Politics

Limbaugh spokesman responds to rape analogy outrage: Critics ‘simply lying’

Jeff Poor Media Reporter
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Conservative talk host Rush Limbaugh is swinging back at critics who are outraged about comments he made on his show Friday.

Limbaugh made a reference to rape in reference to the trampling of minority opinion in the U.S. Senate after Majority Leader Harry Reid’s use of the “nuclear option,” which lowers the bar for confirmation of executive nominees and non-Supreme Court judicial nominees.

“Let’s forget the Senate for a minute,” Limbaugh said. “Let’s say, let’s take 10 people in a room and they’re a group. And the room is made up of six men and four women. OK? The group has a rule that the men cannot rape the women. The group also has a rule that says any rule that will be changed must require six votes, of the 10, to change the rule. Every now and then, some lunatic in the group proposes to change the rule to allow women to be raped. But they never were able to get six votes for it. There were always the four women voting against it and they always found two guys.

“Well, the guy that kept proposing that women be raped finally got tired of it, and he was in the majority and he was one that said, ‘You know what? We’re going to change the rule. Now all we need is five,’” Limbaugh continued. “And well, ‘You can’t do that.’ ‘Yes we are. We’re the majority. We’re changing the rule.’ And then they vote. Can the women be raped? Well, all it would take then is half of the room. You can change the rule to say three. You can change the rule to say three people want it, it’s going to happen. There’s no rule. When the majority can change the rules there aren’t any.”

Immediately, liberal groups sprang into action to attack Limbaugh after his comments were picked up by left-wing propaganda group Media Matters, liberal media criticism website Mediaite and Politico.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s Justin Barasky demanded in an email, “Will Republicans Condemn Limbaugh’s Filth?”

A tweet from Democratic National Committee chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida called Limbaugh a “disgrace.”


 

But a spokesman for Limbaugh downplayed the remarks and accused Democrats trying to frame the comments as being flippant about rape of “simply lying.”

“Rush Limbaugh has spent 25 years illustrating absurdity by using extrapolated analogies,” the spokesman said in an email to The Daily Caller. “Anyone who calls this anything different than that is simply lying.”

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