Rush Limbaugh invoked a rape analogy on Friday to criticize President Obama's move to support filibuster reform.
On Thursday, Obama expressed his support for Senate Democrats voting to require just 51 votes — as opposed to 60 — approve judicial and executive nominees. Limbaugh compared them to a group of people where the majority decides it is okay to rape women.
"Let's forget the Senate for a minute," Limbaugh began. He told his listeners to imagine a group of 10 people with six men and four women. "The group has a rule that the men cannot rape the women," he said. "The group also has a rule that says any rule that will be changed must require six votes, of the 10, to change the rule."
The radio host continued,
"Every now and then, some lunatic in the group proposes to change the rule to allow women to be raped. But they never were able to get six votes for it. There were always the four women voting against it and they always found two guys.Well, the guy that kept proposing that women be raped finally got tired of it, and he was in the majority and he was one that [said], 'You know what? We're going to change the rule. Now all we need is five." And well, 'you can't do that.' 'Yes we are. We're the majority. We're changing the rule.' And then they vote. Can the women be raped? Well, all it would take then is half of the room. You can change the rule to say three. You can change the rule to say three people want it, it's going to happen."
"When the majority can change the rules there aren't any," Limbaugh concluded. He added that Obama was only changing the rule because he can’t get "what he wants democratically."
As Politico noted, his comments were met with swift backlash on Twitter:
Rush Limbaugh doesn't understand rape or filibusters. http://t.co/5X7xCs8S0r
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) November 22, 2013