Poll: Limbaugh should be fired for ‘slut’ remarks, say 53 percent of Americans

More than half of Americans think Rush Limbaugh should be fired for attacking a female law student and calling her a slut, according to a new poll conducted by Bloomberg.

The poll also indicated that Republican leaders had emerged the losers from recent public controversies over health coverage for contraception: an overwhelming majority say contraception is a matter of women’s health, not religious freedom, and 77 percent said should it not be a subject for political debate.

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Limbaugh lost nearly 100 advertisers, was denounced by his own party and was forced to apologize after a three-day attack on law student Sandra Fluke which began Feb 29. Limbaugh most notably called Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” and called on her to produce Internet pornography after she publicly argued that employers should be required to provide contraception as part of employee health care coverage.

According to Wikipedia, Limbaugh attacked Fluke 46 times during the three-day period before apologizing.

The Bloomberg poll, which comprised 1,002 telephone interviews between March 8 and March 11 with a 3.1 percent margin of error, found that 53 percent said that this was grounds for Limbaugh’s dismissal.

The news agency quoted J Anne Selzer of Selzer & Co, which conducted the poll, as saying that the results showed that Republicans were out of step with the views of most Americans.

“These candidates are talking to a relatively small subset even among Republicans,” she was quoted as saying.

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Republican presidential contenders Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney have argued that the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which seeks to extend health coverage to the uninsured, violates religious liberty by requiring employers to provide contraception.

Democrats have charged in response that this amounts to “a war on women.” The poll showed no indication, however, that this had accrued to the Democrats’ favor, with 49 percent of women voters preferring Obama and 45 percent preferring Romney.

According to Radio-Info.com, the company syndicating Limbaugh’s radio show, Premiere Networks, told affiliates on Monday that for the weeks of March 12 and March 19 they would not be required to run so-called “barter spots” during the Limbaugh show.

These are ads that stations can air in lieu of payment for the right to broadcast syndicated programming.

According to Politico, this eases the pressure on advertisers who continue to be publicly identified as Limbaugh supporters.