Bill Maher is Not Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a prostitute and a slut. Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a c*nt.

Some say those personal attacks are equally indecent. They aren’t.

1. Big person versus small person.

First, Sandra Fluke was not famous or powerful or rich before Limbaugh made her a household name. Sarah Palin had run for vice president. She was a frequent commentator on Fox. She starred in her own reality TV series, Sarah Palin’s Alaska. She wrote a book, and she has legions of twitter- followers. If she walks out of a ladies room with toilet paper trailing her heel, the media covers it. If she leaves a fat tip (or not) it’s on television.

That means that Sarah Palin has the power and the media-heft to defend herself. But a 30-year-old law student does not.

Many people sympathize with underdogs. Many people despise bullies. When a David strikes down a Goliath, people approve. When a Goliath strikes down a David, people regret.

Maher took on a Goliath. Goliath Limbaugh smote a David.

2. Known person versus unknown person.

Second, Sarah Palin is famous, and people have firm opinions about her. That opinion might be good or bad, but it was in place when people heard of Bill Maher’s remark. That gives little scope for Maher’s expression to influence people. Someone who thinks highly of Sarah Palin won’t change because of what Bill Maher says. If someone doesn’t like her, well, then they already didn’t like her, didn’t they?

But Sandra Fluke’s national reputation was a blank CD-rom. Nobody had heard of her. Then Rush Limbaugh changed that on the same day that he linked her name with prostitute and slut. And they don’t call Limbaugh’s followers ditto-heads for nothing. The degree to which Sandra Fluke was a slut became a part of the conservative national conversation.

And that will live on. That might be Sandra Fluke’s fifteen-minutes of fame. It might be the bigger part of her obituary – that she was called a slut and a prostitute by Rush Limbaugh. Who would want to be known and remembered for that? But that’s what Rush Limbaugh did to Sandra Fluke’s life and memory.

3. Attacker versus defender.

Third, Sarah Palin has herself been known to thrust a public shiv under a rivals’ fifth rib. Sarah Palin has no qualm about attacking her enemies. She has demonstrated this many times. She might attack Barack Obama, the "lame-stream media", or, say, Gabrielle Giffords (putting a mock-gunsight over a map of Ms. Gifford’s congressional district).

To be clear: there was nothing wrong with any of that. Some people might think that Palin is untethered to the truth; but her targets are public figures, like herself. Unlike Rush Limbaugh, she doesn’t target the small and the unknown.

But that habit of attacking enemies makes Palin a more appropriate target than a woman who goes before Congress to defend a woman’s reproductive freedom. You feel less sorry for someone because of a vicious attack on them, when they themselves attack others. ("Pal around with terrorists", anyone?) Sandra Fluke has no such reputation.

4. A rough equivalence.

A rough equivalence does exist between Mr. Maher’s outburst and a car sign that has appeared that maligns Barack Obama. It says "Don’t Re-Nig in 2012".

These are roughly equivalent because both assail a powerful, known, public figure. These are roughly equivalent because both use terms that are highly offensive.

But they have only a rough equivalence. That is true because, as I understand the term, c*nt is applied selectively. That is, c*nts are women, but not all women are c*nts. The term is applied with a kind of reverse-meritocracy.

But n*gger is a word that demeans an entire race indiscriminately. That is, an African-American might be a heart surgeon, and he might devote his vacations to staffing a medical clinic in a poverty-stricken country. But he’s still, to some, a n*gger.

So left-wing paladins of offense just can’t match the offensiveness of the Rush Limbaughs of the world or the right-wing slur machine.

5. Commonplace equivalence claims.

But it seems that every time a right-wing figure steps in dog-poop, fairly or not, the right wing labors to claim some left-wing equivalence. When Sarah Palin’s Facebook cross-hairs map stirred outrage after Gabrielle Gifford was shot, the right wing scoured the web and found Democratic maps with targets over vulnerable Republican congressional districts.

The attack on Bill Maher is along that line. Rather than distance themselves from outrage, as they should, the right wing tries to ward off condemnation by changing the subject to an attack on a liberal.

And that liberal happens to be a well-known public figure, and his words were highly offensive, so the attack is fair game.

6. Fallout.

But the Republican counter-attack is unlikely to stanch the flow of outrage against Rush Limbaugh. In fact, Limbaugh’s outbursts merges with Roman Catholic hatred of birth control, and it accords with a seeming-tsunami of recent proposed laws to control the choices that women make.

The likelihood is that Limbaugh and the movement he contributed to will harm the Republican brand with women. This harm to the Republican brand might have been avoided if Republicans had orchestrated condemnation of Limbaugh with the skill and vigor that they otherwise devote to political messaging. And any Republican candidate for president might have looked more independent and decent if he had lashed out at Limbaugh’s outburst instead of praising it with faint condemnation.