginia statute that I think went way beyond – in terms of its requirements of medical intervention, on top of –
GREEN: Well, it was a trans-vaginal probe that was dropped from the final language, so now --
SPITZER: After significant outrage.
GREEN: Correct....
SPITZER: It’s still a dramatic invasion, you know, of a woman’s health rights from my perspective, and I think from the Supreme Court’s perspective. Put that aside. Mary, I think this coalesces into a real political problem for a lot of centrist women who don’t think about it in terms of dollars and cents, but as a mindset and a Republican perspective about their own privacy and well-being.
There you have it, Eliot Spitzer, the guardian of women's well-being -- or at least, if he impregnated a high-priced prostitute, he wouldn't want her to undergo a humiliating ultrasound. Matalin went back to attacking Bill Maher, and said in comparison to Limbaugh, at best, "I think we’re at a draw.” Green and Spitzer, like most liberals, want to claim Jon Stewart and Bill Maher are just rib-ticklers, not serious pundits:
GREEN: I ask innocently, Mary, is there a difference when a comedian – Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, who you’re talking about, David Letterman – make completely, um, jokes about Jews and women and gays and blacks as part of their routine, and no one really blinks at it, as opposed to a commentator who is more of a serious political commentator, who spoke at CPAC and is regarded as a Republican leader. Are their lines to be drawn, or is that impossible?...
SPITZER: The issue isn’t even vitriol. There can be vitriol but expressed in a way that is somewhat modulated. This was –
MATALIN: The C word?
SPITZER: No, no. I’m not justrifying that. Trust me. I never would justify that.
GREEN: Nor does Eliot have a comedy show on HBO.
SPITZER: Mark’s point is the larger one. There is a difference between parody and humor, where we accept all kinds of outrageousness, and Rush Limbaugh, who’s trying to be a very thoughtful political commentator. Even in the Supreme Court argument I attended a couple of weeks ago, they recognize parody is different. Most people understand Jon Stewart is parody. That’s not what Rush Limbaugh was talking about.
The show played Limbaugh's remarks about how we were all "pimps" for Sandra Fluke and wanted to see videotapes of the sex she had. Limbaugh apologized for this routine. Do liberals really think that was dead serious? It's amazing they can hear Eliot Spitzer calmly describe "trans-vaginal probes" without suggesting he's probably not a credible defender of women's integrity.
