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Does Rush Limbaugh Owe America a Sex Tape?

The best Limbaugh photo ever. Photo: Harry Langdon/Hulon Archive/Getty Images

As is his wont, Rush Limbaugh has been saying incendiary things lately, and while it would probably be best for all of us to just ignore his pleas for attention, as we would the feral neighborhood cat who comes by from time to time looking for food, this is almost just too irresistible to pass up. It all started when Georgetown University student Sandra Fluke testified before Congress on the need for health-insurance coverage of contraception. On his radio show Wednesday, Limbaugh provided his insightful analysis of this suddenly controversial issue:

What does it say about the college co-ed Sandra Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex.”

On Thursday, he added:

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 to post the videos online so we can all watch.”

To summarize Limbaugh’s thoughts here: If your sex life requires the assistance of health insurance, then you are a prostitute who should repay America with sex tapes. It occurs to us that Limbaugh’s guidelines might not only apply to Fluke, and millions of other women, but also … Rush Limbaugh.

You may recall that on June 26, 2006, Limbaugh was detained at Palm Beach International Airport on the way home from the Dominican Republic after a bottle of Viagra prescribed under a different name was found in his luggage. It turns out there was an innocent explanation:

The state attorney’s office said the medication was prescribed by Limbaugh’s cardiologist, Dr. Steven Schnur, to Limbaugh’s psychologist and addiction counselor, Steve Strumwasser. Strumwasser then provided the Viagra to Limbaugh, said state attorney spokesman Mike Edmondson.

Strumwasser told authorities he “agreed to have his name on the label in an effort to avoid potentially embarrassing publicity for the suspect,” according to the state attorney’s office filing. “Thus, the medication contained in the subject pill bottle was legitimately prescribed to the suspect by his physician.”

We don’t know if Limbaugh is still being prescribed Viagra these days, but we suspect that if he needed it six years ago, he still needs it now. We also don’t know whether Limbaugh’s health-insurance policy covers Viagra, although many do, and Limbaugh probably has a very nice health-insurance policy.

We don’t begrudge a man for using Viagra any more than we resent a woman for using birth control. America can’t be the greatest country in the world unless everyone who wants to have sex is able to have sex. Isn’t that what the Founders were referring to when they wrote of our unalienable right to the “pursuit of happiness”? Probably, yes. 

But fair is fair. If Limbaugh is, in fact, using health insurance to purchase Viagra, he’s a prostitute according to his own definition. And so, with deep reservations, and a touch of nausea, we hereby demand to see his sex tape. Put up or shut up, Limbaugh. (Preferably the latter.)