XDA

Local lawyer and radio talk show co-host and former Denver Chief Deputy DA Craig Silverman, while his so called conservative co-host was gone, did a Democratic talking point about the wholly false and indeed slanderous report out of Media Matters that Rush Limbaugh smeared the troops and called any who disagree with the idea of continuing to fight war in Iraq 'phony soldiers'

Bull pucky. He did no such thing.

Here's the charge: During the September 26 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh called service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq "phony soldiers." Limbaugh has denounced as "contemptible" and "indecent" (Emphasis added).

Here's the statement in question according to Media Matters: [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 talk to the media." Limbaugh interjected, "The phony soldiers." The caller, who had earlier said, "I am a serving American military, in the Army," agreed, replying, "The phony soldiers."

Do you see any equation of soldiers who don't support the war in Iraq with phony soldiers? It's not there.

Then Media Matters immediately followed that scandalous, groundless charge with a paragraph about the 7 sergeants et al. from the 82nd who wrote an OpEd published in the New York Times critical of the war. Now there are people out there saying Rush Limbaugh was referring to those guys when he used the words 'phony soldiers'. Craig Silverman agreed with a caller yesterday who did just that. But it is a complete crock. Limbaugh never mentioned the contrary sergeants, nor was he referring to real military types who disagreed with our foreign policy or how the war was being fought. He was referring to fake guys who are not real military or who otherwise lie about their service record and then lie further to blackguard the real troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Here's the whole transcript.

Limbaugh immediately followed up the 'phony soldiers' statement, after the call was over, with talking about a real phony soldier, one of many the left has held up as a hero (before they had to retract), Jesse MacBeth. He was clearly talking about real phony soldiers like MacBeth. This is not just a 'taken out of context' smear, it is a 'made up out of whole cloth' smear.

I wonder if Craig will backtrack any on Monday's show. Something tells me he won't.

UPDATE: Now Media Matters is claiming that when Rush Limbaugh answered this calumny on his show yesterday he edited the transcript. Yeah, and? As I recall, that's right, he left out what Mike said after the 'phony soldiers' comments (about a minute 35 seconds of conversation); but Limbaugh has also published the whole transcript (see above) and the part he didn't play yesterday doesn't help Media Matters in the slightest. That is, the rest of the military Mike's call does nothing to skew the context of Rush's following his call with the explanation of what 'phony soldiers' meant with the news report on the execrable Jesse MacBeth. This Media Matters matter is an unfair smear on top of a slander, wrapped in an enigma. (Sorry, the sentence got away from me).

Labels: Media Matters. Slander, Rush LImbaugh