RUSH: Guess what he’s out doing today? He’s back on the War on Women. He’s revving that back up. It’s some 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act or some such thing and he’s out there talking about women bringing home the bacon but they don’t get the bacon. I’ve got the sound bites. Here’s Obama this morning in Washington at the White House, 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act.
OBAMA: Women are now the primary source of income for nearly 40% of American families. Forty percent — almost half. That’s not something to panic about or be afraid about. That’s a sign of the progress and the strides that we’ve made, but what it does mean is that when more women are bringing home the bacon, they shouldn’t just be getting a little bit of bacon.
RUSH: Yeah, that’s what it was. So when more women are bringing home the bacon they shouldn’t just be getting a little bit of it. I don’t know a woman who eats bacon, do you? You eat bacon? Do you, really? Well, I’m honored to know you. Congratulations. You’re not afraid to eat bacon, Dawn? Are you kidding me? My faith in womanhood is almost restored.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, Friday night on Bill Maher’s Real Time show he had a guest, Kevin Williamson, from National Review magazine. National Review magazine used to be a conservative magazine when Mr. Buckley owned it. Maher had a guest named Kevin Williamson, who is a roving reporter, is what he’s called. They were talking about statistics last week that we just played Obama talking about, that 40% of America’s breadwinners are women.
Now, we mentioned this last week. And I did not have a single disparaging thing to say about it. I didn’t even try to crack a joke about it. I just mentioned it. I threw it out there for people to ponder and think about. I hardly even spent any time on it. So little time, I don’t even remember exactly what I said. Do you remember what I said about it? Well, how would you know? You weren’t even here that day. Dawn, do you remember what I said? You’re a woman. You’d be interested. Do you remember what I said? You do or you don’t? No, no, no. There is no reason to be afraid here. If you do remember, don’t be afraid to tell me. What do you remember me saying? Right. But there was no snarkiness. I tossed out the fact and that was it. There was nothing that made you people on the other side of the glass nervous, right? Okay. So let’s go to the audio sound bite. Bill Maher, Real Time, Friday night, Kevin Williamson and they’re talking about this statistic that 40% of women are the breadwinners.
WILLIAMSON: The issue of women working and their outcomes for children has been studied and studied and studied and studied, and there’s really no ill effects for kids. Daughters seem to do better when they have working mothers. The second thing is that Republicans really have a problem telling their elected officials from their entertainers. You know, it’s one thing to have Rush Limbaugh say something.
MAHER: Right.
WILLIAMSON: You have the governor of Mississippi also saying the same thing this week. You know, this all started to go wrong when women started leaving the — leaving the house and going into the workforce, and there’s just no real evidence to support that.
RUSH: I didn’t say that. I didn’t say that. My own wife is the CEO and the president and the grand pooh-bah of the tea company. My own wife runs one of our businesses, and — oh, he doesn’t mean me personally? He means me generically? Like Xerox? It’s one thing to have Rush Limbaugh say something, and the governor of Mississippi say the same thing? I didn’t say anything last week, is that your point, I’m just Xerox? So whatever some nutcase on talk radio happens to say, it’s me? Well, okay, I am talk radio. So whatever was said on talk radio, it’s me? Right. It wasn’t me. Okay. All right. Fine.
Here’s what I said. In fact, I’m gonna read to you what I said. “While I was gone, the Pew Center, Pew Research Center, released a study that revealed that mothers are the sole or primary providers of income in a record 40% of all households with children under the age of 18 in the country. In other words, women have become the primary breadwinners in 40% of the households. Analyzing data from the Census Bureau for 2011, the report investigated changing gender roles, cases where married women outearn their husbands. I should say spouses now. It’s not husbands anymore. And the income gap between married and single mothers was quite large as expected, but both groups of breadwinner mothers, married and single, have grown in size the past five decades.”
That was it. That was all I said about it. And since I was gone, some other people took some heat about this. I forgot the names, there were some commentator that had some deleterious things to say about it. Wasn’t me. So I got slimed by National Review.