I wouldn’t say I exactly feel sorry for Rush Limbaugh, but it’s pretty embarrassing to comment on something in a way that reveals you literally didn’t consider the material at hand for more than 30 seconds. Or 29, to be exact. Limbaugh went on the air to praise Beyonce Knowles’ latest single “Bow Down / I Been On” for what he thinks is the song’s ode to submitting to your husband. “She got married, she married the rich guy, she now understands — she now understands it’s worth it to bow down,” he says. Listen to the segment here:
But if Limbaugh had listened to the song for fifteen seconds, he’d know that it’s addressed to the women Knowles addresses in the opening lyric, when she sings: ““I know when you were little girls/ You dreamt of being in my world.” and if he’d gotten all the way to the 29-second mark, he’d have heard Beyonce remind listeners, some of whom have been perturbed by her plan to tour as Mrs. Carter — her husband’s legal name — for her next album, “I took some time to live my life / But don’t think I’m just his little wife.” Now, I’m aware that Mr. Limbaugh is a busy man with a lot of time to fill, and that being sexually nasty to women in public life only goes so far, but you’d think that he has enough money to at least pay a staffer to listen to popular music he’s going to natter about on the air.
And part of what’s funniest about this is that if Limbaugh wanted to make a case that Beyonce’s an advocate for women making efforts to please their husbands, it wouldn’t have been too hard — he just needed to pick a different song. In “Countdown,” for example, Beyonce pulls out the Betty Draper drag to tell her listeners that “I’m all up under him like it’s cold, winter time / All up in the kitchen in my heels, dinner time / Do whatever that it takes, he got a winner’s mind / Give it all to him, meet him at the finish line”:
But then, maybe Limbaugh’s not ready to tell his female audience “Ladies, if you love your man show him you the fliest / Grind up on it, girl, show him how you ride it.” Though given the way he’s willing to talk about the sex lives of women he’s never met, and about which he knows precisely nothing, I’d hardly put it past him.