A spokesman for conservative radio show host Rush Limbaugh on Friday defended comments Limbaugh made about rape when discussing the filibuster and said that the pundit consistently uses “extrapolated analogies” when explaining politics, according to the Daily Caller.
On his Friday show, Limbaugh spoke about rape when trying to describe how the filibuster rules change made in the Senate last week would allow the majority to easily overrule the minority.
Limbaugh used an analogy in which a group of ten included six men and four women, and the group had a rule that the men could not rape the women. Limbaugh explained that the men could never vote to allow rape because one man always voted with the women, and the men could never get six votes.
“[E]very now and then some lunatic in the group proposes to change the rule to allow women to be raped. But they never were able to get six votes for it. There were always the four women voting against it and there was, you know, two guys,” he said on his show.
Limbaugh then said that with a rules change in which men only needed five votes to change rules, rape would be allowed.
“Well, the guy that kept proposing that women be raped finally got tired of it,” he said. “He was in the majority and he said, you know what, we’re going to change the rule. Now all we need is five. And the women said, ‘you can’t do that.’ ‘Yes we are, we’re the majority, we’re changing the rule.'”
Democrats and members of the media were apalled by Limbaugh’s analogy. Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL) called the conservative pundit a “disgrace” in a tweet.
Limbaugh’s spokesman told the Daily Caller in an email that Limbaugh’s comments were simply an analogy, and nothing more.
“Rush Limbaugh has spent 25 years illustrating absurdity by using extrapolated analogies,” the spokesman said. “Anyone who calls this anything different than that is simply lying.”
