Those who read here often may have noted that in many cases, I do not break news often, and quite often the story has settled down before I post commentary.  I do this intentionally.  There are plenty on both sides who love to scream the accusations with little or no proof or even documentation, I prefer to wait until the details emerge, as they usually do, and try to see the deeper issues.

This is a classic example.  Breaking this down, here is what initially emerged.

In the wake of the high-profile uproar from Republicans over a MoveOn.org ad attacking Gen. David Petraeus, Democrats are seizing on recent comments from popular conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh who said on a recent broadcast on Iraq that some veterans who criticize the war in the media are “phony soldiers.”

Democrats are pointing to comments Limbaugh made Wednesday when he and a caller were discussing critics of the Iraq war:

“What’s really funny is, they [Iraq war critics] never talk to real soldiers,” the caller said. “They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media.”

“The phony soldiers,” Limbaugh then said.

In a statement issued Thursday, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, called Limbaugh’s comments a “personal attack on our men and women in uniform” and “reprehensible.”

“It minimizes the sacrifice our troops in Iraq and their families are making and has no place in the public discourse,” he added. “Rush Limbaugh owes our military and their families an apology for his hurtful comments that minimize their service to our country.”

Had the story ended here, I would personally have been a little upset.  As you know I take insults very seriously when they are conferred towards the Military.  Sure, the Military is not immune from criticism, but insults are not something I casually tolerate.

I was inclined to be pretty irritated at him.  It would not be the first time he has pushed the limits of my sensibility.  But I also noted most stories gave a quote and no context.

So I looked at what Rush said again, and he only called one group “Phony” and is clearly the war protesters.

But still, any soldier over there who served and afterwords feels like protesting is allowed, so this is still not something I am passing.  To find out, I got the full transcripts, and guess what.  Here they are, in full context:

CALLER:  Hi, Rush.  Thanks for taking my call.

RUSH:  You bet.

CALLER:  I have a retort to Mike in Chicago, because I am serving in the American military, in the Army.  I’ve been serving for 14 years, very proudly.

RUSH:  Thank you, sir.

CALLER:  I’m one of the few that joined the Army to serve my country, I’m proud to say, not for the money or anything like that.  What I would like to retort to is that, what these people don’t understand, is if we pull out of Iraq right now, which is not possible because of all the stuff that’s over there, it would take us at least a year to pull everything back out of Iraq, then Iraq itself would collapse and we’d have to go right back over there within a year or so.

RUSH:  There’s a lot more than that that they don’t understand.  The next guy that calls here I’m going to ask them, “What is the imperative of pulling out?  What’s in it for the United States to pull out?”  I don’t think they have an answer for that other than, “When’s he going to bring the troops home? Keep the troops safe,” whatever. 

CALLER:  Yeah.

RUSH:  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 pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and spout to the media.

RUSH:  The phony soldiers.

CALLER:  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.

CALLER:  A lot of people.

RUSH:  You know where you’re going these days, the last four years, if you sign up.  The odds are you’re going there or Afghanistan, or somewhere.

CALLER:  Exactly, sir.  My other comment, my original comment, was a retort to Jill about the fact we didn’t find any weapons of mass destruction.  Actually, we have found weapons of mass destruction in chemical agents that terrorists have been using against us for a while now.  I’ve done two tours in Iraq, I just got back in June, and there are many instances of insurgents not knowing what they’re using in their IEDs.  They’re using mustard artillery rounds, VX artillery rounds in their IEDs.  Because they didn’t know what they were using, they didn’t do it right, and so it didn’t really hurt anybody.  But those munitions are over there.  It’s a huge desert. If they bury it somewhere, we’re never going to find it.

RUSH:  Well, that’s a moot point for me right now.

CALLER:  Right.

RUSH:  The weapons of mass destruction.  We gotta get beyond that.  We’re there.  We all know they were there, and Mahmoud even admitted it in one of his speeches here talking about Saddam using the poison mustard gas or whatever it is on his own people.  But that’s moot.  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 your colleagues over there is a great threat to them.  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. 

Rush, not knowing the bruhaha that was about to erupt even offered his own clarification (emphasis added).

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.  They have their celebrities and one of them was Army Ranger Jesse Macbeth.  Now, he was a “corporal.”  I say in quotes.  Twenty-three years old.  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.  No. 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, 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.  Forty-four 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 in the Drive-By Media and the Democrat Party as to who is a genuine war hero. 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 for the left is fiction that serves their purpose.  They have to lie about such atrocities because they can’t find any that fit the template of the way they see the US military. In other words, for the American anti-war left, the greatest inconvenience they face is the truth.

Sorry, I have to say in context the caller and Rush were talking about the same people:  The phonies the left uses only to have them discredited because the truth does not support their anti war agenda.

The list of the leftists that are aghast  at Rush is typical:   Crooks and Liars, Media Matters, ThinkProgress, Huffington Post and even the local fortress of lunacy, HorsesAss.Org.

I would note that not one of these places denounced Sen Murtha for his accusations about the Haditha Marines, particularly now that they are being vindicated.  He can say what he wants, and accuse them of horrible crimes, but that’s OK because he is on their side.

If I am wrong, feel free to correct me.

The blatant hypocrisy of the left in cases like this is appalling.

Look, I am not a Rush apologist, not by a long shot.  Conservative pundits like him, and like Mike Savage or Mark Levin infuriate me sometimes because they, like their liberal counterparts have a tendency to blast off at the drop of a hat over the stupidest crap.

I prefer people like Bryan Suits (KVI 570am) because he actually activates his brain and works out his positions instead of knee jerking his way around the dial.

This is yet another case of the liberal left having a cow over nothing.

See Memeorandum for the full round up of reactions from the left and the right.

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