THE TRUTH ABOUT RUSH LIBBAUGH AND HIS PHONY SOLDIERS COMMENT!

From Media Matter for America Oct 5, 2007

Wednesday, September 26: On his radio show, Limbaugh gets into a discussion with a caller about people who oppose the Iraq war. "It's not possible, intellectually, to follow these people," he says. The caller replies, "No, it's not, and what's really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media." Limbaugh then interjects, "The phony soldiers," to which the caller responds, "The phony soldiers. If you talk to a real soldier, they are proud to serve." The two then go on to talk about how real soldiers want to be in Iraq. A full one minute and 50 seconds later -- after the caller went on to discuss the purported presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and after Limbaugh thanked the caller for calling -- Limbaugh brings up Jesse MacBeth, who had claimed falsely to have served in Iraq and witnessed atrocities.

Friday, September 28: Responding to the controversy aroused by his "phony soldiers" comment, Limbaugh claims on his show that he had not been talking "about the anti-war movement generally," but rather "about one soldier ... Jesse MacBeth." He then tells his listeners he will present to them the "entire" segment from the day before, so they can hear what he actually said. But the clip he airs actually cuts out a full 1 minute and 35 seconds of discussion that occurred between Limbaugh's original "phony soldiers" comment and his subsequent reference to MacBeth, making it appear as though he had segued directly from "phony soldiers" to MacBeth, when this was not in fact the case. Limbaugh also claims he was "talking about one soldier with that 'phony soldier' comment, Jesse MacBeth," when in fact he said not "soldier" (singular) but "soldiers" (plural). Limbaugh also states during his program, "And by the way, Jesse MacBeth's not the only one," adding to his list of "phony soldiers" Congressman John Murtha, a Vietnam combat veteran and recipient of a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts whose service on active duty and in the Marine Reserve spanned 37 years before he retired as a colonel.

Tuesday, October 2: After the group VoteVets.org airs a television advertisement in which a wounded Iraq veteran, Brian McGough, criticizes Limbaugh for the "phony soldiers" comment, Limbaugh compares McGough to a suicide bomber. "He discusses his service in Iraq, the wounds he suffered there," Limbaugh says, "and he says to me in this ad, 'Until you have the guts to call me a "phony soldier" to my face, stop telling lies about my service.' You know, this is such a blatant use of a valiant combat veteran, lying to him about what I said, then strapping those lies to his belt, sending him out via the media in a TV ad to walk into as many people as he can walk into."

Thursday, October 4: Displaying his ongoing commitment to reasoned discourse, Limbaugh puts up a picture on his website of Josef Stalin sporting Media Matters' logo on his chest. Because posting audio and transcripts of Rush Limbaugh so people can see what he says is pretty much like heading up one of history's most brutally repressive regimes and murdering 20 million or so people. Just about, anyway.

Now that we're all caught up, we can talk about what this means. In order to understand it, you have to realize that Limbaugh's attack on soldiers who disagree with Bush's policy on the war is in perfect keeping with statements he has made in the past. While most commentators will at least nod to the notion that those who disagree with them can still love their country, Limbaugh has stated on numerous occasions his belief that people who oppose the war are unpatriotic. To take just one example, this past August, he said, "I want to respectfully disagree with the president on the last part of what he said. I am going to challenge the patriotism of people who disagree with him because the people that disagree with him want to lose."

Once you've constructed and maintained this argument -- that only people who hate America could possibly disagree with George W. Bush on national security questions -- what do you do when you encounter veterans who do, in fact, disagree? People who have put their very lives at risk in order to serve their country? So much of the rhetoric coming from people like Limbaugh operates on the premise that people who hold different opinions aren't merely wrong or mistaken, they have bad motives.

Think about how much time and effort they expend on convincing Americans that progressives and Democrats are "anti-military," "hate the troops," and even "hate America." So any progressive veteran who criticizes Bush administration policies represents a profound threat to all the arguments they have made. It becomes particularly thorny when nearly the entire current leadership of the conservative movement -- not only media figures like Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, but also political figures including President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and many others -- were of draft age during the Vietnam war but managed to stay out of harm's way.

Let's be clear: I'm not arguing that any particular individual on that list didn't have legitimate reasons to avoid serving in Vietnam -- some may have. Nor am I arguing that the opinions of veterans on matters of national security are necessarily more valid simply because they are veterans. The point is that accusations of troop-hating and insufficient patriotism are difficult to wield at veterans, particularly when thrown by those who were subject to the draft but managed to avoid it.

Unless, that is, they can argue that the veteran in question isn't a real veteran, that his service wasn't real service, that his sacrifice wasn't real sacrifice, and that his patriotism isn't real patriotism. So that's exactly what they do.

If this were the first, or second, or even third time this had happened, one might be able to come up with another plausible explanation. But what we heard this week with Rush Limbaugh was a replay of a record we've heard many times before: a war critic with a military record emerges, and the right responds by attacking his patriotism, arguing that his service wasn't real, or both. Consider the following:

• John Kerry, a Vietnam veteran and recipient of a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts, saw a campaign of truly epic dishonesty waged during the 2004 presidential election to convince the American people that he didn't deserve his medals and that the injuries he sustained in combat were phony. Among the many ways conservatives got into the act: At the 2004 Republican convention, delegates wore Band-Aids with purple hearts on their cheeks to mock Kerry's medals. ABC News anchor Peter Jennings asked Newt Gingrich at the time whether the purple heart Band-Aids made him uncomfortable. "No," Gingrich replied, "I think it's funny." (The conservative Media Research Center cited this exchange as an example of liberal media bias because it was shocked that anyone would take offense at a gesture "meant to make light of John Kerry earning purple hearts in Vietnam for superficial wounds.")

• Max Cleland, who lost both legs and one arm in Vietnam, was the subject of an attack ad from challenger Saxby Chambliss (reason for avoiding Vietnam service: bum knee) featuring photos of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, claiming that Cleland was hindering efforts to fight terrorism. "Max Cleland says he has the courage to lead," the announcer said, "But the record proves Max Cleland is just misleading."

• When Congressman John Murtha -- to repeat, a Vietnam combat veteran, recipient of a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts, whose service on active duty and in the Marine Reserve spanned 37 years before he retired as a colonel -- became critical of the Iraq war, he was attacked relentlessly by conservatives. Ann Coulter said that Murtha is "the reason soldiers invented fragging," slang for soldiers killing a member of their own unit. Coulter later said that if Murtha "did get fragged, he'd finally deserve one of those Purple Hearts."

• Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, a decorated Vietnam veteran, was called "Sen. Skeptic (R., France)" by the National Review when in 2002 he raised questions about the Bush administration's push for war -- in other words, Hagel didn't represent the United States but a foreign country. More recently, Rush Limbaugh has said: "By the way, we had a caller call, couldn't stay on the air, got a new name for Senator Hagel in Nebraska, we got General Petraeus and we got Senator Betrayus, new name for Senator Hagel."
• When Rep. Joe Sestak, a retired rear admiral, walked in a Memorial Day parade wearing his uniform during the 2006 campaign (without doing any campaigning, as per military regulations), the Republican State Committee of Pennsylvania sent out a press release titled "Sestak's Got No R-E-S-P-E-C-T For Uniform" according to an August 7, 2006, article in the Navy Times.
• In 2006, incumbent Republican Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick held a press conference in which he presented an Air Force major named Kevin Kelly who accused Fitzpatrick's challenger, Democrat Patrick Murphy, of claiming to be more of a combat veteran than he was. As The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on October 11, 2006, "Kelly claimed that Murphy, who was in Baghdad during 2003 and 2004 as a captain and lawyer with the 82d Airborne, exaggerated his combat experience. But in response to a reporter's question, Kelly could not cite any place, incident or publication where he heard Murphy make such claims."
• Democrat Paul Hackett, an Iraq war veteran, ran for Congress in a special election in Ohio in 2005. Rush Limbaugh said of Hackett, "it appears that, you know, he goes to Iraq to pad the résumé."

We could go on to list the many Democrats who have had their patriotism assaulted -- like Air Force veteran Tom Daschle, who was accused of treason by Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) (Davis said that comments Daschle made in 2002 questioning the success of the war on terror had "the effect of giving aid and comfort to our enemies," language taken directly from the Constitution's definition of treason), and was the subject of a press release by since-disgraced Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) titled "Foley Questions Daschle's Patriotism." But that would take far more space than we have at hand. One thing that all these cases have in common is that no one in the media even considered referring to these conservative attacks as "anti-military," while media figures routinely characterize progressives as "anti-military" if they take issue with policies like the Iraq war, not to mention the converse, that Iraq war supporters are by definition "pro-military" folks who "support the troops" (see here, here, here, here, or here).

So let's consider Limbaugh's comment about Hackett. As far as Limbaugh is concerned, a progressive can't possibly join the military out of a commitment to national service or simple patriotism; if a progressive joined the military, his or her motives must have been dishonorable, in this case to "pad the résumé." By the same token, if a soldier opposes the war, he must not be a real soldier. After making the "phony soldiers" statement, Limbaugh and his caller went on to discuss how real soldiers want to be in Iraq. "They joined to be in Iraq!" said Rush.

Yet you would have had trouble finding too many Republicans in Washington willing to step forward and condemn Limbaugh, or do what Democrats are asked to do whenever a progressive anywhere says something controversial, and "distance themselves" from his remarks. Why? Because Rush Limbaugh is one of the most important components of the conservative spin machine. After all, when Republicans scored their dramatic electoral victory in 1994, they named him an honorary member of the 104th Congress. He'll have to go a lot further than insulting soldiers to get them to turn on him.

At one level, one can have some sympathy for O'Reilly and Limbaugh. Every day, they spend a lot of time on the air -- three hours in Limbaugh's case, and three more for O'Reilly (one hour on television and two on radio), talking extemporaneously about the issues of the day. As seasoned performers, they both know that passion and anger, whether genuine or feigned, are necessary elements of their oeuvre. Given all that, it would hardly be remarkable if every now and again they said something they regretted.

But to hear them tell it, they never regret anything they say. No word that escapes their mouths is anything other than exactly what they meant. If people are offended, they just don't understand, or they've been manipulated by the enemies of the right.

When people do get offended, or fed up at the seemingly unending stream of falsehood and misrepresentation, the right-wing media do what they always do: attack the messenger. So lately, Media Matters has been the subject of some awfully nasty comments from Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and their allies; a recent favorite is Bill O'Reilly calling Media Matters President David Brock "the biggest villain, in my opinion, in the country" (eat your heart out, terrorists!). And don't even ask about the emails we get -- let's just say Rush and Bill's fans are extremely angry and prone to vulgarity, and need to work on their spelling.

This strategy isn't hard to interpret. If you can get people talking about a sinister left-wing conspiracy, then suddenly they aren't talking about you and your statements anymore. And for the likes of Limbaugh, it's always somebody else's fault.

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IS RUSH LIMBAUGH A PHONY AMERICAN?

Includes Excerpts from an Article By Jennifer Parker, ABC NEWS; general articles at CBS News; NY Times, NY Post, and comments by talk show hosts around the country.  Oct. 3, 2007

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In what has become the latest partisan battle over the Iraq War, congressional Democrats and a veterans group are expressing outrage over comments made by conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh on his talk radio program last week.

The war of words began last Wednesday when Limbaugh, a longtime conservative radio talk-show host, insinuated that veterans who question the war in Iraq are "phony soldiers" on his talk-radio program.

"They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media," the caller said.

"The phony soldiers," Limbaugh responded.

Since then, Democrats have pounced on the controversy -- amplified by bloggers, interest groups and news media outlets -- calling on Republicans to condemn Limbaugh's comments. On Wednesday VoteVets.org, an Internet-based political veterans group, launched a television and radio ad attacking Limbaugh's comments.

It's a sign that in the lead-up to the 2008 election, with their congressional efforts to effect a change of course in Iraq repeatedly thwarted, the Democrats are stepping up their public relations game to portray perceived slights against the troops as proof that the GOP and other war-supporters do not care as much as they do about military veterans.

"Maybe Rush Limbaugh hasn't heard, but there's a new sheriff in town -- America's troops and veterans, who are not going to sit idle while he and his ilk demean the service of those who oppose the president's failed policy in Iraq," said Jon Soltz, chair of VoteVets.org and an Iraq War veteran.

Veterans Group Launches Anti-Limbaugh Ad

The veterans group spent $60,000 on a national ad condemning Limbaugh on cable news outlets last Wednesday and Thursday. They also aired a radio version of the ad during the Rush Limbaugh show in Washington, D.C., and in Palm Beach, Fla. -- Limbaugh's home market.

"More and more troops and veterans of Iraq believe George Bush's military policy has been a disaster," wounded Iraq veteran Brian McGough says in the ad. "I am one of them. Rush Limbaugh called vets like me 'phony soldiers' for telling the truth about Iraq."

Over pictures of his head wound, McGough says to camera in the ad: "Rush, the shrapnel I took to my head was real. My traumatic brain injury was real. And my belief that we are on the wrong course in Iraq is real. Until you have the guts to call me a 'phony soldier' to my face, stop telling lies about my service."

Democrats Mobilize Against Limbaugh Comments

Democrats called on their Republican colleagues to condemn Limbaugh -- just as Republicans called on Democrats last month to condemn an ad by the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org that was critical of Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.

"All these Republicans went running to the mic and the TV cameras when MoveOn ran their ad about Gen. Petraeus. Now let's see if they really mean it," Democratic candidate and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards said Saturday while campaigning in New Hampshire.

"Let's see if they'll speak out against Rush Limbaugh. Let's see if they'll challenge him about men and women who have worn the uniform of the United States," Edwards charged.

Democratic candidate Sen. Chris Dodd's, D-Conn., spokesman also jumped on the controversy.

"It's ironic, if not remotely surprising, that Rush Limbaugh, who makes his living shooting his mouth off, would impugn the patriotism and service of American troops simply because they have voiced their opposition to this failed policy," said Dodd spokesman Hari Sevugan.

Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean called on Limbaugh to apologize.

This week 20 House Democrats introduced a resolution urging the House to condemn Limbaugh's "unwarranted slur." Forty Senate Democrats Tuesday sent a letter to Clear Channel, asking the company that syndicates Limbaugh's radio program "to publicly repudiate" Limbaugh's comments.

Mark Mays, president of Clear Channel, the parent company of Limbaugh's broadcast, stood behind his broadcaster.

"Given Mr. Limbaugh's history of support for our soldiers, it would be unfair for me to assume his statements were intended to personally indict combat soldiers simply because they didn't share his own beliefs regarding the war in Iraq," Mays said in a written statement.

And yet House Republicans were able to get Democrats to sign their resolution condemning the MoveOn.org ad attacking Petraeus.

Limbaugh Denounces Veterans Group Ad

Limbaugh publicly denounced the VoteVets.org ad, likening the Iraq War veteran featured in the ad to a suicide bomber.

"This is such a blatant use of a valiant combat veteran, lying to him about what I said, then strapping those lies to his belt, sending him out via the media in a TV ad to walk into as many people as he can walk into," Limbaugh said Tuesday on his radio program.

Limbaugh has said that his "phony soldier" comments were referring only to one soldier recently convicted of lying about his service. The radio talk show host has also attacked Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Pa., a retired Marine colonel and opponent of the Iraq War.

"I was not talking about anti-war, active duty troops," Limbaugh insisted. However the liberal media watchdog organization Media Matters disputed Limbaugh's claim that his "phony soldiers" comment was taken out of context, pointing to the transcript as proof that the reference came two minutes after discussion of the discredited man.

"After referring to troops who disagree with him about Iraq as phony soldiers, he's gone on to compare one of our Purple Heart veterans from the war in Iraq to a suicide bomber," said Karl Frisch, spokesperson for Media Matters. "It's time for him to stop digging the hole and start being accountable."

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RUSH BACKGROUND

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Although he has never run for elected office or held any public position, or been in the military, rabid right talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh is considered to be one of the country's most influential Republicans. The views expressed on his nationally syndicated program, and echoed throughout the land by his legions of dittoheads, often become high-priority issues on the GOP agenda. Rush's values are in large part Republicans' values. The inverse is not necessarily true.

DURING THE CLINTON IMPEACHMENT HEARINGS

Several investigators were criticized by leadership of the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the archconservative Landmark Foundation for employing tactics that, in theory, could have altered the Senate debate on impeachment and perhaps influence a Senator's given vote. The Landmark Foundation went so far as to petition the Justice Department to launch an investigation into the hypocrisy brigade on charges of possible jury-tampering. The RNC's Jim Nicholson heartily seconded the proposed probe.

Rush Limbaugh evidently believed that the desire of his fellow Republicans to shield the Senate debate from outside influences applied to others, but not to himself.

Republican Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama felt firsthand Rush Limbaugh's selective sense of ethical propriety. On January 25, 1999, Shelby was quoted by the Associated Press on the matter of House Managers calling witnesses in the impeachment trial. Shelby prefaced his opinion on the vote for calling witnesses with a view that the House's case was not airtight, "and there are not 67 votes to convict. If it were an airtight case...you'd probably have about 70, 75 Senators lining up to convict. You don't see that."

Shelby remarked on NBC's Today that the House prosecutors were arguing for witnesses because "they are hoping to find something rather than perhaps having something." The Senator from Alabama felt that unless witnesses would alter the dynamics of the trial, "I say let's dispense with the witnesses and go on and vote up or down after we have arguments."

Later the same day, Rush Limbaugh responded to Shelby's reality-dictated practicality. "I hear he [Shelby] may have a Larry Flynt problem," said Limbaugh.

Allan MacDonell of Hustler, was described by the New York Post as being "morally outraged" by Limbaugh's remark. MacDonell refused to confirm or deny whether Larry Flynt possessed any compromising facts about Shelby, but made clear that Rush Limbaugh would not have been party to any Hustler information.

"I know what Limbaugh is trying to do," said MacDonell. "He's trying to cast aspersions on Shelby, who has opened his eyes and seen reality. It's a pretty rotten trick. It's an attempt at coercion. Rush is trying to get Shelby to put his head back in the sand. I believe a Justice Department probe should be launched against Rush Limbaugh for interfering with a Senate jury, and I'm sure that Jim Nicholson of the RNC, and the Landmark Foundation, will concur that Limbaugh has violated a vital precept."

Predictably, neither the RNC nor the Landmark Foundation voiced any objection to blubbermouth Limbaugh's blatant attempt to blackmail the jury.  Again, Republicans behave as if they are entitled to live by a lower moral standard than that to which they hold their opponents.  Senator Shelby, equally predictably, voted to allow the calling of witnesses in the impeachment proceedings.