In an about-face, the conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said Saturday that he was sorry for denouncing as a “prostitute” a Georgetown University law student who had spoken publicly in favor of the Obama administration’s birth control policy.
On Saturday, a day after President Obama telephoned the student, Sandra Fluke, to say he stood by her in the face of personal attacks on right-wing radio, Mr. Limbaugh published the apology on his Web site.
“For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week. In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke,” Mr. Limbaugh wrote. He then reiterated his opposition to the Obama administration policy, which requires health insurance plans to cover contraceptives for women.
On the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday editions of his talk show, Mr. Limbaugh attacked Ms. Fluke as sexually promiscuous and politically motivated — “an anti-Catholic plant,” he said at one point.
On Wednesday, he called her a “slut” who “wants to be paid to have sex”; on Thursday, he said she was “having so much sex, it’s amazing she can still walk”; and on Friday, after Senate Democrats beat back a Republican challenge to the new policy, he said Ms. Fluke had testified that she was “having sex so frequently that she can’t afford all the birth-control pills that she needs.”
In television interviews, Ms. Fluke said she was stunned and outraged by Mr. Limbaugh’s comments.
In his call on Friday, Mr. Obama thanked Ms. Fluke for publicly backing his regulations mandating contraception coverage.
Mr. Limbaugh’s comments added fuel to a rancorous dispute on Capitol Hill over whether employers should have to provide insurance coverage for contraception. Democrats have said Republican opposition to such coverage amounts to a “war on women.”
Some Republicans also criticized Mr. Limbaugh, including the House speaker, John A. Boehner, who called his comments “inappropriate.”
As the issue gained national attention, liberal activists and other longtime critics of Mr. Limbaugh started to contact his advertisers and ask them to withdraw their ads from his show. By Saturday, six advertisers, including Quicken Loans, said they had done so.
Mr. Limbaugh did not directly address the advertiser pressure in his statement Saturday, but he said, “My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.”
After the statement was published online on Saturday, the company that distributes “The Rush Limbaugh Show,” Premiere Radio Networks, also sent it to reporters in an e-mail. Premiere, a unit of Clear Channel, declined to comment.
It was immediately dismissed as a nonapology by some of the groups that have mobilized against Mr. Limbaugh. “I think this attempt at damage control labeled as an apology actually makes things worse,” stated a Twitter account called “Stop Rush,” which wants people to pressure to companies to stop advertising on “The Rush Limbaugh Show.”
The account then added, “You know what Rush’s so-called apology means? Your efforts at delivering real accountability are working! Keep at it! Onward!”
Think Progress, a blog run by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, noted in a post that “Limbaugh often sparks controversy, but it is exceedingly rare for him to apologize.” Lawrence O’Donnell, the MSNBC anchor, was blunt in his interpretation: “Lawyers wrote that apology,” he stated on Twitter.
Reached by telephone, Kit Carson, the chief of staff for Mr. Limbaugh, declined to comment on why the statement was issued. Mr. Carson added, if Mr. Limbaugh has more to say, he would likely do so on his radio show on Monday.
At least one conservative commentator, Dana Loesch, appeared to back Mr. Limbaugh’s original sentiments, writing on Twitter on Saturday, “If you expect me to pay higher insurance premiums to cover your ‘free’ birth control, I can call you whatever I want.”
Despite Mr. Limbaugh’s statement, one company that was planning to pull its ads, Carbonite, said it would still do so. On Facebook on Saturday evening, the company’s chief executive, David Friend, wrote, “We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse.”