PALM BEACH, Fla. – In the wake of Time Magazine nominating Sandra Fluke to possibly be its Person of the Year, radio host Rush Limbaugh is now suggesting he be nominated to share the honor with the women’s-rights activist.
“Not something I’m proud of here, folks. I must be blatantly honest,” Limbaugh said Friday afternoon. “Nobody would know who she is if it weren’t for me. If anybody is gonna be named Person of the Year on that basis, it ought to be me. It’s not an honor that I would appreciate because it represents a little bit of a screw-up, but the fact of the matter is that she’s even on the list.”
“If you’re gonna make her Person of the Year you gotta make me co-Person of the Year for making her Person of the Year,” he added.
It was on Limbaugh’s Feb. 29 program that the host unloaded on Fluke, labeling her a “slut” and a “prostitute” after her testimony at an unofficial congressional hearing about contraception-related insurance costs.
He apologized, saying he had descended to the level of the left.
Limbaugh lost some sponsors to his national radio show, but said some were “practically begging to come back.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7LA1KuSTck
Limbaugh noted his call screener Bo Snerdley speculated about what perhaps may be the actual reason Fluke was put on the list.
He summarized Snerdley’s theory, saying, “You don’t understand. She’s not on this list because they care about what she did and what she says and what she believes or any of that, that’s not why. She’s only on that short list because that’s the closest they think they’ve ever gotten to taking you out, and whoever, if somebody ever comes along and takes you out, Time Magazine’s gonna make ’em the Person of All Time, not just the year.”
Limbaugh then noted, “I have to confess, folks, and I don’t think about myself very often, but I have to confess that Snerdley may have a point there. He may be exactly right.”
He also lamented how the nominees in recent years have been trending toward pop culture figures, rather than characters of substance or accomplishment:
“You go back and you look at some of the Time Magazine people of the year from way back, I mean they were really substantive, serious people. You look at the short list, and what’s happened is that Time Magazine and the rest of the media, the world now revolves around them and their potential people of the year all happen to be media types one way or the other. It is the most narcissistic bunch of people that you can run into, outside of Obama and his acolytes. Yeah, Jon Stewart’s on the short list, too.”
In 1927, pioneering pilot Charles Lindbergh was Time’s first Man of the Year. The award was changed to “Person” in 1999.
Ironically, non-specific people have received the honor.
The Computer took the award in 1982 and the Endangered Earth won in 1988.
Groups of people who have taken the award include Baby Boomers in 1966, You (as in Internet users) in 2006, and last year, it was the Protester.
The public can vote for nominees through Dec. 12, but the editors of Time will have the final say and announce the winner on Dec. 14.
