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Another inappropriate venue for Rush

Why would the Miss America pageant want the misogynist Limbaugh as a judge?

By MARCIA KUNTZ and JULIE MILLICAN

Last update: October 28, 2009 - 12:46 PM

Rush Limbaugh has once again found himself the subject of national attention, this time for his failed bid to become a part owner of the NFL's St. Louis Rams. After the world was reminded of Limbaugh's history of racially charged commentary, the group trying to buy the team rightly realized that Limbaugh's involvement in the effort could cripple their chances. Rush was dropped.

Which is exactly how he should be treated by the Miss America Pageant.

Limbaugh is reportedly slated to be a Miss America judge in 2010, in spite of the deep-seated misogyny that he has broadcast nationwide throughout his career. The pageant presents itself as "one of the nation's leading achievement programs and the world's largest provider of scholarship assistance for young women," and is adamant that its contestants compete on far more than their appearance.

So why would the pageant want to compromise this image by hosting a judge with a record like Limbaugh's? Rush famously declared that his cat has "taught" him "more about women, than anything my whole life" because his cat is "smart enough to know she can't feed herself" and gets "loved," "adoration," "petted," and "fed," without having "to do anything for it."

He has speculated that women "would love to be hired as eye candy" and has claimed that "[w]omen still live longer than men because their lives are easier."

Limbaugh has ridiculed what he calls the "sexual harassment crowd," by saying, "They're out there protesting what they actually wish would happen to them." He regularly refers to feminists as "femi-nazis," while maintaining that "feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society."

After airing a segment of a report on conservative talk radio by CNN's Carol Costello, Limbaugh said of Costello, whom he called his "stalker": "Carol, you need to go sit on a fire hydrant and improve your day."

Rush frequently laments the "chickification" of our society, particularly in the government and the media.

In Rush's world, female media figures, some of whom are actually former Miss America pageant winners, are "infobabes" or "anchorettes"; female professors are "professorettes"; the cable network MSNBC is dubbed "PMS-NBC," and female Cabinet secretaries find their title changed to "sexretary."

He has shared with listeners his "pet name" for the National Organization for Women (NOW): "National Association of Gals" (his acronym: "NAG"). When former Sen. John Edwards disclosed an extramarital affair, Limbaugh offered the following theory as to Edwards' "motivations": "[G]iven his wife is smarter than he is and probably nagging him a lot about doing this, and he found somebody that did something with her mouth other than talk."

After Nancy Pelosi became the country's first female speaker of the House, Limbaugh said: "Why, she can multitask. She can breastfeed, she can clip her toenails, she can direct the House." Limbaugh also thinks a great idea for population control would be to "simply put pictures of" Pelosi "in every cheap motel room." That picture, Limbaugh said, "will keep a lot of things down."

Perhaps no leading female figure has been a more frequent target of Limbaugh's sexist wrath than Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Besides frequently warning of her "testicle lockbox," Limbaugh has said that Clinton "reminds men of the worst characteristics of women they've encountered over their life: totally controlling, not soft and cuddly. Not sympathetic. Not patient. Not understanding. Demanding, domineering, Nurse Ratched kind of thing." He calls Clinton "the most cheated-on woman in the world," describes her supporters as the "new castrati," and once said of Clinton: "She sounds like a screeching ex-wife. ... Men will know what I mean by this." He's repeatedly mocked her physical appearance, frequently referring to her as a man and several times claiming that Clinton wasn't in the military because "they didn't have uniforms or boots big enough to fit that butt and those ankles."

Based on this abysmal record, it's hard to imagine what Miss America pageant officials were thinking when they selected Limbaugh as a judge.

Marcia Kuntz and Julie Millican are vice president and senior researcher, respectively, at Media Matters for America (www.mediamatters.org), a progressive media watchdog, research, and information center based in Washington.

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