Democrat Attack on Limbaugh Backfires/$2,000,000 Letter

[madanthonywayne]

So the Democrats decided to take on Rush Limbaugh as part of their plan to silence talk radio. They sent a letter signed by 41 Democratic senators to Mark P. Mays, president of Clear Channel, the parent company of Limbaugh's radio broadcast.

Limbaugh was discussing the case of Army soldier-turned-antiwar-activist Jesse Macbeth. This guy falsely claimed to have participated in war crimes in Iraq and to have received a Purple Heart. When in fact, he was discharged after only 44 days of service, he never set foot in Iraq.

So while talking about this guy, Limbaugh used the term "phoney soldier". The Democrats latched on to this and tried to turn it into a smear against any soldier who disagreed with Limbaugh on the war.

Limbaugh has a long history of supporting the military, and no one was going to believe a single statement taken out of context as indicating he had anything but respect for our soldiers, regardless of any particular soldier's view on the war.

Anyway, the Dems sent their letter, and Limbaugh is now actioning it off to the highest bidder. The proceeds will go to The Marine Corps -- Law Enforcement Foundation. A group that pays for the education of children of soldiers or law enforcement officers that have died.

As I write this, the letter is going for over $850,000! No, I just checked again. The bid is now over two million dollars. But, it includes free shipping.

Should you care to place a bid, nows your chance!
http://cgi.ebay.com/Original-Harry-R...QQcmdZViewItem

[shichimenshyo]

wow, pretty cool. I would spend $2,000,000 on a letter, that would be an awesome purchase. Tons of fun.

[iceaura]

http://mediamatters.org/items/200709280009

On the September 28 broadcast of his program, Limbaugh claimed that his September 26 "phony soldiers" comment was a reference to Jesse MacBeth, an anti-war activist who pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for pretending to be an injured Iraq war veteran. However, as Media Matters noted, at no point during his September 26 radio show prior to making his "phony soldiers" comment did Limbaugh refer to MacBeth, or indeed any specific soldiers whom he considered to be fake.

The link also contains a full audio clip and complete transcript of the incident in question. It shows Limbaugh releasing a heavily edited version that he claimed was full and complete, among other lies.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200709290002 a followup, showing AP publishing an account of the incident containing inaccuracies favorable to Limbaugh, for the mainstream media to pick up.

Limbaugh has a long history of supporting the military, and no one was going to believe a single statement taken out of context as indicating he had anything but respect for our soldiers, regardless of any particular soldier's view on the war.

L:imbaugh has a long history of dishonestly smearing ex-soldiers who say anything critical of any US war involvement or Republican administration military policy: including John Kerry and Tom Daschle, for easy examples.

[pjdude1219]

So the Democrats decided to take on Rush Limbaugh as part of their plan to silence talk radio. They sent a letter signed by 41 Democratic senators to Mark P. Mays, president of Clear Channel, the parent company of Limbaugh's radio broadcast.

Limbaugh was discussing the case of Army soldier-turned-antiwar-activist Jesse Macbeth. This guy falsely claimed to have participated in war crimes in Iraq and to have received a Purple Heart. When in fact, he was discharged after only 44 days of service, he never set foot in Iraq.

So while talking about this guy, Limbaugh used the term "phoney soldier". The Democrats latched on to this and tried to turn it into a smear against any soldier who disagreed with Limbaugh on the war.

Limbaugh has a long history of supporting the military, and no one was going to believe a single statement taken out of context as indicating he had anything but respect for our soldiers, regardless of any particular soldier's view on the war.

Anyway, the Dems sent their letter, and Limbaugh is now actioning it off to the highest bidder. The proceeds will go to The Marine Corps -- Law Enforcement Foundation. A group that pays for the education of children of soldiers or law enforcement officers that have died.

As I write this, the letter is going for over $850,000! No, I just checked again. The bid is now over two million dollars. But, it includes free shipping.

Should you care to place a bid, nows your chance!
http://cgi.ebay.com/Original-Harry-R...QQcmdZViewItem

dude i have heard the direct quote he called the soldier from a move on ad a phoney soldier. your just blindly following limbaughs bs. limbaugh was not smeared the dems are standing up for the troops please remove your head from another part of your body

[madanthonywayne]

L:imbaugh has a long history of dishonestly smearing ex-soldiers who say anything critical of any US war involvement or Republican administration military policy: including John Kerry and Tom Daschle, for easy examples.

Are you saying it's out of bounds to question a candidate for public office if he happens to be a vet?

And all your links are from Media Matters. A left wing hit squad with close ties to the Clintons. But that aside, here's the complete transcript from the site you posted:

[begin audio clip]

LIMBAUGH: I -- it's not possible, intellectually, to follow these people.

CALLER 2: 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: The phony soldiers.

CALLER 2: The phony soldiers. If you talk to a real soldier, they are proud to serve. They want to be over in Iraq. They understand their sacrifice, and they're willing to sacrifice for their country.

LIMBAUGH: They joined to be in Iraq. They joined --

CALLER 2: A lot of them -- the new kids, yeah.

LIMBAUGH: Well, you --

[begin Limbaugh edit]

LIMBAUGH: -- know where you're going these days, the last four years, if you signed up. The odds are you're going there or Afghanistan or somewhere.

CALLER 2: Exactly, sir. And, and my other comment was -- and the reason I was calling for -- was to report to Jill about the fact that we didn't, didn't find any weapons of mass destruction. Actually, we have found weapons of mass destruction in chemical agents that [inaudible] been using against us for awhile now.

I've done two tours in Iraq. I just got back in June and there were many instances of -- since [inaudible] not know what they're using in their IEDs [improvised explosive devices]. They're using mustard artillery rounds. The VX artillery rounds in their IEDs.

Because they didn't know what they were using, they didn't do it right, and so it just kind of -- it, it didn't really hurt anybody but there are -- those munitions are over there, it's just -- it's a huge desert. If they've buried it somewhere, we're never gonna find it.

LIMBAUGH: Well, you know, that's a moot point for me right now --

MIKE: Rush --

LIMBAUGH: -- the weapons of mass destruction. We gotta get beyond that. We're, we're there. What -- who cares if, if -- we all know they were there and, and Mahmoud [Ahmadinejad, Iranian president] even admitted it in one of his speeches here about -- talkin' about Saddam using the poison mustard gas or whatever it is on his own people -- but that, that's moot, right? What, what's more important is all this is taking place now in the midst of the surge working.

And all of these anti-war Democrats are getting even more hell-bent on pulling out of there, which means that success on the part of you and, and your colleagues over there is, is a great threat to them.

[end Limbaugh edit]

LIMBAUGH: It's just, it's frustrating and maddening, and it is why they must be kept in the minority.

Look, I want to thank you, Mike, for calling. I appreciate it very much. I gotta -- let me see -- got something -- here is a "Morning Update" that we did recently talking about fake soldiers. This is a story of who the left props up as heroes. And they have their celebrities.

One of them was Jesse MacBeth. Now, he was a "corporal," I say in quotes -- 23 years old.

[reading from "Morning Update" (subscription required)]

What made Jesse MacBeth a hero to the anti-war crowd wasn't his Purple Heart. It wasn't his being affiliated with post traumatic stress disorder from tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, though. What made Jesse MacBeth, Army Ranger, a hero to the left was his courage in their view off the battlefield.

Without regard to consequences, he told the world the abuses he had witnessed in Iraq: American soldiers killing unarmed civilians, hundreds of men, women, even children. In one gruesome account translated into Arabic and spread widely across the internet, Army Ranger Jesse MacBeth describes the horrors this way:

'We would burn their bodies. We would hang their bodies from the rafters in the mosque.'

Now, recently, Jesse MacBeth, a poster boy for the anti-war left, had his day in court, and you know what? He was sentenced to five months in jail and three years probation for falsifying a Department of Veterans Affairs' claim and his Army discharge record.

He was in the Army. Jesse MacBeth was in the Army, folks, briefly -- 44-days before he washed out of boot camp. Jesse MacBeth isn't an Army Ranger. Never was. He isn't a corporal. Never was. He never won the Purple Heart and he was never in combat to witness the horrors he claimed to have seen."

You probably haven't even heard about this, and if you have, you haven't heard much about it. This doesn't fit the narrative and the template of the drive-by media and the Democrat [sic] Party as to who a genuine war hero is.

Don't look for any retractions, by the way, not from the anti-war left, the anti-military drive-by media or the Arabic websites that spread Jesse MacBeth's lies about our troops, because the truth of the left is fiction, is what serves their purpose. They have to lie about such atrocities 'cause they can't find any that fit the template of the way they see the U.S. military.

In other words, for the American anti-war left, the greatest inconvenience they face is the truth.

[end audio clip]

LIMBAUGH: That was the transcript from yesterday's program, talking about one phony soldier. The truth for the left is fiction that serves their purpose, which is exactly the way the website Media Matters generated this story. Fiction, out of context, did so knowingly.

What is amazing, is that after all of the examples of how this organization is simply a Democrat Party-Hillary Clinton front group, how they constantly do this, how they take things out of context and embarrass themselves, and get things wrong, they still have credible, so-called journalists and others, members of Congress, Democrat Party, who treat what they say as gospel.

Not one member of the media, not one member of Congress has called our office to ask, "Did you really say this, and what did you mean by it?" The reason this doesn't work, ladies and gentlemen, is that I have a 19-and-a-half-year record on this program of being one of the most devoted supporters of U.S. military personnel in uniform that there is.

And the effort here is simply to discredit people that they consider effective and powerful on the right, ginning up, leading up into the '08 elections. They cannot beat us in the arena of ideas. They cannot challenge what we say and refute it and come out on top, so this is the anatomy of a smear, and I'll show you how it works when we come after the break. We have a bunch of sound bites here from Jim Webb, Jan Schakowsky, Frank Pallone, Democrats and senators, plus the Kerry statement that I read to you. All that coming up right after this.

—A.J.W.

All Limbaugh edited out was the part where the caller veered off into a discussion about WMD's. It does not change a thing. Read the whole transcript. His meaning is clear.

[pjdude1219]

Are you saying it's out of bounds to question a candidate for public office if he happens to be a vet?

And all your links are from Media Matters. A left wing hit squad with close ties to the Clintons.

you know there is a difference between liberal and progressive right

[spidergoat]

Rush Limbaugh is obviously a
BIG FAT LIER!

[cosmictraveler]

As I write this, the letter is going for over $850,000! No, I just checked again. The bid is now over two million dollars. But, it includes free shipping.

The bidders are those Democrats that sent it. If not then there's a phony bidder out there for no one would pay 2 million for that piece of crap but those who wrote it.

[madanthonywayne]

Rush Limbaugh is obviously a
BIG FAT LIER!

Nice. Couldn't you have at least spelled liar correctly?

Anything constructive to add? Or did you just pop in to lob misspelled insults?

[§outh§tar]

Republigoons will never learn.

[madanthonywayne]

From the Drudge report:
UPDATE: $2,100,100 TOP BID FOR DEM LETTER BASHING LIMBAUGH...
Largest charity bid in the history of EBAY? Jay Leno's Harley went for $800,000...
TWIST: SEN. REID THANKS RUSH FOR AUCTION...
AND THE WINNER IS: BETTY CASEY...

[spidergoat]

Nice. Couldn't you have at least spelled liar correctly?

Anything constructive to add? Or did you just pop in to lob misspelled insults?

..and Rush Limbaugh doesn't support the troops, only the ones that agree with him.

[Pandaemoni]

I have to side with Limbaugh on this one. From the transcript:

LIMBAUGH: I -- it's not possible, intellectually, to follow these people.

CALLER 2: 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: The phony soldiers.

CALLER 2: The phony soldiers. If you talk to a real soldier, they are proud to serve. They want to be over in Iraq. They understand their sacrifice, and they're willing to sacrifice for their country.

LIMBAUGH: They joined to be in Iraq. They joined --

it seems clear to me that one can interpret "phony soldiers" to mean "those who disagree with the Iraq policy", but some of the implication that suggests that comes from the caller's subsequent statement about who the "real" soldiers are.

Assuming Rush isn't a mind reader, or able to tell the future, the term "phony soldiers" seems to reference either (i) soldiers who seek out the media (which may be a reference to this one particular guy and others who've saought the spotlight or (ii) "these people" who cannot be intellectually followed (I'm not sure who that's referencing, since there's no transcript before that).

Based on the transcript, it's not clear what or who he meant to identify as the "phony" soldiers. Given the tendency to change thoughts mid-sentence (especially on spoken language), even if it did read clearly, it would still seem pretty likely that he misspoke. Even if he really believes that any soldier not supporting the war is a "phony", he's clearly backtracking from that position now publically by refusing to stand up for the position.

Whatever he meant, the honor of those who serve and think Iraq is a mistake seems to me to have been satisfied. After that, attacks on Limbaugh just strike me as petty. The fact that Limbaugh, who is not a clever man, has been able to turn the tables on them by selling the letter and generating positive press for himself is evidence of how stupid an idea the letter actually was.

EDIT: This strikes me as an example of "feigned outrage" which people on both sides of the aisle seem to engage in with increasing frequency. They disingenuously claim to be upset at the dastardly thing the other side said, however questionable that may be, but are secretly gleeful at the statement because it lets them pretend to be morally superior.

[spidergoat]

Any positive press from the right-wing echo chamber is equally stupid. It's obvious he's calling the soldiers who speak out against the war phony. I suppose when they get killed, it's a phony death?

They take one example of an attention-seeking misguided young man, and extrapolate to all our troops, many of whom disagree with being in Iraq.

[countezero]

I'm going to ignore the blatantly partisan approaches of Ice and Spider and ask the question that seems more relevant: Do 41 U.S. senators really have so much time on their hands that they whip themselves into a frenzy over something a talk show host says? Aren't they supposed to be tackling real problems? If they need help identifying them, I can come up with a list...

[spidergoat]

Like a resolution condemning moveon.org?

[madanthonywayne]

Any positive press from the right-wing echo chamber is equally stupid. It's obvious he's calling the soldiers who speak out against the war phony. I suppose when they get killed, it's a phony death?

No, it's not obvious. Did you read the transcript?

And Limbaugh is not only donating the two million he got for this letter to the families of soldiers who died, but he's also matching that amount out of his own pocket.

Donating four million dollars to the families of fallen soldiers, those who agreed with him and those who didn't, is pretty good evidence of his support of them.

[spidergoat]

It's a public relations move to distract people from the fact that he thinks a certain percentage of wrong-thinking soldiers aren't real soldiers. Do you mean to say that he would not have donated that money unless the Democrats complained about him?

[madanthonywayne]

It's a public relations move to distract people from the fact that he thinks a certain percentage of wrong-thinking soldiers aren't real soldiers. Do you mean to say that he would not have donated that money unless the Democrats complained about him?

He's on the board of the charity! He has supported it for years.

[spidergoat]

Many of those Democrats who signed the letter actually know war firsthand, unlike Limbaugh. I guess they need to be smeared too.