Students for a Better Missouri at the Missouri Capitol.

“Misogyny is not a Missouri value”

We received the following report from an individual at the capitol in Jefferson City today:

Twelve University of Missouri students from the group Students for a Better Missouri traveled to the Missouri Capitol today to tell Governor Nixon, Missouri State Senators and State Representatives about their disapproval of Speaker Steve Tilley choosing Rush Limbaugh for induction into the Missouri Capitol’s “Hall of Famous Missourians”.  Limbaugh’s recent comments about female college student Sandra Fluke, who testified about insurance-paid birth control February 23, 2012 in the U.S. House Democratic Steering Committee, have enraged many women and men across the nation. Since making the comments about Fluke, many of Limbaugh’s radio show sponsors have stopped advertising with his program.

House Speaker Steve Tilley met with the college students in his office, but no one from the press was allowed, nor was recording or videoing allowed by the students. Speaker Tilley, who chose Limbaugh’s bust to be inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians as part of the honor of being Speaker, explained that, while he does not agree with every comment Limbaugh makes or has made, he feels his choice to include Limbaugh into the Hall of Famous Missourians is appropriate.  He said Limbaugh is a Missouri native who grew up in southeast Missouri “and started with nothing, but is now the most recognized radio announcer in the nation.” Tilley said Limbaugh is very successful both on the radio as well as having raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for cancer research.  He said there have been other controversial figures inducted into the Hall, including Mark Twain whom Tilley called racist as well as bank robber Jesse James, but that none these inductions should be politicized and not everyone agreed with all of the inductees in the past.

One of the male students asked if the way a person is chosen for induction should be changed to avoid controversy, but Tilley did not respond to the question, instead again saying he believed his choice to induct Limbaugh was the correct choice.

Several in the group said the words, and the continued use of those words,  by Limbaugh used when talking about Fluke – “slut”, “prostitute”, “whore” – were offensive and abusive to all women, and told Speaker Tilley it would be a poor reflection on the State of Missouri, and that it would seem Missouri condoned this treatment of women, if the State went forward with the induction.  Tilley said Limbaugh’s comments, while unfortunate, would not deter anyone from coming to the State Capitol.  One woman said she would not feel welcome in the Capitol if the bust is placed in the Hall of Famous Missourians.  Tilley said that was unfortunate but did not feel it would stop any others from going to the Capitol.

When asked if he had ever called a woman a slut, Tilley said he could not remember if he had. “Maybe when I was younger I might have,” he said.

Representative Mary Still (D 25) spoke with the students and introduced them on the House Floor.  She encouraged their continued participation with this and all other issues, and invited them to stop by her office any time the students went to the Capitol.  One student asked Still if a bill could be introduced in the House to stop the induction of Limbaugh and Still said she’d look in to the possibility.

Governor Nixon was unavailable to speak with the students, but they spoke with Nixon’s aide and she received the students’ letter to the Governor.

Senator Kurt Schaefer, while he listened to the students about their disapproval of Limbaugh’s induction, would not comment whether he did or did not support the Limbaugh induction.

“….He said there have been other controversial figures inducted into the Hall, including Mark Twain whom Tilley called racist as well as bank robber Jesse James, but that none these inductions should be politicized and not everyone agreed with all of the inductees in the past….”

Uh, Jesse James is not, in fact, in the Hall of Famous Missourians.

Students for a Better Missouri with Representative Mary Still (D).

A letter from the students:

March 7, 2012

Students for a Better Missouri

[….]

To Whom It May Concern:

Members of students for a Better Missouri are outraged by the recent nomination of Rush Limbaugh by Missouri House Speaker, Steven Tilley, into the Hall of famous Missourians. We are demanding reconsideration by the House before honoring a man who has gained notoriety through a career polluting the public sphere with general negativity.

Rush Limbaugh financially benefits by purposely being insulting, offensive and discriminatory, and for the state of Missouri to honor such achievements is an utter disgrace.

We feel this induction would turn our hall of fame into nothing but a hall of shame. We should be honoring people who better society, not people who outwardly and purposely offend the citizens of this country.

Limbaugh would be joining the likes of mark Twain, Sacajwea, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Harry S. Truman. All of these figures are people w ho, despite any controversy surrounding their induction at the time, have undisputedly made some positive impact or significant artistic contribution to society.

By inducting Rush Limbaugh in the hall of famous Missourians, the Missouri House of Representatives is revering the dissemination of sexist, racist, misogynistic and offensive ideals.

In the words of past inductee, Mark Twain, “A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.” The words of Limbaugh do not speak to a character that deserves this sort of reward or recognition.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Previously:

There’s no room for sluts in the gallery. There is for prostitutes. (March 5, 2012)

Destined to be one of the top political quotes in the history of Missouri (March 5, 2012)

Steve Tilley owes Dred Scott and Buck O’Neil an apology (March 6, 2012)

Rush’s Bust (March 6, 2012)

What has your representative said about honoring Rush? (March 7, 2012)

Rush Limbaugh’s bust ain’t exactly a hit in small town Missouri (March 7, 2012)

Previously:

There’s no room for sluts in the gallery. There is for prostitutes. (March 5, 2012)

Destined to be one of the top political quotes in the history of Missouri (March 5, 2012)

Steve Tilley owes Dred Scott and Buck O’Neil an apology (March 6, 2012)

Rush’s Bust (March 6, 2012)

What has your representative said about honoring Rush? (March 7, 2012)

A Letter to the Editor in today’s Warrensburg Daily Star-Journal:

Limbaugh’s foot in mouth

Listening to Rush Limbaugh spew his characteristic vitriol over national television news and, this time, college coed, Susan Fluke, was appalling…..

….Filthy descriptors from the mouth of an overpaid windbag attacking someone he had never met raises the question of his own character (or lack thereof). Sadly, for those who see Limbaugh as a viable spokesperson for conservative viewpoints, his latest rant only underscores the unbalanced and incongruent thinking that he has come to represent to many Americans….

[emphasis in original]

There was also an unsigned lead editorial in the same issue of the paper:

Limbaugh does not belong in state hall

The Hall of Famous Missourians should not include Rush Limbaugh.

Many Missourians would not recognize Limbaugh as famous; infamous, perhaps. But the hall is meant for famous Missourians and his nomination has more to do with being a windbag known for spewing hate – calling a college kid a whore, suggesting Michael J. Fox faked a disease = than for selfless accomplishments….

…[Speaker] Tilley’s suggestion about Limbaugh deserving to be in the hall just for being a well-known radio personality sounds more like an excuse than a rational reason.

Tilley added in his AP interview that the hall is about famous as opposed to “universally loved Missourians.” That, too, sounds like bunk….

….The fact, though, about Limbaugh being picked for the hall appears as simple as this: Tilley is a Republican and Limbaugh is a spokesman for the Republican Party, so Limbaugh gets into the hall and more deserving Missourians do not.

[emphasis in original]

Did you catch that? “…Limbaugh is a spokesman for the Republican Party…” When you read that in a small town Missouri newspaper it’s the beginning of the end.

But, wait, there’s more. Editor Jack Miles also wrote an op-ed piece in today’s paper:

James more deserving than Rush

I would sooner see Old Drum entered into the Hall of Famous Missourians in Jefferson City than Rush Limbaugh or anyone else whose main claim to fame is being a mouthpiece for a particular political party….

….Hearing House Speaker Steve Tilley, therefore, argue for putting Limbaugh into the Hall of Missourians makes no sense. Limbaugh serves a particular party, not the American people. As such, Limbaugh serves a group, an agenda, but not the nation….

….If simply being well known is a new criteria for being in the Hall of famous Missourians, then Jesse James has my vote over Limbaugh….

[emphasis in original]

“…Limbaugh serves a particular party, not the American people…” Ah, here’s the rub: for republicans that’s a feature, not a bug.

Have you written your Missouri Representative on Speaker Tilley’s decision to put a bust of Rush in the Hall of Famous Missourians?  

Here is what I wrote my Representative — Denny Hoskins, CPA.

Representative Hoskins,

Do you agree with Speak Tilley that Rush Limbaugh should be honored in the Missouri Hall of Fame with Harry Truman, John Ashcroft, Buck O’Neil, and Samuel Clemons  to name just a few?

If you agree, would you please explain what have Rush’s contributions been to warrant him being with the list above?

If you disagree, what are you doing to convince the Speaker this is a terrible choice?

Thank you for your time,

 

Today, Representative Hoskins replied.

Dear Robert,

Thank you for contacting me about Missouri’s Hall of Famous Missourians.  

The Speaker of the House determines whose bust is included in the Hall of Famous Missourians and the Speaker raises private donations to pay for the bust.

Since I was elected, I have advocated for Blind Boone to be inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians, however, the decision is made by the Speaker and unfortunately Blind Boone has not been selected despite our best efforts.

Thanks again for contacting me.  I appreciate your input.

Sincerely,

Rep. Denny Hoskins, CPA

I recognized that Representative Hoskins was not involved with this decision.  

I thought my questions were very civil. I wonder why Representative Hoskins did not answer them.

Maybe I’ve missed it something, but it seems to me that GOP Senator Roy Blunt’s been keeping his head down for the past few days. Everybody seems to have weighed in on Rush Limbaugh’s latest foul spewings  and GOP Missouri House Speaker Steve Tilley’s desire to reward him by placing his bust in the capital despite – or because of – it them. But ol’ Roy, whose anti-contraception grandstanding  helped give Limbaugh just the right occasion for his most recent over-the-top, misogynistic rant has been ostentatiously silent.

Blunt’s Democratic opposite number in the Senate, Claire McCaskill, didn’t have any difficulty calling a spade a bloody shovel. She was emphatic during an interview on MSNBC’s Hardball that “he shouldn’t be in this hall of fame next to Harry Truman and Mark Twain.”  Why do you think that Roy’s going to ground when it comes to doing the right thing and condemning Limbaugh’s attack on Sandra Fluke, not to mention addressing the appropriateness of bestowing high state honors on a man who routinely attacks women, racial and ethnic minorities, and even innocent, garden-variety liberals in the most disgusting terms possible?

It’s distinctly possible that Blunt may have decided that he’s bitten off more than he can chew. He was actually booed by a heckler when introduced last night at a Kennedy Center event where an audience member seemed to think he’s the “devil.”  

Such developments have to be frustrating for Blunt, who has been trying really hard to pretend that women’s reproductive health has no standing in the discussion of the contraceptive issue which, according to some on the right, is elevated to a higher level because a cadre of conservative Catholic Bishops want it to be their way or the high way for all of us, Catholic or not. This position, of course, ignores the issues that arise when questions of the public good, such as contraception, intersect with the rights of institutionalized religion to dictate public policy – a far more complicated discussion than Blunt and the right-wing base he hoped to energize can actually accommodate.

Nevertheless, now that the the “religious freedom” charade has blown up in Blunt’s face via Limbaugh’s poorly timed verbal grenades, Blunt ought to step up and tell us whether or not Limbaughs “choice of words” reflects his own views about women and birth control – and whether he thinks it’s appropriate to lavish honors on the nation’s foremost practitioner of hate speech. Of course, if he finds that he cannot manage to speak ill of the petulant voice of right-wing America, he’s not alone – the ever-waffling  Mitt Romney, Blunt’s guy in the GOP primary, seems to be equally busy trying to find the just the right weasel hole when the topic of Limbaugh is raised.  

UPDATE:  Blunt may be keeping his head down in regard to Limbaugh, but he seems to be finally throwing in the towel when it comes to the great religious freedom crusade he was fantasizing about. I guess he read the tea leaves and decided that trying to foment holy war wasn’t working and might even hinder his push towards more exalted heights of Senate leadership.

So I leave Missouri for a week and guess what happens when my back is, figuratively speaking, turned? The Speaker of the Missouri House, Steve Tilley, decides that Rush Limbaugh, who just made headlines for particularly vile behavior in regard to women, deserves to be enshrined in the State Capital’s Hall of  Famous Missourians along with such significant individuals as Dred Scott and Buck O’Neil. Which is to say, Speaker Tilley has decided to join Limbaugh and spit in the faces of Missouri’s women.  The irony is, of course, that Tilley, partisan GOPer though he may be,  has something of a reputation for inspiring a more civil tone in the House than has been the case in the recent past. Oh well …. score zero for civility and one for the triumphant GOP zeitgeist.

Tilley seems to think that celebrity, distasteful as Limbaugh’s may be, is sufficient justification for one of the state’s signal honors. By that standard, Missouri ought to put a bust of Ma Barker in the Statehouse – she was born in Springfield, after all,  and is still as much a byword as Limbaugh.

A defiant Tilley claims that to deny Limbaugh a place in the capital’s gallery of honored sons and daughters would be giving in to “intolerance,” because “many of the honorees … are “people who in their time said controversial things or took controversial actions.”  To think that Limbaugh can be compared to other “controversial” Missourians that Tilley cites, people like “Mark Twain, former Gov. Warren Hearnes and John Ashcroft,” is insane. Each of those men, whether or not you agree with the views they expressed, were individuals who devoted serious effort to thinking about either public good, as in the case of the two statesmen, or the nature of the human condition. How could a reasonable person claim that Limbaugh – a nasty-tempered bully who made a fortune exploiting the prejudices of a few of the more mean-spirited souls on the right – belongs in such a group. I mean, really, can you imagine comparing Mark Twain and Rush Limbaugh?

As for Dred Scott and Buck O’Neil, the two African-Americans who will be honored, it’s probably a good thing they are no longer with us. I imagine they suffered enough from the behavior of men like Limbaugh during their lives; it’s a shame that they are to be sullied by association with him in death. Limbaugh, after all, does not only consistently revile women, but is notorious for such racist remarks about African-Americans as:

They’re 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?

Just think about the chutzpah it takes to lump O’Neil into a group with the man who famously declared:

Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.

So I say to Speaker Tilley, as far as I’m concerned, this sort of nastiness, which is all Limbaugh has to offer, goes way beyond controversial, and I’m ashamed that anyone in my state thinks not only that it’s acceptable, but that it deserves to be honored.

Last sentence of 2nd paragraph moved to third paragraph to increase stylistic clarity.

(Cartoon source Wikimedia commons;by Ian D. Marsden of marsdencartoons.com. Licensed under under the terms of the cc-by-2.0.)

….”It’s not the hall of universally loved Missourians. It’s the Hall of Famous Missourians….”

– Speaker Steve Tilley (r) defending his decision to place a bust of Rush Limbaugh in the state capitol.

It’s not exactly a ringing endorsement, is it?

Previously: There’s no room for sluts in the gallery. There is for prostitutes. (March 5, 2012)

A Rush Limbaugh bronze bust in the Missouri State Capitol?

Bad timing.

[….]

[RUSH] LIMBAUGH: So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you post the videos online so we can all watch.

[….]

Progress Missouri ‏ @ProgressMO

A @RushLimbaugh bust in the #MO Capitol? No. Freaking. Way. Sign the petition here: progressmissouri.org/norush #moleg (Please RT!)12:30 PM – 5 Mar 12

….Yep, for those of you keeping score at home that is 3 busts for the The Missouri State Capital this year.  Yahoo!

The official press release will be out later this week, but we wanted to let you know first.

That’ll go over really well, don’t you think?

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) via Twitter on the Haiti earthquake:

Heartsick over the devastation in Haiti. I’m proud of my country for helping. Prayers for the families of Haiti.    about 5 hours ago   from web

Then there was this curious post:

Really? Helping suffering people is about politics? Our assistance to others defines us as a nation. Shame on him. http://bit.ly/4Qhd2R    6 minutes ago   from web  

Following the link, it appears that a right wingnut talk radio gasbag opened his mouth (via Media Matters):

Limbaugh: Obama will use Haiti to boost credibility with “light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country”

http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/flash/player.swf

One hundred dollars on Claire McCaskill knocking him out fifteen seconds into the first round.

And, finally, Claire McCaskill responded to an apologist:

@texasmcmanus There is no context that can defend those sentiments.   half a minute ago   from web  in reply to texasmcmanus

That’s called comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, Missouri style.

Update:

Senator McCaskill:

It’s important to note that there is no editorial comment in this link. Hyper partisan, his words out of his mouth.http://bit.ly/4Qhd2R    5 minutes ago   from web  

Bernie Miklasz, sports writer at the Post-Dispatch, thinks we on the left are just as vicious and hateful as Rush:

I’ve got nothing against Limbaugh personally. And that’s because I don’t take politics personally. Politics are a gladiator sport, a full-contact sport, and it’s a rough arena. Limbaugh hits hard, but he’s no more vicious than those who attack him from the opposite extreme of the political spectrum. [boldface mine]

Again, with the unsubstantiated claims. Who are we talking about here? Rachel Maddow? Randi Rhodes? As hateful as Rush? Please. It’s like comparing a gnat to a scorpion.

In fact, when it comes to hate radio, Rush has a megaphone and the left has laryngitis.