(FOX NEWS)
House Speaker John Boehner’s office on Friday scolded Rush Limbaugh after the conservative radio host called a Georgetown Law student a “slut” for her testimony on the importance of free contraceptive coverage.
Sandra Fluke testified at an ad hoc hearing last week pulled together by Democrats — it was a response to a hearing held by Republicans where witnesses bashed the administration’s contraceptive coverage mandate.
Though Boehner opposes the mandate, spokesman Michael Steel said in a statement that “the speaker obviously believes the use of those words was inappropriate” — in reference to Limbaugh’s remarks.
Steel also said Boehner thought it was inappropriate to try to “raise money off the situation,” a reference to efforts by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and other Democrats to make hay out of Limbaugh’s comments.
A day earlier, dozens of congressional Democrats had signed a letter to Boehner urging Republicans to condemn the language.
“Mr. Limbaugh repeatedly used sexually charged, patently offensive, and obscene language to malign the character of this courageous young woman who has chosen to be the voice for many of her peers,” Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., wrote in the letter signed by more than 75 other lawmakers, urging Republicans to condemn the “atrocious and hurtful words.”
Fluke also released a statement saying: “No woman deserves to be disrespected in this manner.”
Fluke complained at the hearing last week about how much she and other students pay for birth control because Georgetown, a Catholic university, won’t cover it.
Limbaugh then said on his show that the student was effectively arguing that the students “must be paid to have sex.”
“What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right. It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex, she can’t afford the contraception,” he said.
Limbaugh, though, was not cowed by what he described as the left’s “outright conniption fit.”
“Why go before a congressional committee and demand that all of us (pay)? Because they want to have sex any time. … I mean, they’re going broke having to buy contraception,” he said.
