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George Stepanopoulos of ABC News ran a piece Sunday after George Will appeared on This Week saying: George Will: Republican Leaders Are Afraid of Rush Limbaugh

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh has been inundated with criticismafter calling Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University student who testified before a House committee about contraception, a “slut” and a “prostitute.” But while Democrats have fiercely condemned the comments, Republicans’ ire has been significantly more muted. ABC’s George Will told me Sunday on “This Week” that GOP leaders have steered clear of harshly denouncing Limbaugh’s comments because “Republican leaders are afraid of Rush Limbaugh. ”“[House Speaker John] Boehner comes out and says Rush’s language was inappropriate. Using the salad fork for your entrée, that’s inappropriate. Not this stuff,” Will said. “And it was depressing because what it indicates is that the Republican leaders are afraid of Rush Limbaugh. They want to bomb Iran, but they’re afraid of Rush Limbaugh.”

ABC News political analyst Matthew Dowd said the Republicans’ apprehension to say anything negative about the conservative big hitter is based on the “myth” that Limbaugh influences a large number of Republican voters.“I think the problem is the Republican leaders, Mitt Romney and the other candidates, don’t have the courage to say what they say in quiet, which, they think Rush Limbaugh is a buffoon,” Dowd said. ”They think he is like a clown coming out of a small car at a circus. It’s great he is entertaining and all that. But nobody takes him seriously.”

It is an embarrassing fact for the GOP, but it's no surprise. I know this might seem like news to the MSM, but come, on. I actually don't believe they believe it's news, but since George Will said it, ABC ran with it. Let's just go back to March of 2009 when a couple of Republicans challenged Rush after he attacked their leadership.

Rush Limbaugh attacks Michael Steele and then Steele apologizes to RushBo.

Rush Limbaugh came out firing against the RNC's new leader Michael Steele after Steele criticised him on CNN. And as usual, the Republican bows down to the altar of Limbaugh and begs forgiveness. Limbaugh spanks Steele and tells him exactly what Steele's job is and what he should do and how he should do it.

STEELE: So let’s put it into context here. Let’s put it into context here. Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh, his whole thing is entertainment. Yes, it’s incendiary. Yes, it’s ugly.

Rush replies:

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Gearing up for Super Tuesday and a super week here at C&L!

The New Civil Rights Movement:  How Rush Limbaugh's 'Apology' Destroys Any Credibility He Had Left on the Right

Cognitive Dissidence: Scott Walker's Fraud on the People of Wisconsin

Scary Lawyer Guy: Laws Of General Applicability, Or Why the Church Was All Wet on Contraception

Liberal Land: Minnesota State Rep Compares Food Stamp Recipients to Wild Animals

Round up by Swimgirl -- send tips to MBRU AT crooksandliars DOT com

Poor video quality, but worth watching. Al Franken in 1997 on the Tom Snyder Show. The Rush Limbaugh discussion starts at 4:15.

Open Thread below....

Rest in Peace, guitarist Ronnie Montrose. h/t Logan Murphy

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Here's a test for you. I'm going to post two quotes from Howard Kurtz, and you tell me which one refers to Rush Limbaugh:

"A lot of broadcasters might have lost their jobs by saying something so stupid, offensive, and misogynistic."

or

"I mean, this is part of what he does. He likes to stoke outrage and draw attention by saying things that are a bit over the line."

Ok, you get five seconds. I'll give you the answer below the fold.

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Bob Schieffer apparently didn't find much irony in Newt Gingrich, the same man who equated bilingual education to "the language of living in a ghetto" now bragging about his Hispanic co-chairs in California during their discussion on the upcoming primary races and how Gingrich is likely to fair. He just moved right on to the next topic after Gingrich made these remarks.

GINGRICH: We keep growing, we keep getting stronger. Governor Perry has told me that he thinks I'll carry Texas the last weekend of May by a huge margin, which would lead into California, our biggest state, the following week where we already have 17 Hispanic co-chairs statewide in California and a number of folks in the Korean and Chinese and Thai and Vietnamese communities. So we're reaching out across all of California.

Yeah, they're reaching out alright. Reaching out and demonizing and fearmongering at every opportunity. I guess this is about what we'd expect from the same man who tried to blame President Obama for scaring Latinos away from the Republican Party back in May of 2010 on Greta's show -- Newt defends AZ law: Obama 'engaged in ... a racist dialogue to try to frighten Latinos away from' GOP.

Full transcript below the fold.

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I think the Republicans know they overreached this time with the contraceptive debate and the Blunt Amendment. But being a Republican means never having to say you're sorry. You obfuscate, you reframe the debate into something more favorable to you, you dismiss the concerns of the majority of Americans, but you never, ever say you're sorry.

When David Gregory asks House Majority Leader Eric Cantor whether the Republicans were mistaken to prevent the testimony of Sandra Fluke, he tees up a nice little softball for Cantor to launch into Republican talking points. Of course it wasn't wrong to dismiss Fluke's testimony as irrelevant to the proceedings. Because it wasn't about the women affected by these destructive laws, donchaknow. Who cares about them? This was all about the religious liberty of institutions. Institutions, by the way, that already comply with this mandate in 28 states, the ACA mandate only made it consistent nationally.

But naturally, those are niggly little facts that Cantor doesn't want to address nor would David Gregory actually bring them up to refute these talking points. Moreover, Cantor pulls the "you're part of our tribe" with Gregory and likens the mandate with the outrageous notion that Obama administration would tell Jews how to keep kosher.

Nobody's denying access. No, it's not about that. It is about the administration and the president saying to the Catholic Church that we know what your faith holds and you have to abide by that. It would be like saying to the--those of us in the Jewish faith that, you know, we know what the laws of Kashrut, being kosher means, and we're going to tell you what that means.

Huh?

Here's the logic fail on the part of the Republicans and the Blunt Amendment's "moral objection" clause: where does it stop? Who is the ultimate decider? What if the CEO of a corporation is a Scandinavian Lutheran who does not want to include coverage for circumcision, but the Board of Directors has a minority percentage of Jews who do? What if the President of the company is a Christian Scientist and wants to eliminate coverage for blood transfusions, but the Chief Operating Officer has a son who is a hemophiliac and wants it covered? Or a head of a company is a Scientologist and believes that psychiatry and psychiatric drugs are a racket and refuses to include that despite the fact that the head of Human Resources and the person who negotiates with the insurance company has been struggling with clinical depression? Who gets the final say in what kind of coverage an employer can have a moral objection to?

Therein lies the problem. Companies and corporations are not corporeal beings. They are non-living fictitious entities. They have no faith, because they are not a person. Not even a Jesuit institution, such as Georgetown University. The university itself holds no faith. Its Board of Directors even includes a Sunni Muslim woman. It employs Catholics and non-Catholics alike. It accepts non-Catholics as students. Those students pay a significant tuition for the prestige of attending the law school, and even pay their share of premiums for health insurance. All that was asked was that the coverage include a full range of women's health needs. Not for taxpayers to subsidize it. And then in turn, the individual women could follow the tenets of their own faith as they saw fit and either make use of the coverage or not.

Strategically, I don't know how even this little spin helps the Republicans. "Religious liberty" may sound impressive and a high-minded philosophical argument, but Americans know what the real world application and consequences would mean to them. When 99 percent of American women of child-bearing age use contraception for responsible family planning at one time or another, and you threaten their access to it under the guise that some fictitious entity's "faith" supersedes their own, you've got a pretty hard sell that this isn't a War on Women.

So let's hope that the GOP continues this game right on to November.

Transcript below the fold

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This Week with George Stephanopoulos notes the passings of five service members killed in Afghanistan. Four of those deaths were as the result of Afghan partners turning fire against American troops after the Koran burnings. In addition, the Pentagon has officially confirmed the death of a soldier who was taken prisoner in Iraq in 2006.

US Air Force Lt Col John D Loftis, 44, Paducah, KY
US Army MAJ Robert J Marchanti II, 48, Baltimore, MD
US Army SSG Ahmed K Altaie, 46, Ann Arbor, MI (confirmed dead)
US Marines Cpl Conner T Lowry, 24, Chicago, IL
US Army SSG Jordan L Bear, 25, Denver, CO
US Army PFC Payton A Jones, 19, Marble Falls, TX

According to iCasualties, the total number of service members killed in Iraq is now 4,486; in Afghanistan, 2,908.

In addition, we mark the passings of the following notable figures: actor and musician Davy Jones, Dutch Resistance humanitarian Tina Strobos, blogger Andrew Breitbart, musician Ronnie Montrose and professional wrestler Doug Furnas.

Tuesday, we'll be hosting the newest Blue America endorsee, Montana state Rep. Franke Wilmer, an extraordinary progressive legislator from Bozeman running for Montana's open at-large congressional seat. As I mentioned when I first met her last year, she's currently serving her third term in the state legislature where she has sponsored legislation on behalf of women’s rights, public employees, firefighters, teachers, tipped employees, unions, gay rights, American Indians, and veterans. Her work on behalf of veterans has been recognized twice by Veterans’ groups, most recently being named “Legislator of the Year” by the Vietnam Veterans of America Montana Council. She has the kind of remarkable record of legislative leadership that always interests Blue America.

Now she's a Full Professor at Montana State University teaching courses on International Human Rights, International Law, International Relations Theory and the Politics of War and Peace but just as important as her academic accomplishments and record of public service are her life experiences before completing her graduate degrees. In her early 20s, Franke was a divorced single mother with no child support and few prospects. All she knew was waitressing, so she relied on that again to support herself and her daughter and was determined to eventually complete her college degree. It took her 16 years, often working two jobs and even 2 years working as a carpenter. She finished her B.S. degree in political science with a minor in economics and with the help of scholarships completed a Master’s and Doctorate in 1990. “I know what it’s like not to be able to afford health insurance,” Franke said in a conversation with me last week. “I know what it’s like to take a pocket full of tips to the energy company to pay my heating bill.”

I ran for the legislature in 2006 and am running for Congress now for the same reason I became an academic-- as an expression of my activist commitment to use my time and talents to make the world more humane, more just, and with less preventable suffering. That commitment has primarily been focused on issues of human rights. Coming of age in the Civil Rights and anti-war era (I graduated from high school in 1968-- the spring of assassinations-- MLK and RFK) profoundly shaped my political views. In fact, in high school I was active in efforts to desegregate our town “teen center” and a restaurant owned by our mayor. So to fast-forward-- I have thought of my academic identity more in terms of being an “academic-activist” and as strange as it may sound, that’s probably the best way to think of my work in the legislature where I have sponsored bills on gender pay equity, to create a domestic partner registry, and calling on public speakers and educators to learn the names of Montana’s First Nations in their own indigenous languages.

Please join us Tuesday at 11am (PT), noon in Montana, for a live blogging session with Franke. And if you want to get a jump on the game, please consider contributing to her campaign at our Blue America ActBlue page here

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When the candidates released their 2010 tax returns earlier this year, two out of four had given substantial sums to charity -- Mitt Romney and President Obama -- with 14.2 percent and 13.8 percent, respectively. The two candidates who claim to be the most religious lagged far behind. While Newt Gingrich's 2.6 percent didn't especially surprise me, given his love of limos and private jets, Rick Santorum's paltry 1.76 percent was a bit jarring. After all, here's a guy who is such an ideologue on all things religion, and yet doesn't give much to the church he claims sustains him? What's up with that?

During his appearance on Fox News with Chris Wallace, the subject came up, and Mr. Santorum had quite an interesting answer.

WALLACE: One last question on social issues. You say that churches and faith-based organizations have a big role to play in helping the poor, helping people who are disadvantaged.

I want to ask you about the 2010 tax returns because in them, they show that President Obama gave 14 percent of his income to charity. Mitt Romney almost 14 percent. You gave 1.76 percent.

Why so little, sir?

SANTORUM: Well, I mean, we always need to do better. I was in the situation where we have seven children and one disabled child who we take care of and she's very, very expensive. We love her and we cherish the opportunity to take care of her. But she's -- it's an additional expense and we have round the clock care for it and our insurance company doesn't cover it, so I pay for it. And you know, that's one of the things that, you know, you have to balance the needs of your immediate family.

That's a pretty rich answer coming from the guy who thinks insurers should be able to completely exclude children and adults alike for pre-existing conditions. Let's not forget that Mr. Santorum has the very best insurance money can buy courtesy of the United States taxpayers, but it still didn't cover those private nurses and other expenses little Bella needs.

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