Two years after he was widely vilified for suggesting that Sandra Fluke was a "slut" and "prostitute" for insisting that other people -- taxpayers or insurance companies, she wasn't picky -- pay for her birth control, Rush Limbaugh asked a question about Fluke today on his radio show that we're unlikely to hear from what he derides as the "drive-by media."
Fluke, who somehow survived her brutish treatment by Limbaugh to land a prime-time speaking gig at the Democratic National Convention that year, right before Bill Clinton aptly enough, is running for state senate in California. That she might get elected is due largely to Limbaugh's role in making Fluke a public figure. Poor thing, the fame she's had to endure as a rock star on the left, where they robotically view people they admire as rock stars, has been hellish. (Audio after the jump)
Do you remember Sandra ... I can never remember how to pronounce her name. It's spelled 'Fluke' but I don't think anybody wants to be called a 'fluke', so I think she calls herself 'fluk'. It's a risk either way you pronounce it, right? Anyway, we all know who she came upon the public consciousness. She arrived on the scene as a Georgetown Law student testifying in a mock congressional hearing, it was a TV ad, it was made to look like an official hearing but it wasn't, it was just a campaign ad. And she was testifying about the hardships that she and other similarly aged and conditioned women faced with the high cost of birth control.
She figured that given her, whatever, that it would cost her something like $3,000 a year and she wanted this to be part of Obamacare and that was the phony faux ad, testifying before a supposed congressional committee. Well, this caused us to (wonder) -- $3,000 a month for this? Found out it cost $9 a month over the counter, we said whoa! How much of this is going on? And we started raising questions. Why in the world should this be something all the rest of us should pay for? Particularly when, if you don't want to get pregnant, there's a certain thing that you just don't do, it has consequences and that's what you want to avoid. And then I was chastened because I sounded like I was somebody who was against sex and I'm not against sex. But I also don't think that contraception and all of that should be part of Obamacare.
Can somebody, can at least one group of people accept responsibility for their lives in this country? Can not one group do it? Can just one person say they're not going to feed off the public?! Can just one person stand up and say, you know what? I'm going to live on what I provide myself. Apparently not. Apparently everybody seems to want everybody else to pay for what they want.Well, this irritated me and it resulted in characterizations which required an explanation and an apology. However, Miss Fluke is back. The Washington Examiner -- "Liberal darling and free birth-control advocate is her own biggest donor in her state senate race, according to official California campaign finance reports. Sandra Fluke donated $12,000 to her own campaign and an additional $4,800 in non-monetary contributions. While $16,800 may not sound like a lot, she also loaned her campaign an additional $100,000."
Now where does a 2012 law school grad working as a social justice attorney begging all of us to pay for her birth control come up with $100,000 to donate to her campaign? I take it back -- where does she come up with $16,000 to donate to her campaign? And how does she go out and get a loan of $100,000? The Washington Examiner called her campaign and sought answers to these questions and they never responded, so nobody knows.
But what is wrong with this picture? She donates $12,000 to her campaign and $4,826.27 in non-monetary donations, which means hotel rooms and stuff like that, things which impute to cash value, and then loaned her campaign $100,000. Now, birth control costs about $10 a month and this woman went on a fake TV commercial begging all of us to pay for her monthly birth control because it was so expensive and it was so tough and so challenging for college students to afford. So I'm asking the same question the Washington Examiner asks -- how does this happen? Just asking the question.
Good question at that. Interesting to see if Fluke responds to Limbaugh's criticism. Last time she did in the guise of a victimized Little Bo Beep, though she more closely resembles Sigourney Weaver's alleged damsel in distress in "Working Girl." With any luck, Fluke will have belatedly learned the old saw that politics ain't beanbag.
