Rush Limbaugh's website, RushLimbaugh.com, reportedly no longer contains transcripts of his misogynistic attacks on Georgetown University Law school student Sandra Fluke -- comments that have been widely condemned and that are now causing companies to exclude their advertising from his show.
Politico reported that Limbaugh's website “seems to have been scrubbed clean of some of his notorious comments.” The article continued:
Type in the word “slut” in the archive search bar on RushLimbaugh.com, and you're told: “No results found. Please try another search.”
Type in the word “prostitute,” and you get plenty of results, including a link to “Butt Sister are Safe from Newt and Rick” -- the transcript from the first time Limbaugh made his derogatory comments about law student Sandra Fluke last Wednesday. The only problem is, when you click on the link (it was included in a POLITICO story last week), you are routed to a blank white page.
The same is true for the link to “Left Freaks Out Over My Fluke Remarks,” which should house Limbaugh's continued attacks against Fluke from the next day.
This doesn't mean that Limbaugh's initial remarks are entirely gone from his website -- at least not yet.
On March 8, the Atlantic reported: “RushLimbaugh.com appears to have removed parts of his radio transcripts from February 29 and March 1 in which he called Sandra Fluke a 'slut' and demanded a sex tape as a thank you to taxpayers for subsidizing her birth control.” The article further reported:
The site still has the March 1 transcript “The Dumb Don't Know They're Dumb,” in which Limbaugh plays a clip of CNN, which itself plays Limbaugh's “prostitute” line (a clip inside a clip, essentially). So the “slut” slur still appears on the site in some form.
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The pages were clearly working a few days ago -- several sites linked to them. We only noticed the pages were gone when a reader email sent us looking for the transcript. It had disappeared from the original source. The pages don't show up on the February 29 and March 1 archives, either, though links to them still exist on other transcripts related to the controversy.
On his February 29 show, Limbaugh called Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” after she testified before Congress about the problems caused when women lack access to contraception:
Despite widespread criticism, including from Republican members of Congress, Limbaugh continued his vitriol over the next few days, including demanding at one point: “If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it, and I'll tell you what it is. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”
To listen to the entirety of Limbaugh's attacks on Sandra Fluke, click here
On March 3, Limbaugh issued a statement, saying, “I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.” On March 5, Limbaugh stated: “I again sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for using those two words to describe her.” Those statements failed to account for the other 44 times Limbaugh personally insulted Fluke over the course of three days.
At the conclusion of Limbaugh's March 8 broadcast, at least 50 advertisers had canceled ads running during his program. Almost 90 percent of the ads that ran during WABC's airing of the three-hour show were unpaid public service announcements. Moreover, WABC's online feed included more than five minutes of dead air when ads would normally have run.