Rush Limbaugh, Anti-Soldier

MediaMatters.org has carefully documented the entire Limbaugh-phony soldiers escapade. As indicated by the original transcript, on September 26, 2007 Rush Limbaugh discussed with a caller a call he had taken moments earlier. Speaking of soldiers who publicly have criticized the war in Iraq, the talk show host and his listener from Olympia, Washington stated:


CALLER 2: And, you know, 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, if we pull -- what these people don't understand is if we pull out of Iraq right now, which is about impossible because of all the stuff that's over there, it'd 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. And --

LIMBAUGH: There's a lot more than that that they don't understand. They can't even -- if -- the next guy that calls here, I'm gonna ask him: Why should we pull -- what is the imperative for pulling out? What's in it for the United States to pull out? They can't -- I don't think they have an answer for that other than, "Well, we just gotta bring the troops home."

CALLER 2: Yeah, and, you know what --

LIMBAUGH: "Save the -- keep the troops safe" or whatever. 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 --


Limbaugh and his dittohead apparently were responding in part to an 8/17/07 op-ed in the New York Times written by seven members of the 82nd Airborne Division in which the soldiers criticized American policy in Iraq and concluded by asserting:


In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, “We need security, not free food.”

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.

Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.


On his radio program of 9/28/07, Limbaugh claimed "I was talking about one soldier with that phony soldier comment, Jesse MacBeth." However, given that he said phony soldiers (not soldier) and the remark about MacBeth followed the phony soldiers comment by 1 minute, 50 seconds, Limbaugh's claim is as believable as a blizzard in Phoenix in August.

And Limbaugh dug deeper, as the BaltimoreSun.com reports here, extending his description of phony soldiers to Representative Jack Murtha (D.- Pa.) by contending, as Media Matters reported, "and by the way, Jesse MacBeth's not the only one. How about this guy Scott Thomas who was writing fraudulent, phony things in The New Republic about atrocities he saw that never happened? How about Jack Murtha blanketly accepting the notion that Marines at Haditha engaged in wanton murder of innocent children and civilians?"

If the Democratic Party truly "controls" the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate- rather than merely holding a statistical majority- the leader in each chamber will post a resolution condemning Rush Limbaugh. Repub legislators would face an uncomfortable choice- condemn the influential talk show host and risk his ire- or be exposed as being anti-soldier. And what an ad that would make.