BUT YOU TOLD ME MIKE HUCKABEE WAS MUCH NICER THAN RUSH LIMBAUGH

I'm sure by now you've heard about this:

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (R) said Thursday that Republicans need to take a more combative attitude toward winning the votes of women, by emphasizing that women aren't weaklings in need of help from the government....

Huckabee said Democrats rely on women believing they are weaker than men and in need of government handouts, including the contraception mandate in Obamacare.

Huckabee said Democrats tell women "they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing them for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of government." ...

Is there any effective difference between what Rush Limbaugh said about Sandra Fluke ("She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex") and what Huckabee said today?

I guess the only problem with what Limbaugh said two years ago, as far as Republicans are concerned, was that he said it in a presidential election year, when infrequent voters show up at the polls and Republicans try to avoid offending them, rather than in a midterm election year like this year, when the point for the GOP is to turn out the angry base.

It's amusing to flash back to March 2012, just after the Limbaugh attack on Fluke, and read this about Huckabee:

After decades as a dominant force in talk radio, Rush Limbaugh could be in for his biggest fight yet. But the threat isn't from activist groups who dislike his conservative politics. It is from one of his own: former Republican governor of Arkansas and onetime presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee.

Starting April 9, Mr. Huckabee, a Fox News Channel commentator, will go head-to-head with Mr. Limbaugh in a syndicated radio program airing in the noon to 3 p.m. Eastern time, weekday slot.

... the recent drama over Mr. Limbaugh calling a Georgetown law student a "slut" for her comments about contraception insurance coverage has given Mr. Huckabee an opening....

With the slogan "more conversation, less confrontation," the syndicator behind "Huckabee," Cumulus Media Networks, has been pitching the new show to advertisers as a less combative alternative to Mr. Limbaugh....

Such fond memories....

And in case anyone needs reminding, Sandra Fluke, in testimony to congressional Democrats, made reference to a classmate who needed birth control pills for a reason other than contraception:

She kept her poise, voice faltering only slightly, as she told the story of a gay friend who needed prescription birth control to prevent the growth of ovarian cysts. When Georgetown declined to cover the pills on the grounds that they were intended to prevent a pregnancy, Fluke said, her friend developed a cyst "the size of a tennis ball" that required the removal of her ovary. As Fluke noted, oral contraceptives, which can be costly, are often prescribed for medical issues unrelated to preventing pregnancy. "A woman's health takes a back seat to a bureaucracy focused on policing her body," she told the assembled members of Congress.

Limbaugh? Huckabee? Not a dime's worth of difference. And I hope Limbaugh's lawyers dun Huckabee for royalties.