Politics versus principle.

◼ War on Conservative Women Update: Louis CK Pulls Out of Correspondents’ Dinner - John Hayward/Human Events

...Of course, those who understand this all about power, identity politics, and the suppression of dissent know that the only surprise in this whole affair has been the inability of the Left to exercise complete control over the media narrative.

Women like van Susteren and Michelle Malkin – whose “War on Conservative Women” column recounted some of the vile abuse she has been subjected to – are the unexpected complications liberals didn’t take into account, when they thought an opportunity to do some real damage to Rush Limbaugh presented itself. Writing at Red State last Friday, Lori Ziganto got “shake fisty” as she recalled some other pearls of liberal misogyny, dropped not by professional “comedians,” but by “serious” commentators, and even elected officials. There are few prominent conservative women who haven’t been called much worse than a “slut” by the contemptuous Left.

Surprised by the level of blowback, liberals have been reduced to offering a series of bizarre apologia for Bill Maher, explaining why his far more vicious rhetoric is no big deal, while Rush Limbaugh still needs to be forced off the air. The major talking points are that Maher’s language is acceptable because he’s a comedian, his audience is much smaller than Limbaugh’s, and the target of his slurs was a woman who held elected office.

Absolutely none of those talking points can be squared with President Obama’s claims that he got personally involved in the Sandra Fluke affair because he doesn’t want his daughters to worry about being called horrible names, should they choose to become involved in civic life. Are we supposed to believe Obama would be fine with his daughters being called “sluts,” and worse, because they stood for an election, or because their attacker claims to be a professional comedian? Of course not.