{"id":1025,"date":"2007-10-03T04:21:32","date_gmt":"2007-10-03T10:21:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sequence-inc.com\/fraudfiles\/2007\/10\/02\/smearing-rush-limbaugh\/"},"modified":"2010-06-12T22:43:38","modified_gmt":"2010-06-13T04:43:38","slug":"smearing-rush-limbaugh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/smearing-rush-limbaugh\/","title":{"rendered":"Smearing Rush Limbaugh"},"content":{"rendered":"

What’s the easiest way to smear someone like Rush Limbaugh? Lie and misrepresent. Take his words out of context. Don’t give anyone the context. And they just might believe you. (Especially if you do this lie and misrepresent thing over and over.)<\/p>\n

The facts: On September 26, Rush Limbaugh made a comment about “phony soldiers,” in reference to people who lie about their military service. The transcript:<\/p>\n

LIMBAUGH: I — it’s not possible, intellectually, to follow these people.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

LIMBAUGH: The phony soldiers.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

LIMBAUGH: They joined to be in Iraq. They joined —<\/p>\n

CALLER 2: A lot of them — the new kids, yeah.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The conversation continues with a discussion of people who sign up for the military and expect to be sent off to war, and mention of Democrats who want us to pull out. Rush then goes on to talk about a recent discussion of “fake soldiers,” Jesse Macbeth in particular, and it’s clear from the transcript that he’s saying this in reference to the earlier comment on “phony soldiers.”<\/p>\n

Now, go back to the beginning of the part I quoted. The caller said “…they never talk to real soldiers.” Rush responded with “phony soldiers” to the this comment about “real soldiers.” There is no indication at all<\/strong> that he was making a comment about soldiers in Iraq.<\/p>\n

The distortion: MediaMatters says that Rush was talking about real soldiers with this headline<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Limbaugh: Service members who support U.S. withdrawal are “phony soldiers”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They want you to believe that when Rush mentioned those (lefties) who sign up for the military after his “phony soldiers” comment, that’s who he was referring to. That doesn’t appear to be the case at all. But why let facts and common sense get in the way?<\/p>\n

And MediaMatters isn’t the only left-wing voice screaming this lie. The media is all over it.<\/p>\n

Rush repeats and clarifies on his show on September 28<\/a> (bold added by me):<\/p>\n

I want to illustrate something for you today, folks. I’ve done it before. I want to do it again. I call this the anatomy of a smear, and what this is is a great illustration of the liberals and the Democrat Party playbook for ’08, which is underway now. The morning update on Wednesday dealt with a soldier, a fake, phony soldier by the name of Jesse MacBeth who never served in Iraq; he was never an Army Ranger. He was drummed out of the military in 44 days. He had his day in court; he never got the Purple Heart as he claimed, <\/strong>and he described all these war atrocities. He became a hero to the anti-war left. They love phony soldiers, and they prop ’em up. When it is demonstrated that they have been lying about things, then they just forget about it. There’s no retraction; there’s no apology; there’s no, “Uh-oh, sorry.” After doing that morning update on Wednesday, I got a phone call yesterday from somebody, we were talking about the troops, and this gentleman said something which you’ll hear here in just a second, prompting me to reply “yeah, the phony soldiers.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And a video of Rush’s entire response to the controversy, including the part quoted above:
\n<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/object><\/p>\n

The fakeness of Jesse Macbeth is confirmed here, by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Iraq war ‘veteran,’ hero lied about it all
\n<\/strong>Man pleads guilty in court to fraud<\/p>\n

By COLIN McDONALD
\nP-I REPORTER<\/p>\n

He wasn’t an Army Ranger. He didn’t earn a Purple Heart. He didn’t witness war crimes in Iraq.<\/p>\n

The truth about Jesse Macbeth? He’s a fraud, and he’s now facing prison.<\/p>\n

Macbeth, 23, pleaded guilty in a Seattle federal courtroom Thursday to making false statements to the Department of Veterans Affairs and altering his discharge papers.<\/p>\n

Kicked out of boot camp after 44 days, Macbeth instead portrayed himself as a decorated soldier who served in both Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, and was discharged due to post-traumatic stress disorder.<\/p>\n

“To me it’s the same thing as theft,” said George Berthiaume, a local spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “It just irritating. It takes away from those who served honorably and were wounded — it’s stealing from people.”<\/p>\n

For several years beginning in 2003, Macbeth became a star of the anti-war movement by claiming he saw and participated in war crimes in Iraq.<\/p>\n

He gave interviews to news reporters and was popular in blogs and the alternative media. In a video that was widely distributed on the Internet, a frail Macbeth dressed in camouflage told of killing hundreds of civilians. “We would burn their bodies … hang their bodies from the rafters in the mosque,” he said.<\/p>\n

As part of the plea agreement, Macbeth admitted he had been lying. Anti-war Web sites have pulled his video.<\/p>\n

Macbeth never got farther than boot camp at Fort Benning, Ga. He was discharged for his “entry-level performance and conduct prior to completion of basic training,” according to court documents.<\/p>\n

At sentencing in September, he faces up to five years in prison. He will remain in custody until then.<\/p>\n

Before entering his plea, Macbeth told Magistrate Judge James Donohue he had been treated for mental illness before entering his plea. His attorney, Jay Stansell, said Macbeth, however, was fit to plead guilty.<\/p>\n

“It boosts our morale every time they catch someone,” Berthiaume said. “It’s probably not doing much for him, though.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So it’s clear that Rush Limbaugh was accurate in his characterization of Macbeth as “phony soldier,” right? So why isn’t the left making that clear?<\/p>\n

Even the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Western District of Washington agrees that there is such a thing as a phony soldier<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u2018phony war hero phenomenon\u2019 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,\u201d said Douglas J. Carver, Special Agent in Charge of the VA Office of Inspector General, Western Field Office. \u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So why isn’t the left retracting their statements about Rush Limbaugh? Why do they continue to mischaracterize what he said?<\/p>\n

The answer is simple: These people want to smear Limbaugh so badly<\/a>, that they will do so at any cost. They will not let facts and the truth get in the way.<\/p>\n

Note: Michelle Malkin provides a ton of information<\/a> on these fake soldiers. <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What’s the easiest way to smear someone like Rush Limbaugh? Lie and misrepresent. Take his words out of context. Don’t give anyone the context. And they just might believe you. (Especially if you do this lie and misrepresent thing over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fraud-news-stories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Z0e-gx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}