Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental crusader who got his start in the movement performing community service after a heroin conviction, thrust himself into a the evolving story about Rush Limbaugh and Sandra Fluke on Tuesday, calling Republican Sen. James Inhofe a “prostitute” and a “call girl.”
Days after Limbaugh’s on-air apology for his own transgression, the New York-based green activist and son of the late Sen. Bobby Kennedy upped the ante on Twitter.
“Speaking of prostitutes, big oil’s top call girl Sen Inhofe wants to kill fuel economy backed by automakers, small biz, enviros, & consumers,” he tweeted.
Kennedy’s comments came in response to a letter from the Oklahoma Republican to the EPA that questioned the Obama administration’s fuel and air pollution policies.
“Kennedy’s tweet crosses the line,” Inhofe spokesman Matt Dempsey said. “Especially in the wake of Limbaugh’s apology to a Georgetown University student after calling her a ‘prostitute’ during an on-air broadcast.”
Kennedy defended his comment later on Tuesday. “The context with which Mr. Limbaugh used it [the word ‘[prostitute] was wrong and immoral,” he told Politico. “But it’s not immoral in using it to apply to a politician who is selling his office.”
Political pundit Keith Olbermann defended Kenndy’s tweet on Wednesday with one of his own that read: “This just in: Sen. Inhofe is a male. And big oil DOES own him.”
Olbermann targeted Sen. Inhofe in 2010 on his “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” show, which MSNBC later canceled. The liberal broadcaster has found a home on Current TV, whose chairman is the ultra-green warrior and former senator Al Gore.
Kennedy upped the ante again Wednesday, pointing out in another tweet that “Sen Inhofe calls global warming ‘the largest hoax ever played on the American public’ & environmentalists ‘the gestapo’ & the ‘Third Reich.'”
