Limbaugh: Obama is the 'generalissimo' in the 'real' war on women

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Monday pushed back against claims that Republicans were attacking women's rights and insisted that the "real war on women" was being directed by President Barack Obama.

"The real war on women is being conducted by the regime, by the Obama administration," he explained. "Since Barack Obama took office, the unemployment rate for women has gone up from 7 to 8.1 percent. ... The poverty rate among women rose to 14.5 percent last year, up from 13.9 percent when Obama was immaculated."

Limbaugh continued: "If there is a war on women, it is happening and it is being directed from the White House with Obama as the generalissimo."

Politico's Josh Boak noted last week that job losses for women appeared to be worse than for men during Obama's presidency because "[a]lmost 3.3 million men were fired during the George W. Bush’s last year in office, while the losses for women were more drawn out over time."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Monday insisted that the so-called war on women was a "manufactured issue."

"There is no issue," McConnell told radio station WHAS. "Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison [Texas] and Kelly Ayotte from New Hampshire and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe from Maine, I think, would be the first to say — and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska — ‘We don’t see any evidence of this.'"

But the Kentucky Republican's claim doesn't line up with remarks by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who recently blasted her own party, according to Homer News.

"It makes no sense to make this attack on women," she said during a local radio call-in show. "If you don't feel this is an attack, you need to go home and talk to your wife and your daughters."

During a Sunday interview on CNN, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) asserted that the "war on women" label was fair given recent actions by Republican lawmakers.

“The policies that have come out of the Republican Party, saying that we should have a debate again over contraception and whether we should have access to it and it should be affordable, saying that — like Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin, you know, he tried to quietly repeal the Equal Pay Act,” Wasserman Schultz noted.

"You have Republicans who have engaged themselves for the entire Congress trying to redefine rape as only being forcible rape, defunding Planned Parenthood and family planning programs," she continued. "So, the focus of the Republican Party on turning back the clock for women really is something that is unacceptable and shows how callous and insensitive they are towards women’s priorities."

Listen to the audio below from The Rush Limbaugh Show, broadcast on April 9, 2012.

(h/t: Mediaite)