Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Did Rush Limbaugh smear the troops?

From mediamatters.org:

CALLER 2: I have a retort to Mike in Chicago, because I am a serving American military, in the Army. I've been serving for 14 years, very proudly.

LIMBAUGH: Thank you, sir.

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 --

CALLER 2: A lot of them -- the new kids, yeah.

LIMBAUGH: Well, you 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.


The caller made a statement to Limbaugh that the media doesn't talk to "real soldiers." The "real soldiers" apparently are the ones who understand the situation in Iraq as being that we cannot pull out, it would take us a year, everything would collapse, that was the context the statement was put in, by the previous conversation. Limbaugh then called these troops, "phony soldiers," the ones that don't agree with the caller's assessment of the war in Iraq. After which the caller said real soldiers want to be in Iraq, they're "proud to serve," and are "willing to sacrifice for their country," making a clear implication that "phony soldiers" do not, and Limbaugh agreed. It's pretty cut and dry, and the attempt by Limbaugh to backpedal as quickly as he can is laughable. The context had nothing to do with the previous caller, and it was all about the media.