The recent manufactured flap by the mainstream media had a new entrant recently. Carbonite, a company that provides online backup support and apparently hasn’t heard of DropBox, released a statement declaring the end of their sponsorship of the Rush Limbaugh Show following remarks by Rush in which he questioned the definition of the word “slut” as a result of recent testimony by feminist and world’s worst contraception shopper, Sandra Fluke.
CEO of Carbonite, David Friend, had this to say yesterday evening following an apology from Rush:
No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady. Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency. Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse.
His contention that her decision to go on national television to talk about her sex life expenses is “courageous” aside, these are bold words from a man who clearly is attaching no ideology to the matter. Right? RIGHT? Well, that’s come into question by some. And by some I mean me.
You see, Carbonite is also the sponsor for a radio show you probably have not heard of, The Ed Schultz Show. Ed Schultz made a similar remark to Rush’s although his was less a question about the usage of the word (as it was for Rush) and more him just screaming that Laura Ingraham is a “right wing slut.”
[youtube]LLeGQr9TK6g[/youtube]
But you know what they’re talking about? Like this right wing slut. What’s her name Laura Ingraham? Yeah, she’s a talk slut…
Now I wonder why Friend’s daughters don’t’ come to mind here? Could this be a publicity stunt? Could they just be dropping sponsorship of Rush in an effort to gain some exposure to help their company get new customers? Because let’s face it, they’ll get more exposure from dropping Rush then they’ll ever get from keeping Shultz. And they could probably use it given that companies like DropBox have moved forward into advanced cloud backups and access while Carbonite seems hopelessly invested in remaining in the year 2006, but I digress.
I asked them on twitter and on FaceBook why the difference in treatment and so far haven’t gotten a reply.
In the twitter verse, fellow non-Carbonite user Amish Dude pointed me to one possible reason.
What’s this you ask? Oh, that’s a donation to Barack Obama’s campaign courtesy of OpenSecrets.org.
It’s all starting to make sense now isn’t it? He doesn’t mind Schultz because he agrees with him.
Enjoy obscurity Mr. Friend. I’m sure the trade of 20 million listeners vs 2 million listeners will be looked at as a super duper decision at your next shareholders meeting.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member