Conservative women are fair game

It's more than a little amusing to see liberals cover their mouths and feign a gasp over the Sandra Fluke deal. She's the Georgetown student who testified before Congress about contraception. Talk show host Rush Limbaugh made fun of the testimony and inappropriately stretched the riff to the point of calling the woman a "slut."

It was an unbecoming and unnecessary slur for a conservative commentator. Limbaugh's criticism of Fluke was fine (and entertaining for his purposes), but he crossed the civility line to use that kind of language. Limbaugh has apologized, as he rightly should.

But here's the rub: Today liberals came out of the woodwork to condemn Limbaugh, post apology. And last week President Obama took time out to call Fluke and give her a presidential pat on the head.

There's nothing wrong with that if the president and the others were consistent.

Conservative women Michelle Malkin and Kirsten Powers give us a good rundown this morning of others who said such things (and much worse). But when conservative women are attacked, there's hardly a rebuke from liberals and certainly no calls from the president.

• "Ed Schultz said on his radio show that Sarah Palin set off a 'bimbo alert.' He called Laura Ingraham a 'right-wing slut.' (He later apologized.)"

• Keith Olbermann said conservative commentator S.E. Cupp should have been aborted by her parents. He called Malkin a “mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick.”

• "Left-wing darling Matt Taibbi wrote on his blog in 2009, 'When I read [Malkin’s] stuff, I imagine her narrating her text, book-on-tape style, with a big, hairy set of balls in her mouth.'" Taibbi, in a profile of congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, called her “batshit crazy.”

• Chris Matthews, who favored Obama over Hillary Clinton in 2008, called Clinton a “she-devil,” “Nurse Ratched,” “Madame Defarge, “witchy,” “anti-male” and “uppity.” He's said worse things about  Palin and Bachmann.

• Bill Maher, who gave Obama $1 million, called Palin a “dumb twat” and the "C-word."

• As the reigning queen of double standards, Democratic National Chairwoman Debbie Wasseman-Schultz said Limbaugh‘s apology was too little, too late. She said that calling a woman a "slut" isn't funny in any context. This from a woman who appears on Bill "dumb twat" Maher's show regularly.

So, Mr. President, if you are going to make a "there-there" phone call to women treated shabbily in public discourse, may I suggest that you have your hands full just on your side of the aisle. And, while you are at it, you might want to fire Ms. Wasserman-Schultz and give Maher his million dollars back.

But of course that would imply that the presidential outrage about Fluke is sincere. Put to the consistency test, I don't think it is.