Rush Limbaugh – are you sitting down? – apologizes:
For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week. In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke … My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.
I note that Limbaugh hasn't apologized yet on the air in the same context as he called another human being a "slut" he wanted to make a sex tape he could masturbate to. I note also that uses the same terminology as Santorum did when referring to this: "absurdity." Hmmm. This is the "I was only kidding – I'm an entertainer" defense. He is an entertainer except when he isn't, of course. But the apology to Fluke should be taken as genuine, and also as a sign of something deeper.
In the culture wars, the right increasingly has more to lose than to win, as I recently noted. Listen to Limbaugh:
In my monologue, I posited that it is not our business whatsoever to know what is going on in anyone's bedroom nor do I think it is a topic that should reach a Presidential level.
Santorum seems to realize he has over-reached as well. Krauthammer notes exactly what I did in the live-blog of last Tuesday night:
Remember that odd riff with which he began his Michigan concession/victory speech? About three generations of Santorum women — mother, wife, daughter — being professional, strong, independent, i.e., modern? That was an unsubtle attempt to update his gender-relations image by a few decades.
In the last debate, Santorum scuttled away from a subject, contraception, he was only recently willing to say he would talk about during his presidency. Krauthammer cautions:
The less said about contraception the better, a lesson Santorum refused to learn. It’s a settled question. The country has no real desire for cringe-inducing admonitions from politicians about libertinism and procreative (vs. pleasurable) sex.
Which is to say that Andrew Breitbart's legacy, summed up by Sister Toldjah as "Apologize For WHAT?" lasted a few days.
And Limbaugh, of all people, ended it.
The Dish 