Franken lies about the word “feminazi”

To those familiar with Limbaugh, what Franken writes is transparently false. For instance, Franken uses the Limbaugh word “feminazi” interchangeably with the word “feminist,” but Limbaugh’s loyal fans understand “feminazi” as Limbaugh’s tag for only the most obnoxious feminists. We know this because Limbaugh said, “I prefer to call the most obnoxious feminists what they are: feminazis.” (page 193, The Way Things Ought to Be)

Far from having anything against women, Rush makes clear that his objection is to the “loud, militant” women who seem to base their beliefs on the idea that “to love and need men would somehow compromise women and set them back”. (Page 190, The Way Things Ought To Be)

This is Rush on the women’s movement:

I believe the women’s movement started out as a genuine and sincere effort to improve conditions. The original concerns of feminists, such as equal pay for equal work, were laudable and justifiable. People had a right to be upset at the treatment some women received, and some of their activism and protests were understandable.

(Page 189, The Way Things Ought To Be)

No decent, rational person would fault Rush for exposing the following rhetoric:

“Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the women’s movement must concentrate on attacking marriage. Freedom for women cannot be without the abolition of marriage” (Sheila Cronen, feminist leader and spokeswoman)

“The simple fact is, every woman must be willing to be recognized as a lesbian to be fully feminine.” (from the National Organization for Women Times, January 1988)

“Compare victims’ reports of rape with women’s reports of sex. They sound a lot alike…. In this light, the major distinction between intercourse [normal] and rape [abnormal] is that the normal happens so often that one cannot get anyone to see anything wrong with it” (Katharine MacKinnon, law professor)

Since normal people would side with Rush, Franken covers these radical ideas with a skillfully worded joke:

Limbaugh was railing about how feminists believe that all heterosexual sex is rape, which, I admit, is a belief that’s very hard to defend. The thing is, though, I know a lot of women, almost all of whom consider themselves feminists, and I know only one who actually holds this belief. And we’ve been married nearly twenty years.

(Page 5-6)

That deliberately deceives the reader–who is left thinking Rush made it up. Then, with the reader softened to the idea that Rush is a liar, Franken comes right out and says it as he introduces the reader to Limbaugh’s TV show:

Limbaugh presented, in a deliberately misleading way, disinformation that was devoured whole by a studio audience…

(page 6)