The very sorry Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh, that infected pimple on the swollen nose of conservative talk-radio, has apologized for attacking someone on his show. Quick, go buy lottery tickets. Check the sky for flying pigs.

After witnessing the early stages of a mass-exodus from his advertisers, earlier today Rush issued your basic "sorry I'm not sorry" official apology for calling Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke, among other things, a slut.

He also called her a prostitute, referred to a former Speaker of the House as "Botox-filled Nancy Pelosi," and implied that Ms. Fluke's parents must be ashamed over their daughter's testimony. These are just the highlights of his tirade on Wednesday. Listen to the whole rant if you want, but remove all breakable items from the area -- you'll want to throw things.

He went on to hurl even more horrible insults at Ms. Fluke in particular and at women in general. Taking a page from Foster Friess' book on birth control, Mr. Enlightenment offered to pay for enough aspirin for all female Georgetown students to keep between their legs. He also said that if the taxpayers are going to supply the birth control, they should be able to watch the consumers of said B.C. have sex. Hell, he'd already called women sluts and prostitutes -- why not make the jump to porn stars?

So by saying, "Sorry for my choice of words, next time I slander a woman's reputation I'll use a more grown-up word for 'promiscuous,'" it's all ok, right? The hatred and vitriol behind his words is all forgiven, as long as he doesn't use the word "slut" again. He's definitely learned his lesson this time, that Rush.

Before I continue with thoughtful analysis, I'm just going to get this out of the way: Rush Limbaugh is trash.

Three wives have already decided that they would rather be alone than live in matrimony with him, and I wouldn't bet on the staying power of Mrs. Rush Limbaugh #4. He's a hateful, drug-addled little man whose mother probably hated him, leaving him to deal with his crippling mommy issues on the radio. A misogynist and a bigot who cashes in on the hate of his similarly socially-stunted listeners, he can probably only get it up (whatever little of it there is) by watching re-runs of Newt Gingrich speeches.

Whew! I needed to get that out.

The point isn't that Rush used specific words to insult Ms. Fluke -- it's that he resorted to this type of ugly name-calling to insult any woman who would dare to stand up for herself. This language is used to put women down, to make them feel small, to make them feel embarrassed and ashamed of taking control of their bodies. This is bullying, plain and simple.

Democrats love to paint Rush as the spokesman for the GOP, and the GOP denies this characterization carefully as it tries not to alienate the base. But listening to the political discourse of recent weeks, I have to believe that Rush speaks for a much larger percentage of conservatives that the GOP establishment would like to admit.

How else does one explain the legislation passed in Virginia last week? The state-required trans-vaginal ultrasound is simply a way for the state to shame women at a time when they are vulnerable. The Virginia legislature has made its message to women clear: If you're stupid enough to be in this situation, you don't deserve our respect.

What about Senator Blunt's thankfully-defeated amendment to allow bosses to determine what courses of treatment are "moral" enough to be paid for? This is what I heard: You don't deserve the right to choose if your choices are not as "moral" as mine.

Or Mitt Romney, the likely GOP presidential nominee and about as mainstream R as one can get, saying this about Rush's attack on women: "I'll just say this, which is, it's not the language I would have used." Again, the message was fine, he just wouldn't have been so crude in his delivery.

The conclusion I have to draw is that Rush says, in more inflammatory and offensive language, what GOP legislators are thinking.

Unfortunately, Rush Limbaugh has the luxury of not having to campaign. No one calls for his resignation when he offends millions; rather, his listeners cheer. He's a kazillionaire with the highest-rated talk show in the country. If some advertisers pull out, big deal. He could buy up all the advertising for his show and not even feel it. I bet that by next Tuesday he'll have walked back this "apology" so far that Ms. Fluke will be a slut again.

Explicit or implicit, these attacks on women are as disgusting as they are pervasive in GOP policies. They serve to demean, to shame, and to silence. That's not acceptable anywhere, anytime, and it's certainly not acceptable in 2012. This is not political correctness gone crazy: this is decency, and that is something to which women are entitled.

And Rush: one final word to you. The amount of sex one is having has no effect on the amount of birth control pills one must take to avoid pregnancy. If you knew anything about female anatomy, you would know that -- you sorry excuse for a man.