In the firestorm surrounding Rush Limbaugh’s recent deplorable comments regarding Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke, less if any attention has been paid to what he actually meant by them. This is understandable — his words were cruel, unfair, incendiary, and hearkened back to an era of misogeny to which most Americans long ago bid ‘good riddance.’ But it is also unfortunate, since the lie that undergirds those words is arguably even more insidious than the words themselves.

After Sandra Fluke testified before Congress in support of the Obama administration’s new policy requiring health insurers to cover contraceptive care in their health plans, Rush (and others, including Bill O’Reilly) attacked Fluke for wanting taxpayers to subsidize her “social activities” (read: sex lives). This was the driving force behind Limbaugh’s disgusting verbal assault, which peaked filthily with his assertion that, for supporting such activities, he and the rest of the taxpaying public deserved “something in return.”

America’s outrage focused on the nauseating way he made this point — the words he used, and the historical implications of those words. Those are very valid points, and Limbaugh has now begrudgingly apologized for “choosing the wrong words”. What he has not backed away from is his point. That no one seems to be pressuring him to do so is a shame, because that point is complete and total bunk.

The Obama administration policy requires health insurers to provide full coverage for contraceptive care in the plans they offer to private citizens through their employers. The employees pay premiums for these plans, and employers contribute to them as well. How exactly Limbaugh and his ilk equate this with taxpayer subsidization of birth control is not clear. Yet this aspect of the incident — the fact that Limbaugh’s claims, in addition to being offensively delivered, are build on a steaming pile of untruths — seems to have gone largely unaddressed by the media and others driving this discussion.

Someone with a bigger megaphone than this tiny blog with zero readers beyond my mom and my wife should really raise this question, because it is important. The epithets Rush flung at Sandra Fluke were obscene and will sting in the near-term, but those wounds will heal. His reason for flinging them — from which he has not backed away nor apologized — is the deeper lie here, and threatens to do even greater damage to the public’s understanding of this very important public policy issue.

Focusing on the words themselves is easy. Focusing on the more complex policy issues beneath takes work, but it is at least as important in my view. As a new father of a daughter, I would be beyond outraged if Limbaugh’s words were ever used to describe and demean her in this way. But I would be even more deeply incensed if her admirable message was allowed to be twisted and mischaracterized in the public mind by liars and fools just because no one could see past those awful words.