March 6-7, 2012: Limbaugh Expands Radio Attack to Second Female Target

Tracie McMillan. [Source: BeFoodSmart (.com)]Talk show host Rush Limbaugh, having spent four days vilifying and deriding female law student Sandra Fluke (see February 29, 2012), March 1, 2012, March 2, 2012, and March 5, 2012), turns his attention to another woman, author and investigative journalist Tracie McMillan. She recently wrote a book entitled The American Way of Eating. Limbaugh calls McMillan a “babe,” an “authorette,” and “one of those single white women,” and tells his listeners: “What is it with all of these young single white women, overeducated—doesn’t mean intelligent. For example, Tracie McMillan, the author of this book, seems to be just out of college and already she has been showered with awards, including the 2006 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism.… Her degree is not in food or nutrition. She has a B.A. from New York University in political science.” Some, including McMillan, believe that the “young single white women, overeducated—doesn’t mean intelligent” comment is a veiled reference to Fluke. In an interview with the Atlantic Wire, McMillan says she believes Limbaugh is attacking her based on her gender. “It’s been really interesting to have somebody be that openly dismissive of my work strictly based on the fact that I’m female,” she says. “There’s no other way to think about it except that Rush Limbaugh just doesn’t think women count.” Her book is about issues facing the way Americans eat and the conditions food workers toil in, and she says having a conversation about those issues would be very acceptable. However, she says, Limbaugh wants to attack her for being female. Atlantic Wire reporter Adam Clark Estes writes: “It’s hard to comprehend exactly what Limbaugh is try[ing] to say. He suggests that McMillan is overeducated but not intelligent, naive, and out of her league.” [Think Progress, 3/7/2012; Atlantic Wire, 3/7/2012]