Phony Soldiers

Ok, as some folks know, I am a fan of Rush Limbaugh. I don’t get to listen to his show as much as I would like but I turned onto Rush when I was in college at the suggestion by my father and was hooked ever since. I am also a veteran so when I heard that Rush had somehow maligned soldiers who spoke out against the Iraq War. Seeing as I have not been the biggest fan of the war and its conduct this was really interesting. So I went and did a Google and Yahoo News search and read the reports and then went to Limbaugh’s website to get it straight from the man himself. You can read about it on the Limbaugh Site here or see what Media Matters says.

My opinion is that this is an overblown attempt by the left to try and establish their “support the troops” bona fides while slamming Limbaugh’s attack on "supposed" free speech. The story is of course without merit. Media Matters who has been following this story even makes a big deal that Limbaugh supposedly plays an edited conversation with a caller where the “phony soldier” comment stating that it was the entire conversation. In fact, the edits from the conversation have nothing to do with phony soldiers. The one error that Limbaugh made was the actual conversation was not 3 + minutes long but edited was about half that. So what? What Limbaugh obviously did was give those listening to his program the meat of what was said (again “in context” as Limbaugh states) and never says this is the entire discussion period. Is this the sort of word parsing the Left has to do to generate a phony scandal so to speak? Where was Media Matters when Kerry and Murtha disparaged the troops? Heck where were the troop supporting Democrats at all?

So here in context is what the frenzy is about (note to Media Matters – this is not the complete discussion). Source is http://www.rushlimbaugh.com.

Transcript begins with discussion in progress (Limbaugh and a caller named “Mike”).

RUSH ARCHIVE: It's not possible intellectually to follow these people.

CALLER: 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 spout to the media.

RUSH: The phony soldiers. (emphasis mine)

CALLER: The phony soldiers. If you talk to any real soldier and they're proud to serve, they want to be over in Iraq, they understand their sacrifice and they're willing to sacrifice for the country.

RUSH: They joined to be in Iraq.

RUSH: It's frustrating and maddening, and why they must be kept in the minority. I want to thank you, Mike, for calling. I appreciate it very much.

So this was not the entire call but it was enough so one could see the context of what Limabugh said. And by the way, there are phony soldiers such as Jesse Macbeth that become darlings of the left because they are slamming the military when they are in fact phony (i.e. not who they say they are). Limbaugh went from the “phony soldier” call right into a story about Jesse Macbeth that he recently had reported as part of his morning update so it stands to reason that although Jesse Macbeth didn’t come up during the caller’s discussion, Limbaugh was certainly well versed in how this loser (Macbeth) lied to just about everyone. This story notes “…MacBeth apologized for snookering anti-war groups with his claims of killing unarmed, helpless civilians in Iraq -- which were translated into Arabic and posted on the Internet -- and also to U.S. soldiers whom he defamed.” Why the hell are we worried about what Rush Limbaugh said and not why this bozo had such a national forum (note his lies were translated into Arabic and posted on the Internet)? In fact Limbaugh didn’t go far enough. The crime wasn’t being phony, it was being treasonous.

- Outspoken Roman