A little year-end outrage

Hurricane Katrina victims should prostitute themselves, and other bon mots from our nation's finest pundits in 2005.

Published December 23, 2005 11:24PM (EST)

There was a bull market for loony punditry this year, but a few items on Media Matters for America's list of the "Most outrageous statements of 2005" especially struck our fancy.

First, ladies and gentlemen, we have Rush Limbaugh on feminism: "Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society." [The Rush Limbaugh Show, 8/12/05]

Then, there's David Horowitz disrespecting Cindy Sheehan, the grieving war-protester: "It's very hard to have respect for a woman who exploits the death of her own son and doesn't respect her own son's life....She portrays him as an idiot." [MSNBC's Connected: Coast to Coast, 8/16/05]

Finally, this doozy -- Neal Boortz on why a Hurricane Katrina victim, housed in an Atlanta hotel, should prostitute herself rather than accept taxpayer support: "I dare say she could walk out of that hotel and walk 100 yards in either direction on Fulton Industrial Boulevard here in Atlanta and have a job. What's that? Well, no, no, no. ... Well, you know what? [laughing] Now that you mention it ... [i]f that's the only way she can take care of herself, it sure beats the hell out of sucking off the taxpayers." [Cox Radio Syndication's The Neal Boortz Show, 10/24/05]

Thanks to Media Matters -- and three big lumps of coal to the three unwise men.


By Katharine Mieszkowski

Katharine Mieszkowski is a senior writer for Salon.

MORE FROM Katharine Mieszkowski


Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Broadsheet Love And Sex Rush Limbaugh