Good Friday morning Fellow Seekers,
Media Matters for America is calling attention to a Rush Limbaugh rant from his show this past Wednesday in which he dismisses U.S., troops, including those now serving in Iraq, who disagree with President Bush’s stay-until-victory strategy as “phony soldiers.”
And my colleague Jeff Fecke at Blog of the Moderate Left wonders whether those, including Sen. Norm Coleman, who were outraged by the MoveOn.org ad that was insufficiently respectful toward Gen. David Petraeus, will bring equal energy to denouncing Limbaugh for being insufficiently respectful toward some of the troops.
By the way, if you read the full Media Matters piece, you’ll find that:
- Before MoveOn had questioned whether Gen. Petraeus should be called Gen. Betray Us, Limbaugh has said that Sen. Chuck Hagel should be called “Senator Betray Us;”
- And, on the same show in which Limbaugh questioned the soldierly authenticity of some of the troops, he assured a Republican caller that he could not truly be a Republican because the caller said that he too believed the U.S. should start getting out of Iraq;
- And Limbaugh said he disagrees with Pres. Bush’s statements that he (Bush) does not question the patriotism of those who disagree with his (Bush’s) Iraq policy. Limbaugh said that he (Limbaugh) does question the patriotism of those who disagree with his (Bush’s and Limbaugh’s) Iraq policy.
What think?
Obviously, Amy Klobuchar needs to sponsor a Senate resolution “strongly condemning Rush Limbaugh for his comments disrespecting men and women serving their country in uniform.” When that happens, pigs will fly.
People are dying constantly, and we find the time to debate this? Seems rather juvenile at best.
I’m not going to defend everything that Rush says but I think it’s pretty clear that Media Matters got this one wrong. The ‘phony soldiers’ that Rush is mentioning is the few that have come forward and proclaimed themselves Iraq combat vets and then we later find out that they never served in Iraq or never served at all. What he’s saying is that he needs more proof than what someone has told his call screener before he’ll take them at face value.
Not surprising that Media Matters fails to provide the larger context, it’s kind of their special. Their attack on Bill O’Reilly (who I can’t stand) was more of the same. In the middle of a long discussion on how rap music doesn’t represent everyday life in black communities they pull one quote out to make it look like he thinks they’re subhuman. If John Edwards was on the other side of the partisan divide they would have pulled his quote from the debate about the death of black men and twisted it to show that he’s racist.
Yep. I hadn’t heard the program but was pretty sure what it was. More here for truth-seekers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm84gOXkZaY
It’s a smear.
Give me a break, Peder. You cannot seriously or fairly say that either Rush or O’Reilly have been quoted or taken “out of context.” You cannot seriously be claiming that the issue here is whether callers to Limbaugh’s show are bona fide Iraqi veterans. Limbaugh is quite clearly talking about the group of Iraqi veterans who posted an op-ed on the New York Times in the last month or so. Two of those servicemen who signed that letter are now dead having been killed in Iraq. Did you watch “Bill Moyers Journal” on Friday evening?
We are long past the time when the leaders of country should have admitted to having made a grave blunder in this Iraqi venture. All we hear in the media is from the same losers and failed leaders about how to fix the disaster they have created. Including Rush Limbaugh. How does this bozo get to have any opinion about the situation in Iraq after the events have totally discredited his initial enthusiam for this misbegotten war? It’s time to bring in a new team of leaders from those who opposed this War from the get-go but who now can now take a clear eyed look at how to extricate the country from the mess created by conservatism and the Republican Party.
Jonerik, it was a smear and all your feelings about conservatives and Republicans won’t change that one bit.
I submit you cannot smear a smear-artist like Limbaugh by calling him for what he is. No matter what your feelings about Limbaugh is, he is a smear-artist and he has no standing to complain for being called out on it. His smear was directed against all opponents of his beloved Iraq War in and out of uniform. He doesn’t have to name me and others personally to constitute a smear against those who have honest convictions opposed to his. I listened to Limbaugh’s rant about moveon.org, Media Matters and Hillary Clinton. Apparently poor guy’s hurt because somebody dishes his own medicine back at him. It’s just more bs from this blowhard liar and propagandist.
I note that in the process of describing his “anatomy of a smear” he showed us really just how it ought to be done. Like repeating various smears from the past about John Kerry for supposedly having lied about his Vietnam war record. Notice how it’s OK for Rush to smear an honorable veteran like Kerry who served honorably and with distinction in Vietnam. Kerry’s not OK by Rush because he rightly condemned at the time the politicians who got us into that mess. So did Limbaugh call Kerry a “phony soldier” too? It sound like he says so to me or that he intended to convey that impression. But it was the swift boat liars who lied. Kerry’s mistake was not swatting these smears down as fast as they came. Of course, it’s pretty hard when you have an echo chamber like Limbaugh repeating the smears as if they were true at every opportunity. And it’s all smears all the time on the Limbaugh show. But it’s OK see, because he’s a Republican.
Another smear which it is fair to call is in describing “the left’s” use of Jesse MacBride as a “poster child” for veterans of the Iraqi war as if to support the claim that atrocities against Iraqi civilians have never happened and that atrocities are a figment of “the left’s” imagination. That’s pretty much what Limbaugh says in this “anatomy.” To me this is like being a Holocaust denier. Do you honestly believe that there have been no atrocities committed by the US military in Iraq? I guess if you can, like Rushbo, believe Abu Ghraib was just about fraternity-like pranks, you can believe just about anything.
For your information, moveon.org is part of the netroots and has no affiliation or association with Media Matters or with Hillary Clinton or her campaign. Limbaugh alleges that moveon and Media Matters are just “fronts” for Hillary. moveon and Media Matters are not affiliated in any way. moveon is a group of concerned citizens trying to use the internet and exercising our First Amendment rights to effect real change and progress in this country. Neither of these groups are affiliated in any way with Hilary Clinton or her campaign.
Jonerik:
Yes! Now, what can we do about it? You guys are already slaying far more in the way of electrons than he deserves. All you get for it is a diversion.
The only thing you can do, should you feel obliged to do anything, is to hit him where it hurts. Call him a big, fat idiot or something. Anyone who can do that should run for Senate.
Seriously, this is ridiculous and a stupid diversion from what needs to be debated. The whole thing plays into what the pro-war people need more than anything when they are losing. If you want to be on it, go ahead. I’d reccomend reading about Saul Alinsky instead.
Jonerik,
“I submit you cannot smear a smear-artist like Limbaugh by calling him for what he is.” They did no such thing. They twisted his words to make it sound like he’d said that all soldiers who oppose the war are ‘phony’. He explicitly said that he was talking about one soldier. Then they added a bit about the soldiers who wrote an op-ed for the NYT as if he’d been talking about them. He didn’t mention them at all. They just threw that in for extra sympathy and you (amongst others) took the bait because you trusted their honesty.
If you want to argue that he’s overselling one phony guy to paint whole bunches of other people, then go ahead and do it. That’s not the article that they wrote. If you want to suggest that questioning Kerry’s war record is beyond the pale, go ahead. They didn’t write that article either. Instead they took one phrase, stripped it of context and tried to twist it into something else. That’s a smear.
Can’t smear a smear artist, huh? Then I guess anything that’s ever said about Media Matters is fair game from now on. I suggest that a better way is to try and find the truth of the issue and go from there. Eric, you’ve called your readers ‘fellow truthseekers’ for a while now. Don’t you think that truth and intellectual honesty is more important than just attacking with anything available?
[…] is a foloup to a post from Friday that I confess I put up without enough thought or fact-checking. It linked to a piece by lefty […]
[…] at TVM wonders too: Last Friday on his website, Eric Black had a post where he passed along, with an uncritical eye, the blast from Media Matters about its trumped up […]