Limbaugh is the centerpiece of the AM Hate Radio ensemble. If he gets taken down, that means everybody in the lineup will have to cool their rhetoric.

My previous job involved making trucks ready for delivery, so I drove [for a short distance] a dozen or more vehicles every night and I got to hear what radio stations the drivers listened to. Many of them listened to the Hate Radio. The shit that all those people on there spew is unbelievable — like if Weemie had the ability to stop other people from posting. The pressure to keep their main mouth is being exerted from many angles, not just the advertisers (although I'm sure all of the other douche-jocks are secretly salivating over the thought of movin' on up to take Limbaugh's slot).

Apparently what got both Imus and Limbaugh in trouble was the reference to sex for money, i.e. "hos" and "prostitute", not the "sluts", "nappy-headed", or "feminazis" comments. Especially the implication that ANY woman who received insurance-covered-contraception was therefore "paid" by the insurer and/or their employer to have sex, and was therefore a prostitute.

And her being a law student, I'm guessing Ms. Fluke has had probably at least hundreds of offers for free representation in a slander suit against Limbaugh/Clear Channel (which is privately co-owned by Mitt Romney's outfit Bain Capital, btw).

WTF, Mitten has been struggling for rightwing street cred the whole primary and he's OWNED Limbaugh the whole time?

a pro-slutwalker chimes in:

26 advertisers have bailed now. He's already got more money than he could ever reasonably spend, but it would be nice to see him forced into retirement.

It's a strange relationship, isn't it? I doubt Romney was actually involved in the decision making process of buying up all the stock and taking Clear Channel private back in '08, but he does still receive a pension from Bain. So regardless of what Limbaugh says about Romney, Romney still profits from what Limbaugh says.

Notice that Limbaugh didn't really apologize?

He was very specific in that he only apologized for those two words, but not for anything else he said.

There is no equivalence in what he has done and anything I've ever heard a liberal say, or even a libertarian, like Bill Maher. They've said crass things, then apologized.

Rush has been on a week-long rant, and hasn't really apologized at all.

Also, Peter Gabriel has asked that "Sledgehammer" no longer be used.

I'm more concerned about the Pretenders' song being used.

I was wondering about "Sledgehammer" playing in the background, although I think I remember hearing it before. Is Gabriel asying he just now found about that? He's definitely used some Mannheim Steamroller music, and I'm pretty sure one of those pukes used the opening riff of Megadeth's "Angry Again."

Back in the mid-nineties I used to listen to Limbaugh occasionally, and I think I remember him actively promoting a Mannheim Steamroller Christmas album? I may have that totally mixed up with something else, but he would spend long portions of an hour just talking about how much he loved this album and how it would make a great gift for the whole family.

In retrospect, that was probably paid advertising. That may explain part of his value to advertisers, the way he is willing to, not just play their commercials, but also give personal testimony to how much he loves Gold-Ban Medicated Powder or whatever. Maybe that's more common on radio than in other media, but at least some broadcasters try to keep at least a little bit of separation between their editorial or entertainment content and their ads. With Limbaugh, he revels in his advertising, he celebrates the fact that he's swimming in money from these corporations and he wants you to know about it. I don't know whether that's more honest, or just another kind of emotional manipulation.