Long-time advertiser dumps Rush Limbaugh after Sandra Fluke comments

Rush Limbaugh may think he is invulnerable, but he is not, at least not to ALL advertisers, at any rate: Limbaugh has been dropped by at least one advertiser after his controversial on-air comments calling a college law student a "slut" and a "prostitute."

Sleep Train Mattress Centers issued a statement on the matter on Friday, saying,

"As a diverse company, Sleep Train does not condone such negative comments directed toward any person. We have currently pulled our ads with Rush Limbaugh."

Sleep Train has more than 250 outlets on the West Coast under its Sleep Train, Sleep Country and Mattress Discounters names. It was earlier voted Best Mattress Store in Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area. The relationship with Limbaugh dated back to the 1980s.

Apparently Sleep Train's customers had been providing input to the retailer via Twitter. A brief Tweet posted on Friday thanked customers for their "concern and input," and added "We are currently pulling all ads with Rush Limbaugh."

Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke testified last week on Capitol Hill about contraceptive coverage. A third-year law student, she testified about Georgetown’s policy on contraception during an unofficial hearing held last Thursday, one led by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

That unofficial hearing came after Fluke was excluded from an official congressional hearing on the contraceptive mandate in the nation’s health-care law. Republicans who ran the hearing said Fluke’s name was submitted too late (Democrats disagree) and that she was not qualified to speak.

At Pelosi’s hearing, Fluke said she and her fellow students at Georgetown, which is a Jesuit university, pay as much as $1,000 annually for birth control because campus health plans do not include coverage of contraceptives for women.

On his radio show Wednesday, Rush Limbaugh called her both a slut and a prostitute. He said,

"What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic] who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex -- what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex."

On Thursday, Limbaugh went further, not apologizing, but instead ratcheting things up. Basing a jibe off an earlier comment by fellow conservative and Rick Santorum backer Foster Friess, he said, “I will buy all of the women at Georgetown University as much aspirin to put between their knees as they want.”

He also added the following:

"So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you post the videos online so we can all watch."

Limbaugh's controversial on-air comments about law student Sandra Fluke, who testified last week on Capitol Hill about contraceptive coverage, upset many Sleep Train customers, who let the company know about it through its website and social media.

Fluke has received much support despite Limbaugh's comments. Georgetown University officials released a statement defending law student Sandra Fluke, calling Rush Limbaugh’s attacks “misogynistic” and Fluke “a model of civil discourse.”

On Friday, Fluke appeared on MSNBC, where she told host Andrea Mitchell that she had received a supportive phone call she received from President Barack Obama.

It's an interesting conundrum. Those who know of the Quiverfull movement might think that in addition to having as many births among their own as they can, these followers would also want as few liberals born as possible. In that sense (and tongue firmly in cheek), why oppose birth control?

Update: Select Comfort, which advertises its Sleep Number brand bed, was the second company to cut ties with Limbaugh. Other companies distanced themselves quickly from the talk-show host, including some who say they don't advertise with Limbaugh, but that "network buys" may have happened. Those include eHarmony.com and AutoZone.

However, some, such as Quicken Loans and Proflowers said they would stick with Limbaugh. Note: Intuit runs both Quicken Loans and TurboTax. Those looking for options that differ from Turbotax, Intuit's cash cow, should looking into H&R Block's software, which can input prior year Turbotax returns.

Limbaugh has since apologized, but it's obvious that it's more about losing advertisers than anything else.

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