A Test for Conservatives

You probably have heard about the Rush Limbaugh and Sandra Fluke controversy by now. If you have not then here is an ABC article to provide you a quick update.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/03/rush-limbaugh-sandra-fluke-a-slut-and-prostitute/
So Limbaugh has not only refused to apologize but he has also made his insults of Fluke worse. Nice.
The sad part is that I agree that Fluke had no business testifying in a hearing on religious rights. I heard her before Limbaugh got involved and she struck me as another student steeped in entitlement thinking. Here is a clue. If you go to a Catholic college then do not expect them to supply you with contraceptives. Go somewhere else if that is important to you. But none of that entitlement thinking excuses the disgusting behavior of Limbaugh. The points I just made could have been made without dragging this argument through the mud. Limbaugh should be ashamed of himself.
Now is the time for conservatives to disown Limbaugh. He has had his day. I give him credit for being the first major player in the, at that time, new area of talk radio. And in his heyday he did it quite well. I did not agree with him a good deal of the time but he was entertaining and could persuade me to rethink things. What he is doing now is neither entertaining nor insightful. It is just crude. His day has passed and it is time for him to go.
But will conservatives facilitate reducing his exit or at least reduce his current influence? I remember when John McCain dared to criticize Limbaugh during his presidential run. The backlash he received from that criticism made McCain backtrack in a hurry. Limbaugh has made himself the third rail of conservative politics. You do not criticize him without consequence in the conservative community.
But conservatives who care about their causes need to face down Limbaugh. It is not as if there are not other talented conservative commentators who can carry on in the talk radio arena that conservatives dominate so well. I have criticized progressives who do not police their own extremists. At this point Limbaugh is an extremist who has taken an issue of religious freedom and reduced it down to name-calling.
This is the test for conservatives to see who is brave enough to openly challenge him and condemn Limbaugh. I say condemn Limbaugh because it is not enough to just condemn the comments. You also have to condemn the man who is unrepentant about those comments. For too long Limbaugh has been treated with kid gloves by conservatives. Will any conservatives have the wisdom to see that his day has past and the guts to marginalize him in their conservative subculture? Praise him for his historical breakthroughs if you must and acknowledge his previous accomplishments. But please do not enable him to infect us with more venomous comments in the future. Those of us who are not conservatives, and especially us moderates who can be won to some of your causes from time to time, will be watching conservatives to see if they have the spine to do what is right.

Sincerely,

Trouble-Maker