Media Smedia

I'm Not Gonna Tell You What To Think..Read It For Yourself


I guess that by now you have heard about the current media flap surrounding Rush Limbaugh and his so called "Phoney Soldier" comment last week?

I'm aready tired of the whole thing, but for those of you that don't have the time and energy to go out and Google for the facts, I'm putting them all together here, including the original links.

In summary, most everyone from the left, including many Democratic Congressmen and Senators, are demanding that Rush apologize for comments he made recently about convicted "Phoney Soldier" Jesse Macbeth.

In case you missed it, here's the link to the United States Attorney's Office, Western District of Washington Website and here's the opening text of the announcement of Sullivan's conviction:

U.S. Attorney Jeffrey C. Sullivan today announced some of the results of “Operation Stolen Valor,” a year long effort to investigate and prosecute those who lie about their military service for financial gain or other reasons. Sullivan and Doug Carver, Special Agent in Charge of the Veteran’s Affairs Office of Inspector General detailed eight prosecutions in the Veteran’s Affairs Northwest Region in 2007.

“As a Vietnam Veteran, and the father of a decorated Army officer currently serving, I feel very keenly the damage done by Jesse Macbeth and these other fakes,” said Jeff Sullivan, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington. “Macbeth’s lies fueled hostility to our servicemen in Iraq and here at home. Those who falsely claim medals for heroism, cheapen the recognition of our true war heroes.”

“The ‘phony war hero phenomenon’ plagues the American landscape and tarnishes the service of thousands of veterans who have served honorably. It strangles VA resources from providing critical care and benefits to deserving veterans returning from war,” said Douglas J. Carver, Special Agent in Charge of the VA Office of Inspector General, Western Field Office. “It all boils downs to this: these phonies submit claims to the VA for compensation and medical benefits they are not entitled to, and it takes away valuable resources from those who are entitled.”

In a dozen cases under investigation in the northwest, the fraud totals more than $1.4 million. Eight of the cases have been publicly filed and are in various stages of being adjudicated:

*Jesse Macbeth, 23, Tacoma, Washington, sentenced today in connection with his fraudulent claims of military service. Macbeth sought medical benefits claiming to suffer from PTSD related to service in Iraq and Afghanistan, in fact, Macbeth was discharged from the Army about a month after he joined. Macbeth never traveled outside the U.S. with the Army. Macbeth duped reporters, claiming to be a decorated Army Ranger who had witnessed war crimes.

Now here's the entire transcript of Rush's 9/26 on air conversation as shown on the Media Matters Website, including a 1:13 minute segment of unrelated discussion that Rush edited out when he replayed the exchange on Monday of this week.

From the September 28 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show, including (in bold) the portion of the original segment cut from Limbaugh's "entire" audio clip:
LIMBAUGH: I was not talking, as Contessa Brewer said here, about the anti-war movement generally. I was talking about one soldier with that "phony soldier" comment, Jesse MacBeth. They had exactly what I'm going to play for you. This is Michael J. Fox all over again. Media Matters had the transcript, but they selectively choose what they want to make their point. Here is -- it runs about 3 minutes and 13 seconds -- the entire transcript, in context, that led to this so-called controversy.

[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.

Why in the world Media Matters thinks that it's somehow important that Rush chose to edit out 1:13 of unrelated material out of the audio clip for brevity I'll never understand.

It's not like he could be further impuned by comments about WMD's, so I don't believe that deception was his intent.

The other thing that explaines his tone is the fact that his "Morning Update" notes from his website had already included commentary on Jesse Macbeth's demise, and Rush likes to promote the website whenever it meshes with the caller's commentary.

Once again this is a total non-issue that has blown up way beyond reality, and what amazes me is how few people--important people like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his staff--can't actually check the facts before opening their mouths in public.

Again, being on the verge of commentary, read through what I've shown you here and see if you can in any way believe that Rush said anything negative about soldiers that didn't support the war in Iraq.

It just isn't true, in my opinion, but that never stops the Lamestream Media once they get up a good head of steam.

UPDATE (5:20 PM)

This Jesse Macbeth character was a complete dumbass. Take a look at the link to the video they shot of him back in 2006, and see if you don't agree with me.

The anti war crowd apparently will believe anybody and anything that fits their template.