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The More You Know

Thank You, Kirsten Powers For Reminding Us Limbaugh Is Not The Only Sexist Media Man


Fox News contributor Kirsten Powers takes a fairly uncommon stance in a new Daily Beast column titled, “Rush Limbaugh Isn’t the Only Media Misogynist” in which she argues that left-leaning media men experience less backlash for making sexist remarks than Rush Limbaugh and other conservative commentators.

Referring the nationwide outrage that resulted from Limbaugh calling Georgetown University student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute,” Powers said the radio host’s words deserved a boycott but that “the army of swine on the left” — namely Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews (*ehem*), Matt Taibbi, and Ed Schultz — don’t receive the same public stoning for their equally offensive misogynistic comments.

Powers goes on to list some of the wildly offensive things these more liberal pundits have said about right-leaning women and behind. Declaring Maher the “grand pooh-bah of media misogyny,” Powers recalls the time he used the “c” word to describe former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and labeled her a “dumb twat.” Powers also mentions the underplayed instance in which Maher took a swipe at GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s spouse:

“He recently made a joke about Rick Santorum’s wife using a vibrator. Imagine now the same joke during the 2008 primary with Michelle Obama’s name in it, and tell me that he would still have a job. Maher said of a woman who was harassed while breast-feeding at an Applebee’s, ‘Don’t show me your tits!’ as though a woman feeding her child is trying to flash Maher. (Here’s a way to solve his problem: don’t stare at a strangers’ breasts). Then, his coup de grâce: ‘And by the way, there is a place where breasts and food do go together. It’s called Hooters!’”

She also has a few words for “left-wing darling Matt Taibbi,” whom we already knew isn’t the most tactful individual:

“When I read [Malkin’s] stuff, I imagine her narrating her text, book-on-tape style, with a big, hairy set of balls in her mouth.’ In a Rolling Stone article about Secretary of State Clinton, he referred to her ‘flabby arms.’ When feminist writer Erica Jong criticized him for it, he responded by referring to Jong as an ’800-year old sex novelist.’ (Jong is almost 70, which apparently makes her an irrelevant human being.) In Taibbi’s profile of Congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann he labeled her ‘batshit crazy.’”

Powers ends her piece stating that it’s “time for some equal-opportunity accountability” and that without it, the fight against media misogyny could backfire. Good riddance to that.

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  • Anonymous

    shes a moron…there might be a few bad seeds on the left…but sexism is ingrained in the republican mindset…they all believe that crap…and are all bozo’s

  • Anonymous

    Hello,

    Thank you for your input. I think she is trying to say that there’s a double standard for conservatives and liberals. If a left-leaning man makes a sexist remark, he does not receive the same public stoning as a right-leaning misogynistic male. Sexist views are harmful regardless of party affiliation, and the “few bad seeds” to which you refer aren’t doing their party any favors. 

  • Anonymous

    And you are Brainless if you think that Mysogeny and sexism are only on the right!

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/HXLNAEL7G4ZLFQMTSL3GHNYOU4 Don

    It is better to give than to receive

  • Anonymous

    your a moron if you dont…its just one of the many facets of republican hatred

  • Sgtmaj2005

    You’re an idiot stick…

  • Anonymous

    Yo! Leo…Get back in your hole…Lets have a few of the ‘bad seeds’. Like many…Guilt on both sides but you only criticise one. That Little Boy, makes you a partisan fool!

  • mona

    Not a double standard. Limbaugh picked on a private citizen. These other people were public figures. The young woman in question did nothing to get the kind of  treatment from this moron!!!  I don’t condone any of the remarks from Maher  but I do know that palin and malkin are provocative and can handle stupid. This girl did not deserve this kind of tirade. THREE DAYS!!

  • Jthefish32

    You’re ideologically shallow, intellectually blind to reality, and clearly an asshole. And the real irony is that you sound a little like a misogynist yourself. The real pity is your screen name: tolstoy77. Particularly the 77 part. My guess is that it puts you at about my age, which is really embarrassing to me. Check out the movie “idiocracy” you’d like it.

  • Jthefish32

    If you appear before a congressional committe willfully, you cease to be a private figure.

  • ZorlacJZ

    She is in NO way a private citizen. She has been a feminist activist for quite awhile. Good try though Moonbat

  • Scrlston73

    I tend not to listen to anyone who doesn’t know the difference between “your” and “you’re.”

    “Your a moron.”  Oh the irony!

  • Bluto

    Okay, another private citizen who voluntarily went before a kangaroo committee to admit that she needs the taxpayers to subsidize her sex life.  There’s a difference between health care and lifestyle choices.  Another simple point that eludes you left-wing schmendricks.

  • http://twitter.com/Seanmj63376 Sean Johnson

    Who was the private citizen? Did Rush make fun of Joe the Plumber?

  • LittleLessDouche

    Doesn’t matter if someone is private or public citizen, sexist comments are still sexist. If you’re going to criticize someone, do it responsibly and like an adult. Calling Palin a “twat” puts her down for being a woman, not for being stupid, which is what makes him sexist. 

  • ALittleLessDouche

    Thanks for making the same mistake Limbaugh received all the backlash for, for thinking that the issue is about sex and lifestyle choices. 1) It’s about health. The whole point that Fluke made, that Limbaugh ignored, was about a friend of hers who needed to be on the pills for ovarian cysts, not a sexually recreational lifestyle. 2) Viagra is covered by most medical insurers but birth control isn’t. That seem right to you? 3) Unwanted pregnancies cost taxpayers an estimated $11 billion a year in social costs and lost productivity. How’s that for subsidizing someone’s healthcare costs?

  • http://twitter.com/Jeanabella Jean

    Rush is going the way of Beck, as it is becoming out of fashion to be a right wing nut job (RWNJ) these days.
    Palin is now a national joke as she should be and the ugly can be seen everywhere there is the right wing.
    The misogyny is prevalent in the world. Women and men are victims of this every day everywhere.
     Children in the future will be taught about misogyny and the fallout of it in society and someday it will be thought of as a disease of the past. This is of course a fantasy of mine and hopefully others.
      BTW, using an example of bad behavior on the part of others, is not an excuse for bad behavior.
    Canada won’t allow Fox to get a license to broadcast because they aren’t a real news organization, but an entertainment outlet.

  • Anonymous

    I don’t think anyone can disagree with her on Maher and Taibbi, but she failed to back her comment on the other three.  Nonetheless, I know that Schultz made a denigrating once to a public figure, but he quickly apologized for his insulting word  Whether it was him or his employer’s idea I don’t know, but he claims he took himself off the air for a week and indeed was off the air for a week like he claims.  The other problem with her comment is that Rush not only make his comment on one day, but he reinforced his comment the following two days and the person he attacked was a private person, not a public figure who had much better access to a microphone and the press. He too has done this same type of thing before, but instead were racist comments which he seems to also do a regular basis.  No one seems to call him out on these type of comments.

    It also seems Rush must be bored with his radio show and is playing a game with himself to see how far he can go before someone tries to stop him.  For instance, after Sarah Palin got all over Obama’s chief of staff for using the word “retarded” in a closed staff meeting, Rush got on the air the next day or very shortly afterwards and repeated the “r” word three times without any repercussions from Palin.  Palin’s response was he was using the word as satire, which if you listened to how he said it, it didn’t seem to be the case at all.  By Palin making that statement, she not only showed her fear of Rush, but also showed us her hypocrisy.  

  • Pearl

    It is easy to see why things are so bad in America by the levels to which many of the commentators above stoop.They hurl invectives and use vulgar language against those who do not agree with them. So much for mature, civil discourse. It is unfortunate that serious matters cannot be discussed without resorting to to this kind of immature discourse.

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