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During an interview on the October 18 edition of Fox News Hannity re losing, why don t I just admit we re losing? Why can t we get out of there and save the soldiers, and so forth?" Limbaugh then said that a second "guy calls after that and says, you know, I hate these guys. The media always goes and finds these guys that do not support the mission. And these guys that never served, and they re just fake. And I said, yeah, the phony soldiers." In fact, at no point preceding his "phony soldiers" comment in the September 26 conversation did either Limbaugh or the caller mention "guys that never served" who are "just fake." While Limbaugh subsequently posted a transcript of the Hannity re just fake" do not appear within quotation marks, Limbaugh gave no indication on Hannity 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." After Limbaugh said that "it s not possible, intellectually, to follow these people," the caller replied: "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 then interjected, "The phony soldiers." Neither mentioned "guys that never served" or said "they re just fake" before Limbaugh s reference to "phony soldiers." On Hannity m still amazed how long this has survived. And two days prior to that, NBC -- or ABC s World News Tonight had done a story on Jesse MacBeth, the phony soldier, one of the many people who s never served, didn t even survive through boot camp, and claimed he had been in Iraq, claimed he had been a Green Beret, and a Purple Heart and all this, and saw all these atrocities, sort of like John Kerry in Vietnam. And on the day of the questionable call, I had done a morning update on Jesse MacBeth. And I think this is Wednesday when this all happens. The guy calls and claims to be a Republican and claims to be a soldier, that we re losing, why don t I just admit we re losing? Why can t we get out of there and save the soldiers, and so forth? Another guy calls after that and says, you know, I hate these guys. The media always goes and finds these guys that do not support the mission. And these guys that never served, and they re just fake. And I said, yeah, the phony soldiers. Two words that I uttered have been now magnified and blown up into, like, hundreds of thousands of words by now. A transcript (subscription required) of the Hannity s website punctuates his description of the conversation as follows: LIMBAUGH: Another guy calls after that and says, "You know, I hate these guys. The media always goes and finds these guys that do not support the mission." And these guys that never served, and they re just fake. And I said, yeah, "the phony soldiers." The actual conversation went as follows: LIMBAUGH: Another Mike, this one in Olympia, Washington. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello. CALLER: Hi Rush, thanks for taking my call. LIMBAUGH: You bet. CALLER: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 -- As Media Matters for America documented, Limbaugh has previously offered several inconsistent explanations for his September 26 comments. Later in the Hannity s "phony soldiers" comment and his mention of Jesse MacBeth, an anti-war activist who pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for pretending to be an injured Iraq war veteran. Limbaugh did not disclose on the September 28 show that the audio had been spliced. Limbaugh replied to Colmes that the edits had been made "for the purposes of my website," and asserted that the editing was done because the caller, "after discussing the phony soldiers, went into a discussion of weapons of mass destruction. At the time he s doing that, I am talking to my producer on the other side of the glass on the IFB [intercom], I m saying, Find the commentary I did yesterday morning on Jesse MacBeth, who, by the way, whose birth name is Jesse Al-Zaid." Limbaugh continued: "This guy is going on. He s got diarrhea of the mouth about weapons of mass destruction. I m asking people to find this commentary so I can illustrate what I mean by phony soldiers." Limbaugh added: "I finally told this guy, I said, look, weapons of mass destruction is a moot point now. Whether they re there or weren t there, it s not relevant because the situation in Iraq has gone way beyond that. We just edited that out. It had nothing to do -- there was nothing hidden. There was nothing I was trying to cover up." Contrary to his assertion that "there was nothing hidden," during the September 28 broadcast of his radio show Limbaugh said that his selectively edited audio clip of the exchange was "the entire transcript" of the segment. Prior to airing the edited clip, Limbaugh said: "Here is, it runs about 3 minutes and 13 seconds, the entire transcript, in context, that led to this so-called controversy." After the clip ended, Limbaugh stated: "That was the transcript from yesterday s program, talking about one phony soldier. The truth for the left is fiction that serves their purpose, which is exactly the way the website Media Matters generated this story." As Media Matters documented, the transcript (subscription required) of the September 28 broadcast posted on Limbaugh s website does not make clear how much time elapsed between his "phony soldiers" remark and his discussion of MacBeth on September 26 -- or even that any time did elapse: Limbaugh s September 28 transcript does not provide any notation or ellipsis to indicate that there is, in fact, a break in the transcript of the September 26 clip he used. By not indicating this gap, Limbaugh made it appear as though his MacBeth remarks came almost immediately after his "phony soldiers" remark, falsely supporting his claim that his "phony soldiers" comment was a reference to MacBeth. In addition, Limbaugh falsely asserted that "on the day of the questionable call, I had done a morning update on Jesse MacBeth." Later in the interview, Limbaugh correctly noted that after his conversation with the caller to whom he made his "phony soldiers" remark, he "started in repeating a commentary on Jesse MacBeth that I had aired the previous morning." Further, Limbaugh asserted that Media Matters "is a Hillary Clinton front group, which is designed to get her elected president." In fact, Media Matters is an independent, progressive organization and is not affiliated with any candidate or political party. From the October 18 edition of Fox News Hannity ve got to tell us, what s the update here, in terms -- I understand it s up to $851,000, this smear letter that you re auctioning off. LIMBAUGH: Eight hundred and fifty-one thousand, one hundred dollars. It s amazing. It s just absolutely -- this is more fun than I ve ever had in my life. HANNITY: Look, you know, for those that don t fully and completely understand the whole story here, Rush, why don t you just explain it to them? LIMBAUGH: All right, let me make it as brief as I can. I had a call on my program on a Wednesday. I guess this was about two weeks ago now. I m still amazed how long this has survived. And two days prior to that, NBC -- or ABC s World News Tonight had done a story on Jesse MacBeth, the phony soldier, one of the many people who s never served, didn t even survive through boot camp, and claimed he had been in Iraq, claimed he had been a Green Beret, and a Purple Heart and all this, and saw all these atrocities, sort of like John Kerry in Vietnam. And on the day of the questionable call, I had done a morning update on Jesse MacBeth. And I think this is Wednesday when this all happens. The guy calls and claims to be a Republican and claims to be a soldier, that we re losing, why don t I just admit we re losing? Why can t we get out of there and save the soldiers, and so forth? Another guy calls after that and says, you know, I hate these guys. The media always goes and finds these guys that do not support the mission. And these guys that never served, and they re just fake. And I said, yeah, the phony soldiers. Two words that I uttered have been now magnified and blown up into, like, hundreds of thousands of words by now. I have, in 20 years of my broadcast career, have never denigrated a serving serviceman, regardless his political opinions whatsoever. I was strictly talking about these fakes, these phonies that never served and claimed that they did, saw all these atrocities that they didn t see. And it happened to happen a week or so after the "General Betray Us" ad, so the left totally had that backfire on them, after [Gen. David] Petraeus showed up at the congressional hearings, the Senate and the House. The American people loved the guy. The MoveOn.org ad in The New York Times just backfired totally. So they had to deflect that, and they thought they would focus on me. And this led to Senator [Harry] Reid [D-NV] accepting the words of an organization called Media Matters for America, which is a Hillary Clinton front group, which is designed to get her elected president, and went to the floor of the Senate, read a letter, asked as many senators as possible to sign it condemning me, and asking the syndication partner of mine, Mark Mays, the CEO of Clear Channel, to also condemn me, make me apologize, spank me, this sort of thing. And we got hold of the original letter. Mark Mays gave it to me. We put it on eBay to auction it off. We re up to $851,000 because this -- Sean, this is just a -- one of the most -- in my lifetime, one of the most focused abuses of power that I ve ever seen. [...] COLMES: Let me talk to you for a second about the phony soldiers comment, because those who criticize you have pointed out you said "soldiers," plural, and that when you played it back a couple of days later, you edited out about a minute and 35 seconds of time. So it wasn t clear initially you were talking about one particular soldier. LIMBAUGH: I did not edit -- here s what we edited out, for the purposes of my website. You know, Alan, brevity is the soul of wit. That is what Shakespeare said. The second caller, after discussing the phony soldiers, went into a discussion of weapons of mass destruction. At the time he s doing that, I am talking to my producer on the other side of the glass on the IFB, I m saying, "Find the commentary I did yesterday morning on Jesse MacBeth," who, by the way, whose birth name is Jesse Al-Zaid. Find me that commentary. This guy is going on. He s got diarrhea of the mouth about weapons of mass destruction. I m asking people to find this commentary so I can illustrate what I mean by phony soldiers. We edited -- that was about a minute and a half or a minute and 45. When we put the transcript up -- and I finally told this guy, I said, "Look, weapons of mass destruction is a moot point now. Whether they re there or weren t there, that s not -- it s not relevant because the situation in Iraq has gone way beyond that." We just edited that out. It had nothing to do -- there was nothing hidden. There was nothing I was trying to cover up. You ve got to stop listening to these partisans and these propagandists at Media Matters for America. They are nothing but a bunch of hacks who are producing the prime time at MSNBC. If they ever went dark, MSNBC -- er, Media Matters, MSNBC would have nothing to say. They do -- Alan, you have a radio show, and I have a radio show. You have a website. I have a website. All you have to do is turn on the radio to listen to each of us or go to our websites. The drive-by media does not listen to my show, does not go to my website. They take for granted whatever Media Matters says about what I said is true. It is irresponsible. It s journalistic malpractice, and it s silly. We edited that out simply for the sake of brevity and to stay on point. When we got to the -- when I found the commentary, when they printed it out to my printer behind me, that s when I got rid of the call, and that s when I started in repeating a commentary on Jesse MacBeth that I had aired the previous morning.

On the October 16 edition of Fox News Fox s September 26 comments in which he characterized service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as "phony soldiers." In fact, the letter did not ask Mays to have Limbaugh "thrown off the air," but rather called on Mays to "publicly repudiate these comments that call into question their service and sacrifice and to ask Mr. Limbaugh to apologize for his comments." In addition, following Limbaugh s assertion that "I don t think in modern American history there s ever been something like this happen where the Senate has gone after a private citizen and asked his partner in broadcasting to shut him up, censor him, apologize [sic] him, spank him, or what have you," co-host Brian Kilmeade said, "But what Democrats are saying, and you know this better than anybody, they re saying, well that s what you get, Republicans, for going after MoveOn.org." On September 20, the Senate passed a nonbinding amendment sponsored by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) that "repudiate[s] the unwarranted personal attack on General [David] Petraeus by the liberal activist group Moveon.org," after the group published a September 10 ad in The New York Times, titled "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" Similarly, on September 26, the House of Representatives passed a motion by Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) to add an amendment that "condemn[ed] in the strongest possible terms the personal attacks made by the advocacy group MoveOn.org impugning the integrity and professionalism of General David H. Petraeus" to a funding bill. In his response, Limbaugh asserted: LIMBAUGH: Well, you know, here s the -- this is the thing that everybody s missing about this. The Democrats are saying this is tit for tat, "Look, you did this to MoveOn, you made us censure MoveOn. So we re going to make Limbaugh get censured." The problem is, I didn t do anything here. I was minding my own business. I said what I said on the radio. The same group of people, Media Matters, MoveOn.org -- it s the same George Soros-Hillary Clinton organization -- did both things. They did the MoveOn.org ad and they did the smear of me. I am the record. They twisted what I said, on purpose, out of context. In fact, philanthropist George Soros has never given money to Media Matters, either directly or through another organization, as has been repeatedly and exhaustively demonstrated. Moreover, Media Matters is an independent, progressive organization and is not affiliated with any candidate or political party. Later in the interview, referring to the media reaction following his "phony soldiers" comment, Limbaugh asserted that the media "take their lead from Media Matters, so whatever Media Matters says I said is what they think happened." He continued: "You know, during this whole thing, Steve, nobody from the drive-bys called me to ask me, Did you release statements? They just ran with it because they re all on the same playing field, they re all on the same side of the aisle." In fact, at least two journalists reported that they had attempted to contact Limbaugh for comment on the story and that he had not responded. An October 4 Los Angeles Times article noted that Limbaugh "did not respond to e-mails and a faxed request for an interview." As the blog Think Progress noted, during coverage of the controversy on the October 3 edition of MSNBC Live, MSNBC correspondent Monica Novotny reported, "And of course, we want you to know that we did invite Rush Limbaugh on to respond to this story. He has not responded to our calls." Further, while Limbaugh claimed that "[y]ou come to my website. You can hear what I say. Read what I said," Media Matters has documented that on September 28, two days after his original "phony soldiers" comments, Limbaugh aired on his radio show spliced audio of his original remarks while calling it "the entire transcript" of the segment. Media Matters also documented that the transcript (subscription required) of the first segment of the first hour of his September 28 broadcast posted on Limbaugh s website, which Limbaugh described as being the "Anatomy of a Smear," was also selectively edited and did not provide any notation or ellipsis to indicate that the audio clip of the September 26 broadcast that he aired on September 28 had in fact been edited. Finally, despite having Limbaugh on the October 16 edition of the show, Fox Fox s the story. Senate Democrats wrote Rush a letter to get him thrown off the air. They wrote it to his boss at Clear Channel. Well now Rush Limbaugh is auctioning off that very letter to raise money for our troops. Joining us now on the phone, talk radio legend Rush Limbaugh. Good morning to you, sir. LIMBAUGH: Hey, hey, hey, Steve. How are you? It s such an honor to follow the Wiggles or whatever they are. DOOCY: The Wiggles, that s right. OK, so you re -- right now you re auctioning it off on eBay. The bid is $50,300 with three days to go. What is the historical significance, Rush Limbaugh, of this letter that Harry Reid and company wrote you? LIMBAUGH: Well, there s two things. First, it s an abuse of power. I mean, here you have Harry Reid on the floor of the Senate denouncing me for 10 minutes, reading this letter, then asking his Democrat buddies to sign it, of which 40 did. And, you know, that s a failure, he didn t even get them all to sign. No Republicans did. But they did this during work hours. And this is the smear of a private citizen by this greatest deliberative body in the world based on a total lie that they have to know is a lie. And so, for that reason it s historic. I mean, my parents would not believe this. I wish they could know what all is happening to their son and what their son is causing. You know, the thing about this, most people I think, cower in this kind of situation, and I m trying to laugh at it and make fun of them and fight back, which is probably putting a bigger target on my back as far as these people are concerned. But this is, this is just something that you can t ignore. Most of the time you ignore these kinds of things but you can t this, because this is -- this is unique. I don t think in modern American history there s ever been something like this happen where the Senate has gone after a private citizen and asked his partner in broadcasting to shut him up, censor him, apologize [sic] him, spank him or what have you. KILMEADE: But what Democrats are saying, and you know this better than anybody, they re saying, well that s what you get, Republicans, for going after MoveOn.org. LIMBAUGH: Well, you know, here s the -- this is the thing that everybody s missing about this. The Democrats are saying this is tit for tat, "Look, you guys did this to MoveOn, you made us censure MoveOn. So we re going to make Limbaugh get censured." The problem is, I didn t do anything here. I was minding my own business. I said what I said on the radio. The same group of people, Media Matters, MoveOn.org -- it s the same George Soros-Hillary Clinton organization -- did both things. They did the MoveOn.org ad and they did the smear of me. I am the record. They twisted what I said, on purpose, out of context. In order, I think to deflect the Petraeus ad because it totally backfired on them. The country ended up loving Petraeus, the surge is working, MoveOn had to pay the full bill at The New York Times, it totally backfired. They had to deflect that, and so they came at me. But they created both of these. There can t be any tit for tat, because they are responsible for both these episodes. [...] LIMBAUGH: So it s gonna be -- and this is all part of the 08 race. Right now the Democrats are running against me because I have a connection with a large percentage of the American people who think and are open-minded. And the Republicans haven t chosen a nominee yet, so right now, they are coming after me. And this -- it s like a badge of honor. DOOCY: Well Rush, you re not alone. They came after O Reilly. They took some of his comments out of context. And look at Media Matters, what they did to Imus. LIMBAUGH: Yeah, well, that s a little -- don t want me in with that. I mean, O Reilly and I have something in common in that we were lied about. Imus said what he said. DOOCY: He did, but Media Matters -- nobody really heard what Imus said until Media Matters brought the tape out and started sending it to different journalists. LIMBAUGH: Well, that is, that is very key. The people that heard Imus say it didn t care. There was no brouhaha for two days. Like my comment with Donovan McNabb. I made it on a Sunday, wasn t til Tuesday the world blew up on it, but that was the local Philadelphia media that did that. What you have to understand, at least from my perspective, is that 1988, when my radio show started and gave birth to all this new media, back then they had a monopoly. At ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN -- that was it in broadcast. You had the two newspapers, the news magazines, and they controlled what was reported, what wasn t reported and what was commented upon. They ve lost that monopoly. Liberalism can only flourish when they have a media monopoly. So the Media Matters organization -- and when we say Media Matters, say Hillary Clinton and George Soros. She has even admitted to coming up with the idea and help start it. And it is to try to discredit those of us in the quote-unquote "new media" from having any credibility beyond our existing audiences. Because they cannot come in the arena of ideas and debate us and win. They have to shut us up. They have to discredit us. This has been happening to me for 12-14 years now. But I know exactly what s going on, and when you do -- and you guys have a good bead on it, too. You know what Media Matters is all about. I mean, they re -- it s a fascinating thing, too and you made a good point. I want to elaborate on this. Talking about Imus. I ve got a radio show and I ve got a website. And people can come to it. You don t need a secret coder and a super secret radio to listen, you just turn on the radio and tune to the station I m on. You come to my website. You can hear what I say. Read what I said. But the drive-by media doesn t do that. They take their lead from Media Matters, so whatever Media Matters says I said is what they think happened. DOOCY: Yeah. LIMBAUGH: You know, during this whole thing, Steve, nobody from the drive-bys called me to ask me, "Did you release statements?" They just ran with it because they re all on the same playing field, they re all on the same side of the aisle. The media, Media Matters, you name it. But we know this. We know how to combat it. And our connection with the audience is what sustains us during these controversies. DOOCY: Sure. [...] DOOCY: Sure, and you mentioned Media Matters, which is an outfit run by this fellow by the name of David Brock, who was once upon a time worked on the right but then went over to the left side. And in fact, this David Brock character has admitted that he published a bunch of stuff that he simply had made up. But his organization, which is supposed to be a watchdog of conservative misinformation -- Media Matters only takes shots at guys like you, at Fox News. They never, ever touch anybody on MSNBC. They never mention anybody on CNN. LIMBAUGH: Well, they do, though, sometimes just for cover. They will rip a Democrat or a liberal media person if they attack Hillary, for example. That organization exists for one reason, and that s to get Hillary Clinton elected. Make no mistake about this. DOOCY: Now why do you say that Rush? LIMBAUGH: Well because she started it. The same thing -- what do you think MoveOn.org means? MoveOn.org was formed in the 90s. It meant, "Can we move on from the Clinton scandals?" And you ve got George Soros money with all of these organizations in an indirect way. Brock is a flunky. You know, he s been all over the ideological map. Some of the stuff he wrote earlier, about Anita Hill, the troopers in Arkansas, he didn t deny the facts. He just said later he wished that he hadn t written them and published them and so forth. Who appointed them an official watchdog and who watches them?

On the October 16 edition of Fox News America s Newsroom, co-anchor Bill Hemmer asserted: "Earlier in the month, 41 Democratic senators sent a letter criticizing [conservative radio host] Rush Limbaugh after Limbaugh had called a soldier a phony soldier after that soldier made up a story about atrocities in Iraq." As Media Matters for America documented, on the September 26 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Limbaugh characterized as "phony soldiers" -- not the singular "phony soldier," as Hemmer claimed -- service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Further, Limbaugh did not mention Jesse MacBeth, who pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the Department of Veterans Affairs for pretending to be an injured Iraq war veteran, on the September 26 show until 1 minute and 50 seconds after making the "phony soldiers" reference. On his September 28 broadcast, responding to criticism of his comments, Limbaugh claimed that rather than speaking generally of soldiers who support withdrawal from Iraq, he was "talking about one soldier with that phony soldier comment." Later in the program, he asserted, "[E]verybody involved in this knows full well I was talking about one genuine, convicted, lying, fake soldier," referring to MacBeth. But, following Limbaugh s repeated assertion that he had been referring to "one soldier," a caller asked, "But you did say soldiers in plural, though, didn t you?" Limbaugh replied: "Yes, because there have been a number of these people, but they were not active duty -- I was not talking about anti-war, active duty troops. I was talking about people who ve been exposed as frauds who never served in Iraq but claimed to have seen all these atrocities, [unintelligible]." Limbaugh repeated this explanation -- inconsistent with his initial assertion that he had been referring to one phony soldier -- during his October 2 broadcast, describing MacBeth as "the man I was referring to and others like him as phony soldiers. " The transcript (subscription required) of the September 28 broadcast that is posted on Limbaugh s website shows him asserting: "I was talking about one soldier with that phony soldier comment, Jesse MacBeth." [italics, bold, and underline in original] From the October 16 edition of Fox News America s Newsroom: HEMMER: A bit earlier in the month, 41 Democratic senators sent a letter criticizing Rush Limbaugh after Limbaugh had called a soldier a "phony soldier" after that soldier made up a story about atrocities in Iraq. Now Limbaugh says he s putting that letter for sale on eBay and so far the auction is up to 50 grand. Four more days to bid -- they ll do it -- they ll close the window on Friday at one o clock. Limbaugh says the proceeds will go to a charity benefiting the children of fallen Marines and law enforcement officers. He ll match the money, too, and he s challenging the senators who wrote the letter to do the same thing.

On the October 5 edition of Fox News Fox s September 26 "phony soldiers" comment, Fox News military analyst Oliver North asserted: "What s important ... is people remember how all this started. Back on September 16th [sic], a caller describing himself as Mike, who said he was a soldier, was complaining about, quote, soldiers who come up out of the blue and talk to the media like this. And Rush says, Phony soldiers, and Mike says, Right, the phony soldiers. And then they go on to talk about phony soldiers like those who were prosecuted out there in Washington state for falsifying their military records, claiming to be things that they weren t." In fact, after Limbaugh made his "phony soldiers" remark, he and the caller did not "go on to talk about" soldiers who were prosecuted in the state of Washington. The caller went on to discuss the purported presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, with Limbaugh responding. Limbaugh then thanked the caller for calling, and the caller is not heard again on the broadcast. Only after this did Limbaugh bring up Jesse MacBeth on his September 26 radio show, 1 minute and 50 seconds after making his "phony soldiers" comment. MacBeth pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for pretending to be an injured Iraq war veteran. From the September 26 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks The Rush Limbaugh Show: LIMBAUGH: Another Mike, this one in Olympia, Washington. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello. CALLER 2: Hi Rush, thanks for taking my call. LIMBAUGH: You bet. 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. 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. 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 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. From the October 5 edition of Fox News Fox s now threats to take him off the Armed Forces Radio Network. BRIAN KILMEADE (co-host): That s not going to make many people happy. Joining us right now from Washington to discuss this is War Stories host and a good friend of Fox s on TV over there. I suppose [Sen.] Harry Reid [D-NV] will want War Stories off. The fact is it s not going to come off. Harry Reid s grousing about this is not going to change a thing. What s important, Brian, is people remember how all this started. Back on September 16th [sic], a caller describing himself as Mike, who said he was a soldier, was complaining about, quote, "soldiers who come up out of the blue and talk to the media like this." And Rush says, "Phony soldiers," and Mike says, "Right, the phony soldiers." And then they go on to talk about phony soldiers like those who were prosecuted out there in Washington state for falsifying their military records, claiming to be things that they weren t.

On the October 4 edition of Fox News Fox s September 26 "phony soldiers" comments and MoveOn.org s September 10 New York Times advertisement headlined "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" American Spectator founder and Editor-in-Chief R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. asserted, "It s absurd to compare a carefully written ad by MoveOn that claims -- accuses a general in the field of treason -- to compare that with a flip remark by Rush Limbaugh during a three-hour discourse, which he s already apologized for in the event that he offended anyone." In fact, while Limbaugh apologized "to all of the members of the United States military, both in uniform and out, active duty and retired, for Media Matters for America," he has not apologized for characterizing service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq "phony soldiers." As Media Matters documented, during the October 1 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Limbaugh stated: LIMBAUGH: But since you will never get an apology from [Rep.] Jack Murtha [D-PA] for mischaracterizing you as murderers; since you ll never get an apology from [Sen.] John Kerry [D-MA]; since you won t get an apology from Media Matters for America or anybody who works there -- to all of you in the U.S. Military -- I want to apologize to you for them for the, again, firestorm over something that did not happen regarding your valor and your commitment to freedom and democracy last week on this program. I really regret that it happened, and I apologize to you on their behalf since they won t. From the October 4 edition of Fox News Fox s comments continue to spark outrage from the left. Democrats are comparing the incident to MoveOn.org s "General Betray Us" ad. Is this a smear campaign against the controversial talk-show host? CARLSON: Emmett Tyrrell is author of The Clinton Crack-Up, and he joins us today from D.C. Good morning to you. TYRRELL: Nice to be with you, Gretchen. CARLSON: So, what do you make of this whole situation? It s been going on now for a couple of weeks, and it seems to be orchestrated. TYRRELL: Well, on one side, it s absurd. It s absurd to compare a carefully written ad by MoveOn that claims -- accuses a general in the field of treason -- to compare that with a flip remark by Rush Limbaugh during a three-hour discourse, which he s already apologized for in the event that he offended anyone. What s really alarming about it is that it shows a pattern here of the new Democratic Party threatening the free speech of those who disagree with them. They had better get used to it. In a democracy, you have disagreement. And we have a First Amendment. And that First Amendment is inviolate. DOOCY: Well, I tell you what, this week it s Rush, last week it was Bill O Reilly. Both of them say they were taken out of context. And three weeks ago, it was General [David] Petraeus. TYRRELL: Well, at least it indicates, for a change, some of these new Democrats are actually listening to people that disagree with them. The problem is they re offended by it. They ought to join them in rational discourse, rather than trying to run them out of town. CARLSON: You know what s interesting, though, Emmett, is that -- do you find it interesting, I should ask -- that no Republican has crossed over the line to condemn Rush s comments, that I ve seen, but there were some Democrats who did cross over the line to condemn MoveOn.org s ad against General Petraeus. TYRRELL: Well, because they recognize that this is an entirely different matter. This is -- I can t think of any time in American history that Americans -- Americans claim -- accused a general in the field of treason, except perhaps the Civil War, when the North and the South thought all of the generals -- the others -- opposite side of the general was guilty of treason. We re all together in this today, and I wish the Democrats would understand that. DOOCY: R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., author of The Clinton Crack-Up. Sir, thanks for joining us today from Washington. TYRRELL: Nice to be with you.

On the October 2 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, responding to criticism of his September 26 comments characterizing service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as "phony soldiers," Rush Limbaugh again asserted that he had been referring to multiple military imposters -- including Jesse MacBeth -- rather than service members or former service members with whom he disagrees. Limbaugh asserted: "The next ruse the left is saying: He couldn t have been talking about MacBeth because he used the plural. He said "phony soldiers." He didn t say phony "soldier." " Limbaugh continued: "Again, this is a willful and missing of the context of this program. We have discussed many of these phony soldiers over the course of the past few months. We discuss them constantly. MacBeth was just the latest." Earlier in the program, Limbaugh described MacBeth as "the man I was referring to and others like him as phony soldiers. " But immediately after the controversy erupted over his comments, Limbaugh offered a different explanation, inconsistent with his claim to have been referring to MacBeth "and others like him": As Media Matters for America documented, during the September 28 broadcast of his show, Limbaugh twice claimed that rather than speaking generally of soldiers who support withdrawal from Iraq, he was "talking about one soldier with that phony soldier comment, Jesse MacBeth." Indeed, the transcript (subscription required) of the September 28 broadcast that is posted on Limbaugh s site shows Limbaugh asserting: "I was talking about one soldier with that phony soldier comment, Jesse MacBeth. [emphasis in original]" Further, to support his contention that he had been talking about "one soldier ... Jesse MacBeth," during his September 28 broadcast, Limbaugh purported to air the "entire" segment in question from the September 26 broadcast of his show. In fact, as Media Matters noted, the clip he then aired had been edited. Excised from the clip was a full 1 minute and 35 seconds of the 1 minute and 50 second discussion that occurred between Limbaugh s original "phony soldiers" comment and his reference to MacBeth. Also, the transcript of the first segment of the first hour of his September 28 broadcast posted on Limbaugh s website, which Limbaugh described as being the "anatomy of a smear," does not provide any notation or ellipsis to indicate that there is, in fact, a break in the transcript of the September 26 clip. Later in the September 28 broadcast, in response to a caller s question, "But you did say soldiers in plural, though, didn t you?" Limbaugh asserted: "Yes, because there have been a number of these people, but they were not active duty -- I was not talking about anti-war, active duty troops. I was talking about people who ve been exposed as frauds who never served in Iraq but claimed to have seen all these atrocities, [unintelligible]." As the blog Crooks and Liars noted, during his September 28 broadcast, Limbaugh also expanded the group of "phony soldiers" to include Vietnam veteran Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA) and Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp, who is currently serving in Iraq. In asserting that he was originally "talking about a genuine phony soldier," Limbaugh went on to state: "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?" From the October 2 edition of Premiere Radio Networks The Rush Limbaugh Show: LIMBAUGH: Many of you have said, "You ought to sue." I can t, folks. I m a public figure. It s part of the process. Can t. It s not doable. There are other ways of dealing with this. I was shocked when I heard Senator [Tom] Harkin [D-IA] say it, and I ve thought about what he actually said, and I m blown away. He attributes to me referencing seven soldiers in a New York Times story that I had never, ever referenced. I never have done so, until this very moment on this program. Now, there are also some people who are talking about this story. CNN did a story yesterday afternoon accepting the Harry Reid-Media Matters -- founded by Hillary Clinton -- premise. There have been others who have done so, and not one of them has gone into detail about Jesse MacBeth, the man I was referring to and others like him as "phony soldiers." So let me again detail for you Jesse MacBeth, because this is the celebrity the anti-war left props up and loves. Army Ranger, he said, a 23-year-old corporal. He said he won a Purple Heart. He said he was afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder from tours in Afghanistan and Iraq -- and what made Army Ranger Jesse MacBeth a hero to the left wing was his "courage," in their view, off the battlefield. Without regard to consequences, MacBeth told the world -- and his remarks were printed and reprinted in Arabic all over the Middle East and the Internet. He told the world about abuses he had witnessed in Iraq: American soldiers killing unarmed civilians, hundreds of men, women, and even children, hanging them in mosques. That s one gruesome account translated into Arabic, spread widely across the Internet, MacBeth described the horrors this way: "We would burn the bodies, and we would hang their bodies from the rafters in the mosque." This is who I was discussing, and everybody in the drive-by media reporting on this knows this is who I was discussing. ABC reported on this man two days before I began this very commentary a week ago yesterday, a week ago Monday, ABC World News Tonight did the story. And still the drive-by media who are talking about this do not detail for anybody who Jesse MacBeth is. Well, here s the grand finale: Jesse MacBeth -- a poster boy of the anti-war left, heralded as a hero -- had his day in court. He was sentenced to five months in jail, three years probation for falsifying a Department of Veterans Affairs claim. His Army s discharge record as well. Yes, MacBeth was in the Army -- for 44 days. He washed out of boot camp. He is not an Army Ranger. He is not a corporal. He never won the Purple Heart. He was never in combat to witness the horrors he claimed to have seen, but don t look for any retractions from the left. Don t look for any TV ads about this guy from the left, not from the anti-war left, the anti-military drive-by media, or the Arabic websites that spread his lies about the troops, because fiction -- fiction, ladies and gentlemen, fiction is what serves the purpose of the anti-war left, from Tom Harkin to Harry Reid, to these groups that prop up phony soldiers, like Jesse MacBeth, groups like The New Republic, which run phony accounts from soldiers in Iraq lying about what they ve seen. These are the heroes to the anti-war left. Fiction is what serves their purpose. The truth is just too inconvenient. The next ruse the left is saying: "He couldn t have been talking about MacBeth because he used the plural. He said phony soldiers. He didn t say phony soldier. " Again, this is a willful and missing of the context of this program. We have discussed many of these phony soldiers over the course of the past few months. We discuss them constantly. MacBeth was just the latest. I have a press release here from the United States attorney s office, the Western District, State of Washington, September 21st of this year. Headline: "Northwest Crackdown on Fake Veterans in Operation Stolen Valor -- Phony vets scam more than 1.4 million and damage image of honorable veterans."

On the October 3 edition of MSNBC s Morning Joe, contributor Willie Geist and host Joe Scarborough discussed Clear Channel CEO Mark P. Mays reply to Senate Democrats September 28 letter calling on him to publicly repudiate Rush Limbaugh s characterization of service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as "phony soldiers." Geist stated that "[t]he station said we re not going to apologize, Rush Limbaugh has a track record of supporting the troops, this has been taken out of context, and they did not -- they did not yield to Congress." In fact, in his October 2 letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Mays did not write that Limbaugh s statements were "taken out of context"; rather, that he "carefully read the transcript from the episode in question," and determined that he could not "speak with authority as to whom exactly Mr. Limbaugh s comments were directed, or what was his intent." Mays added, "Only Mr. Limbaugh can speak to those issues, which he has done." Similarly, in an October 2 entry on Politico s The Crypt blog, staff writer Carrie Budoff Brown asserted that Mays wrote that he "didn t believe Limbaugh s statements were intended to personally indict combat soldiers simply because they didn t share his own beliefs regarding the war in Iraq. " In fact, Mays wrote, "[I]t would be unfair for me to assume his statements were intended to personally indict combat soldiers simply because they didn t share his own beliefs regarding the war in Iraq," not that he "didn t believe" that was the case. Mays further noted that Limbaugh "denies" that his "intention was to classify any soldier opposed to the war in Iraq as a phony soldier. " Clear Channel broadcasts Limbaugh s nationally syndicated radio show. From Mays letter: I want to thank you and your Senate democratic colleagues for sharing your concern over recent comments made by Rush Limbaugh on his daily radio program. First, let me say that the men and women who wear the uniform in defense of our country deserve the utmost respect and gratitude from each and every one of us whom they serve to protect. I assure you that I fully agree with your statement that "not a single one of our sons, daughters, neighbors and friends serving overseas is a phony soldier." As a grateful American citizen, I would reject anyone s contention to the contrary. Mr. Limbaugh s comments last week have stirred a lot of emotion, and I have carefully read the transcript from the episode in question. I hope you will appreciate that I cannot speak with authority as to whom exactly Mr. Limbaugh s comments were directed, or what was his intent. Only Mr. Limbaugh can speak to those issues, which he has done. I can say, however, that over the years Mr. Limbaugh has repeatedly praised the dedication and valor of our brave men and women in uniform. Given Mr. Limbaugh s history of support for our soldiers, it would be unfair for me to assume that his statements were intended to personally indict combat soldiers simply because they didn t share his own beliefs regarding the war in Iraq. However, if Mr. Limbaugh s intention was to classify any soldier opposed to the war in Iraq as a "phony soldier," which he denies, then I, along with most Americans, would be deeply offended by such a statement. While I do not agree with everything Mr. Limbaugh says on every topic, I do believe that he, along with every American, has the right to voice his or her opinion in the manner they choose. The First Amendment gives every American the right to voice his or her opinion, no matter how unpopular. That right is one that I am sure you agree must be cherished and protected. As the Chief Executive Officer of Clear Channel, I support each of our on-air talent s right to express his or herself freely, as long as they do it within the confines of the laws set forth by Congress. For this reason, I have not and will not impose my own views upon any of our on-air talent. Doing so would, quite frankly, undermine the integrity of the broadcast, undercut the trust with our listeners that they are receiving the true and honest opinions of the radio host, and more importantly fly directly in the face the right to free speech that we hold so dear. Each and every day, Clear Channel offers a broad diversity of viewpoints from Rush Limbaugh on the right to Air America on the left of the political spectrum. It is inevitable, with so many different perspectives, that an on-air personality will challenge or even offend another segment of the public. I too am sometimes offended by words that are directed at me or a particular belief I hold. However, as a broadcaster and leader of this company, I will always defend the right of our employees and contracted talent to voice their opinions under the protections provided by the First Amendment. I want to thank you and your colleagues for writing me regarding this matter. Again, I regret that you and others were offended by Mr. Limbaugh s statement, regardless of what its intended meaning may have been. I hope that you understand and support my position that while I certainly do not agree with all views that are voiced on our stations, I will not condemn our talent for exercising their right to voice them. From the October 3 edition of MSNBC s Morning Joe: GEIST: That s all the Britney we re going to do for today -- promise. MIKA BRZEZINSKI (co-host): Well, you know what, Willie? Thanks so much for that. My day is complete. SCARBOROUGH (host): Well, seriously, we can be all upset about us doing Britney Spears and talking about this tape and everything, but you know what if the United States Senate isn t acting any more serious than they are acting right now -- Willie Geist, apparently yesterday, they went on the Senate floor, and they ve now decided, instead of talking about the war, they re going to talk about Rush Limbaugh. GEIST: Yeah, look, 41 senators, I believe it was, drafted a letter, sent it to Rush Limbaugh s employer, Clear Channel Radio, and wanted -- it was just a rebuke -- they wanted an apology. The station said we re not going to apologize, Rush Limbaugh has a track record of supporting the troops, this has been taken out of context, and they did not -- they did not yield to Congress.

On the October 2 edition of Fox News Live, discussing Rush Limbaugh s characterization of service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as "phony soldiers" during the September 26 edition of his radio show, Fox News chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle repeatedly misrepresented both Limbaugh s remarks and the arguments of "Limbaugh s critics," falsely reinforcing Limbaugh s claim that he was referring to actual military imposters, rather than service members or former service members with whom he disagrees. Angle said that Democrats were "going after" Limbaugh following their failure to denounce MoveOn.org s September 10 ad in The New York Times, titled "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" Angle asserted: "I think what you have here, E.D., is a lot of Democrats who would not vote to condemn the MoveOn.org ad that called General [David] Petraeus General Betray Us ... have found religion on this issue and are going after Rush Limbaugh." Co-host E.D. Hill responded to this assertion by saying, "It sounds like there s a whiff of hypocrisy there in Washington." In fact, 46 Democratic senators, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), voted for an amendment offered by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) that did refer to the ad as "an unwarranted personal attack on General Petraeus." Further, 146 Democratic congressmen supported Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) motion to add an amendment that "condemn[ed] in the strongest possible terms the personal attacks made by the advocacy group MoveOn.org impugning the integrity and professionalism of General David H. Petraeus" to a funding bill. Rep. Mark Udall (D-CO), who is offering a resolution "honoring all Americans serving in the Armed Forces of the United States and condemning the attack by broadcaster Rush Limbaugh on the integrity and professionalism of some of those Americans," was one of the House Democrats to vote for Lewis motion. Seventy-nine House Democrats voted against Lewis motion. In the same report, on the 11 a.m. ET hour of Fox News Live on October 2, Angle advanced several other falsehoods about Limbaugh s "phony soldiers" comments, many of which originated with Limbaugh himself: Angle stated: "Well, [Jesse] MacBeth was the person at issue in this broadcast, and one of the people they were talking about." MacBeth, an anti-war activist, pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for pretending to be an injured Iraq war veteran. In fact, as Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted, Limbaugh did not mention MacBeth on the September 26 edition of his show until 1 minute and 50 seconds after he used the phrase "phony soldiers" and, beyond appearing to question the military credentials of one caller who said he had been in the military, did not mention any other specific "phony soldiers" on the show. Angle claimed that "the fact that Rush Limbaugh mentioned some other people is what the critics point to." While the blog Crooks and Liars and Media Matters have noted that during his September 28 show, Limbaugh expanded the group of "phony soldiers" to include Vietnam veteran Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA) and Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp, who is currently serving in Iraq, Media Matters has also documented that Limbaugh did not refer to any specific service members when he made his original comments and that he has repeatedly misrepresented his "phony soldiers" comments in response to Media Matters. As Media Matters documented, during the September 28 edition of his show, Limbaugh twice claimed that rather than speaking generally of soldiers who support withdrawal from Iraq, that he was "talking about one soldier with that phony soldier comment, Jesse MacBeth." However, as the transcript makes clear, Limbaugh actually referred to "phony soldiers," plural on September 26. Responding to a caller s statement that supporters of withdrawal "like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media," Limbaugh responded, "The phony soldiers" [emphasis added]. Later in the broadcast, in response to a caller s question, "But you did say soldiers in plural, though, didn t you?" Limbaugh asserted: "Yes, because there have been a number of these people, but they were not active duty -- I was not talking about anti-war, active duty troops. I was talking about people who ve been exposed as frauds who never served in Iraq but claimed to have seen all these atrocities, [unintelligible]." As Media Matters also noted, during the September 28 broadcast of his show, Limbaugh also claimed that "Media Matters had the transcript [of the original broadcast], but they selectively choose what they want to make their point." To support this claim, Limbaugh purported to air the "entire" segment in question from the September 26 broadcast of his show. In fact, the clip he then aired had been cropped. Excised from the clip was a full 1 minute and 35 seconds of the 1 minute and 50 second discussion that occurred between Limbaugh s original "phony soldiers" comment and his reference to MacBeth.^ Angle stated that MacBeth was "one of the people that was at issue, and did come up in that broadcast, though the exchange that Rush had with that other soldier was about those who come out in favor of withdrawal who have not actually served in the military, or who have not actually served in Iraq." In fact, while Limbaugh asserted during his September 28 broadcast that he "was not talking about anti-war, active duty troops" when he used the phrase "phony soldiers" during his September 26 broadcast, he did not limit the characterization to people "who have not actually served in the military, or who have not actually served in Iraq," as Angle asserted. He did not limit the characterization at all, as the transcript indicates. Subsequently, during the noon ET hour, Angle asserted that "Limbaugh s passing mention of phony soldiers, he says, was a reference to Jesse MacBeth, among others." In fact, as Media Matters documented, Limbaugh did not mention MacBeth on the September 26 edition of his show until 1 minute and 50 seconds after he used the phrase "phony soldiers." Angle also repeated his assertion that Democrats were being hypocritical, saying that "there s another argument too: Democrats, many of whom would not vote to condemn the MoveOn.org ad calling General Petraeus General Betray Us are now waging a campaign against Rush Limbaugh." From the noon ET hour of the October 2 edition of Fox News Live: JON SCOTT (host): Senate Democrats are going after radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The Democrats slammed Limbaugh for supposedly saying troops who oppose the war are, quote, "phony soldiers." They re demanding an apology, but Limbaugh says they are twisting what he said. Now the conservative talk show host is firing back. Let s check in with Jim Angle, live now in Washington. Jim, I guess some see this as Democratic senators frustrated with their inability to change the course of the war in Iraq. Now they re trying to change, I guess, the messenger, or go after some of the messengers on the war. ANGLE: Well, there s that, and there s another argument too: Democrats, many of whom would not vote to condemn the MoveOn.org ad calling General Petraeus "General Betray Us" are now waging a campaign against Rush Limbaugh for an exchange he had with an Iraqi veteran who was complaining about those arguing for withdrawal. [begin audio clip] CALLER: 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: The phony soldiers. If you talk to a real soldier, they are proud to serve. They want to be over in Iraq. [end audio clip] ANGLE: Now, Limbaugh s passing mention of "phony soldiers," he says, was a reference to Jesse MacBeth, among others. MacBeth is a disgraced former soldier who became an anti-war activist after falsely claiming to have participated in war crimes in Iraq, and having received a Purple Heart, when in fact he had never set foot in Iraq, and was discharged from the Army after only 44 days of service, before he even completed basic training. But the Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, argued that Limbaugh s comments were broader than that, and were intended as a smear of all American troops who want withdrawal in Iraq -- from Iraq. REID [video clip]: While American of goodwill debate the merits of this war, we can all agree that those who serve with such great courage deserve our deepest respect and gratitude. That s why Rush Limbaugh s recent characterization of troops who oppose the war as "phony soldiers" is an outrage. ANGLE: Limbaugh argues he did not in any way disparage American soldiers serving in Iraq, but House Democrats want a vote of condemnation over the comment, and Senator Reid is demanding that the syndicator of Limbaugh s program repudiate his remark. Limbaugh, of course, is now challenging Reid to come on his program and to debate the matter. Jon? SCOTT: That would make for good radio. I d like to hear that. From the 11 a.m. hour of the October 2 edition of Fox News Live: HILL: A lot to cover here. Chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle, helping us sort everything out. So exactly how does this MacBeth fit into all of this? ANGLE: Well, MacBeth was the person at issue in this broadcast, and one of the people they were talking about. Now, the fact that Rush Limbaugh mentioned some other people is what the critics point to. But Jesse MacBeth, who was widely hailed by some in the media for his stories that he had participated in atrocities in Iraq, that he had won a Purple Heart, telling great stories about the nasty things that American troops were doing to Iraqis as you pointed out earlier, were completely false. Not only had he never set foot in Iraq, he was sent out of the military after 44 days of service, he hadn t even completed basic training. So he didn t get very far in the military, and then went on to tell great lies about his service. So he was one of the people that was at issue, and did come up in that broadcast, though the exchange that Rush had with that other soldier was about those who come out in favor of withdrawal who have not actually served in the military, or who have not actually served in Iraq. So, you know, this gets very confused, and I think what you have here, E.D., is a lot of Democrats who would not vote to condemn the MoveOn.org ad that called General Petraeus "General Betray Us" are now -- have found religion on this issue and are going after Rush Limbaugh for having an exchange with a soldier in which he simply says the two words, "phony soldiers," in response to something an Iraqi veteran had to say. HILL: It sounds like there s a whiff of hypocrisy there in Washington. Now, the reason this is so serious -- because, you know, frankly it is a radio commentator, although a very popular one heard by millions and millions of people - but the reason this is so serious -- the Jesse MacBeth claims --is that his comments about the atrocities that he claimed he had personally taken part in and the horrible things he , accused U.S. service members of doing were then translated into Arabic and spread throughout the Middle East. And that certainly works against everything that is in America s best interest. ANGLE: Well, absolutely true, and you remember the old saying: A lie is halfway around the world before the truth gets its shoes on. This is a problem. When someone says something completely outrageous, it will be widely hailed as some revelation and certainly will get a lot of play in the Arab world. And that is exactly what happened in this case.

On the October 1 edition of Fox News Hannity s recent characterization of service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as "phony soldiers," right-wing radio host and co-chairwoman of Move America Forward (MAF) Melanie Morgan asserted: "What s clear to me is that this is a manufactured controversy by Media Matters for America, an organization that has been determined to take down conservative talk-show hosts for many, many years now." She added: "Rush Limbaugh is a man who is a truth-teller and one of the most effective communicators of our generation." Later in the segment, following co-host Sean Hannity s assertions that "they know this is a phony issue" and "[t]hey know the context in which Rush was talking," Morgan asserted: "This is what [right-wing pundit] Michelle Malkin has been writing about at her blog for a long time now. A number of soldiers who are fake or who are embellishers or who are posers, who go out there -- or soldiers like Jon Soltz of VoteVet.org [sic], who go out there and use their far-left, anti-American agenda, political agenda to undermine the real mission of our troops, our heroes who are out there, who are fighting in a hot war, who are fighting for our lives and for our security and safety." As Media Matters has documented, Morgan has attacked Soltz in the past. For example, on the May 8 edition of PBS The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, correspondent Judy Woodruff hosted a segment titled "Grassroots Groups Seek to Influence Iraq Policy" featuring Soltz and Morgan. During the show, Morgan claimed that she would like to see Soltz "say to the troops in the field" "that they are failing, that they have failed, miserable performance, that they are losing." She also said that Soltz was "shameful and really disrespectful to our troops." In an August 17 column published on the conservative website WorldNetDaily, Morgan called Soltz a "hypocritical cockroach," stating that "[h]e needs to be stomped on and neutralized before he and his ilk can silence military support for the mission in Iraq." From the October 1 edition of Fox News Hannity s comments to the [Gen. David] Petraeus-MoveOn.org ad and the heat some of them got for not condemning the advertisement. And with us now, radio talk-show host and author of the book American Mourning -- that s with a "u" in there -- Melanie Morgan. And radio talk show Stephanie Miller. Now, Melanie, I just don t understand because we actually played the tape. He said "phony soldiers" -- plural. And then he claimed that he was talking about one soldier, but that particular soldier, his name didn t come up until about two minutes later. So it wasn t clear to me, at least, that he was talking about one soldier two minutes prior to that soldier s name coming up. Can you help me understand this? MORGAN: What s clear to me is this is a manufactured controversy by Media Matters for America, an organization that has been determined to take down conservative talk-show hosts for many, many years now. Rush Limbaugh is a man who is a truth-teller and one of the most effective communicators of our generation. And that s why they are continuing. COLMES: That doesn t answer my question, though. MORGAN: They are continuing to attack him. COLMES: I m trying to understand the explanation. [...] SEAN HANNITY (co-host): Melanie, what they re trying to do here, they know this is a phony issue. They know the context in which Rush was talking about here. They know his history of supporting the military. But they re trying to distract from their positions on the war. And Harry Reid literally said on the Senate floor today -- he called Rush unpatriotic. Does that mean we can call him unpatriotic for sending kids to war and telling them they lost? Or John Murtha, who accused Marines of murder, and now many of them have been vindicated, and he hasn t apologized? Is he unpatriotic? Was Obama patriotic -- unpatriotic when he said our troops are air-raiding villages, when they don t do any such thing? Now are they going to open that door? MORGAN: This is what Michelle Malkin has been writing about at her blog for a long time now. A number of soldiers who are fake or who are embellishers or who are posers, who go out there -- or soldiers like Jon Soltz of VoteVet.org [sic], who go out there and use their far-left, anti-American agenda, political agenda to undermine the real mission of our troops -- HANNITY: You know -- MORGAN: -- our heroes who are out there, who are fighting in a hot war -- HANNITY: You know something -- MORGAN: -- who are fighting for our lives -- HANNITY: Stephanie -- MORGAN: -- and for our security and safety. HANNITY: The bottom line is these same Democrats that couldn t condemn the "General Betray Us" ad, these same guys that want to cut off funding -- bullets, armor, Humvees, and supplies -- MILLER: Oh, I m sorry. HANNITY: -- the same guys that accused them of murder and, as [Sen.] John Kerry [D-MA] said, being terrorists. You know what? Why don t we have a resolution for each and every one of them and their statements? Would that be fair?

On the October 2 edition of Fox News America s Newsroom, discussing Rush Limbaugh s recent comments characterizing service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as "phony soldiers," co-anchor Megyn Kelly -- purporting to "give you some background on this quickly" -- reported: "Rush originally used this term phony soldiers when he was talking about a guy named Jesse MacBeth ... Limbaugh was making the point that this guy was basically a phony soldier, and he was trying to say that sometimes people on the left use phony soldiers like this to make their points." But contrary to Kelly s assertion that "Rush originally used this term phony soldiers when he was talking about" MacBeth on the September 26 show, he did not mention MacBeth until 1 minute and 50 seconds after he used the phrase "phony soldiers." As Media Matters for America has documented, during the September 28 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Limbaugh claimed that he had not been talking "about the anti-war movement generally," but rather "about one soldier ... Jesse MacBeth." Limbaugh further asserted that "Media Matters had the transcript, but they selectively choose what they want to make their point." To support this claim, Limbaugh purported to air the "entire" segment in question from the September 26 broadcast of his show. In fact, the clip he then aired had been spliced: Excised from the clip was a full 1 minute and 35 seconds of the 1 minute and 50 second discussion that occurred between Limbaugh s original "phony soldiers" comment and his reference to MacBeth, the full audio of which can be heard here. Kelly s assertion that "Rush originally used this term, phony soldiers when he was talking about a guy named Jesse MacBeth" echoed Limbaugh s assertion on his September 28 broadcast that he was "talking about one soldier with that phony soldier comment, Jesse MacBeth." But as the transcript makes clear, and Media Matters has noted, Limbaugh actually referred to "phony soldiers," plural. Responding to the caller s statement that supporters of withdrawal "like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media," Limbaugh responded, "The phony soldiers" [emphasis added]. Further, as Media Matters documented, on his September 28 broadcast, Limbaugh expanded the group of "phony soldiers" to include Vietnam veteran Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA) and Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp, who is currently serving in Iraq. In asserting that he was originally "talking about a genuine phony soldier," Limbaugh went on to state: "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?" According to Murtha s biography on his congressional website, Murtha joined the Marines in 1952 and volunteered for service in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts. From the October 2 edition of Fox News America s Newsroom: KELLY: Well, new developments now with the hottest story this hour, the left attacking Rush Limbaugh for his comments on anti-war soldiers. We went back to his Wednesday radio show and pulled this. Take a listen: [begin audio clip] CALLER 2: 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. [end audio clip] KELLY: All right, so that was a caller, obviously, calling in. And now Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [D-NV], are demanding an apology from Limbaugh. Rush says if anyone needs to apologize to our military, it is Harry Reid. Now, let me just give you some background on this quickly. Rush originally used this term, "phony soldiers," when he was talking about a guy named Jesse MacBeth. Jesse MacBeth never served in Iraq, says Rush. He claimed to have a Purple Heart; he didn t. This guy was propped up by the left, because he opposes the Iraq war, as some sort of hero, as a talking-points guy, this Jesse MacBeth was, and Rush Limbaugh was making the point that this guy was basically a "phony soldier," and he was trying to say that sometimes people on the left use "phony soldiers" like this to make their points. But now, it has turned into this huge controversy, because Media Matters -- you remember this group, they attack O Reilly all the time -- now they say Rush is referring to all soldiers who criticize the Iraq war as "phony soldiers." It s led to the United States Senate getting involved, and Kelly Wright s got more on that from Washington.

On the October 1 edition of Fox News The O Reilly Factor, host Bill O Reilly discussed conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh s controversial remarks about "phony soldiers," and claimed that "Media Matters is peddling that Mr. Limbaugh was denigrating soldiers who dissent from the Iraq War, but that doesn t seem to be true." As evidence, O Reilly aired a clip of Limbaugh claiming that he "was talking about one soldier with that phony soldier comment. Jesse MacBeth." But O Reilly did not point out, as Media Matters for America has done, that during the September 26 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Limbaugh -- in his original comments -- actually referred to "phony soldiers," plural. O Reilly also ignored the fact that Limbaugh did not refer to Jesse MacBeth until one minute and 50 seconds after making his "phony soldiers" comment. Later, O Reilly s guest, blogger Brian Maloney, also claimed that "Rush was talking about Jesse MacBeth and actual phony soldiers." Maloney asserted, "It couldn t be more obvious, Bill. What he was talking about -- this started two days earlier with an ABC news piece" about phony soldiers and "[o]n Wednesday morning, Rush Limbaugh had a taped commentary where he discussed that." In fact, contrary to Maloney s claim, Limbaugh s Morning Update discussing fake soldiers -- specifically Jesse MacBeth -- was aired Tuesday, September 25 (subscription required), a full day before Limbaugh s "phony soldiers" comment. Further, as Media Matters has noted, after a caller to his September 28 program questioned Limbaugh about his use of "soldiers" -- plural -- Limbaugh then said that he had been referring to more than one "phony soldier." From the September 28 broadcast: LIMBAUGH: Putting it all in context -- I m sorry you missed it. What I can tell you is that what you re hearing on these shows is, is so incompetently, purposefully taken out of context. It s something I never said. I was talking -- I did say, "phony soldiers," talking about an actual fraud named Jesse MacBeth, who is found -- CALLER: But you did say "soldiers" in plural, though, didn t you? LIMBAUGH: Yes, because there have been a number of these people, but they were not active duty -- I was not talking about anti-war, active duty troops. I was talking about people who ve been exposed as frauds who never served in Iraq but claimed to have seen all these atrocities, [unintelligible]. Claimed to be a Green Beret, he was an Army Ranger, he never was [unintelligible]. Claimed that he had a Purple Heart. He never got one. He was busted out of the Army in 44 days in boot camp. This is the guy I was talking about. CALLER: OK, I don t know much about him, but, uh, can we talk about global warming? O Reilly introduced his segment on Limbaugh s remarks by stating: "More smears from the despicable Media Matters organization, which is funded by far-left dollars. In addition to me, Rush Limbaugh is a favorite target of these guttersnipes, who distort hours of talk radio, hoping to create phony controversies." After airing the audio clip in which Limbaugh referred to anti-war soldiers as "phony soldiers," O Reilly asserted: "Now Media Matters is peddling that Mr. Limbaugh was denigrating soldiers who dissent from the Iraq war, but that doesn t seem to be true." O Reilly uncritically aired Limbaugh s defense -- that he was referring to "one soldier with that phony soldier comment" -- and attacked the "media [that] picked up the phony story from Media Matters," and politicians such as former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for "spreading the propaganda" by condemning Limbaugh s attacks. In fact, as Media Matters has noted, Limbaugh made his original "phony soldiers" comment while discussing with a caller a conversation he had with a previous caller, "Mike from Chicago," who said he "used to be military," and "believe[s] that we should pull out of Iraq." Limbaugh told the second caller, whom he identified as "Mike, this one from Olympia, Washington," that "[t]here s a lot" that people who favor U.S. withdrawal "don t understand" and that when asked why the United States should pull out, their only answer is, Well, we just gotta bring the troops home. ... Save the -- keeps the troops safe or whatever," adding, "[I]t s not possible, intellectually, to follow these people." "Mike" from Olympia replied, "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." It was not until one minute and 50 seconds after making his "phony soldiers" comment that Limbaugh referred to MacBeth on that show. For his part, Maloney began his commentary by claiming that: "This entire situation is completely outrageous." Referring to O Reilly s recent controversial remarks about his visit to Sylvia s restaurant in Harlem, Maloney added: "You ve already been targeted by these people. When they couldn t get rid of you last week, they quickly switched gears and moved into Rush Limbaugh s territory. And now, this is an ongoing campaign to destroy talk radio, to destroy anyone that disagrees with them. They have become the self-appointed censors, this George Soros-funded campaign. It s absolutely ridiculous." Later, O Reilly added: "[W]e want to be accurate here. ... The Democracy Alliance gets Soros money and then doles it out to far left hit men like Media Matters." In fact, as Media Matters has repeatedly noted, it has received no money from philanthropist George Soros -- either directly or indirectly, including through the Democracy Alliance. From the October 1 edition of Fox News The O Reilly Factor: O REILLY: Now for the top story tonight, talk about fair play. More smears from the despicable Media Matters organization, which is funded by far-left dollars. In addition to me, Rush Limbaugh is a favorite target of these guttersnipes, who distort hours of talk radio, hoping to create phony controversies. Here is the latest. [begin video clip] CALLER: What s really funny is they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers to come up out of the blue and talk the media. LIMBAUGH: The phony soldiers. [end video clip] O REILLY: All right. Now, Media Matters is peddling that Mr. Limbaugh was denigrating soldiers who dissent from the Iraq war, but that doesn t seem to be true. LIMBAUGH [video clip]: The same group is trying to get Bill O Reilly into problems, because of some innocent comments that he made about going to dinner at a restaurant in Harlem. I was talking about one soldier with that phony soldier comment: Jesse MacBeth. O REILLY: Now, MacBeth tried to position himself as a veteran when he was kicked out of the Army in basic training. The following media picked up the phony story from Media Matters: MSNBC, of course, the Boston Herald, the Minneapolis Star[Tribune], the Chicago Sun-Times, the Orlando Sentinel, the AP, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Baltimore Sun, and CBSnews.com, the usual suspects. Also, spreading the propaganda, John Edwards and Senator Harry Reid. REID [video clip]: Last week, Rush Limbaugh went way over the line. Way over the line. And while I respect his right to say anything he likes, his unpatriotic comments I cannot ignore. O REILLY: Joining us now from Boston, Brian Maloney, who runs a blog called The Radio Equalizer. Now, I did not hear the Rush Limbaugh broadcast. I m operating off of transcripts, which is a lot of crosstalk. That means that Mr. Limbaugh and a guest caller talking at the same time. The accusation by Harry Reid and the other anti-Limbaugh crew says that the discussion was Limbaugh denigrating soldiers who dissent from the Iraq war. Is that true, sir? MALONEY: No, it most certainly is not, Bill. This entire situation is completely outrageous. You ve already been targeted by these people. When they couldn t get rid of you last week, they quickly switched gears and moved into Rush Limbaugh s territory. And now, this is an ongoing campaign to destroy talk radio, to destroy anyone that disagrees with them. They have become the self-appointed censors, this George Soros-funded campaign. It s absolutely ridiculous. Rush was talking about Jesse MacBeth and actual phony soldiers. There is an entire movement out there of people who are trying to expose these phony soldiers, people who have not served, people who have not gone to Iraq -- O REILLY: All right, so that. MALONEY: -- and who are claiming atrocities. O REILLY: Now you are 100 percent positive that he wasn t talking about soldiers who dissent from the Iraq war. He was talking about soldiers who put themselves off as Iraqi veterans or, you know -- MALONEY: Right. O REILLY: -- veterans of this campaign when they aren t. That s what he was talking about? MALONEY: It couldn t be more obvious, Bill. What he was talking about -- this started two days earlier with an ABC news piece, where they used almost the same language. And they used the very same context as Rush on Monday. On Wednesday morning, Rush Limbaugh had a taped commentary where he discussed that, that -- O REILLY: That was a [ABC News chief investigative correspondent] Brian Ross piece -- MALONEY: Right. O REILLY: -- about the masquerading of some soldiers to denigrate the war. All right now. MALONEY: Right. O REILLY: .You mentioned George Soros funds Media Matters. He does it through -- because we want to be accurate here -- MALONEY: Right. O REILLY: -- the Democracy Alliance. All right? The Democracy Alliance gets Soros money and then doles it out to far-left hitmen like Media Matters. OK, now. MALONEY: That is exactly right. O REILLY: The key question -- the key issue here is not me or Rush Limbaugh. It s not it. It s Harry Reid, a senator, the Senate majority leader going to the floor, using the stuff. John Edwards used it as well. Taking it right from Media Matters. And we just listed the news organizations that did it. Last week on my thing, it was outrageous the news organizations. MALONEY: It was. O REILLY: Outrageous what the lies that they perpetuated. So now in this country, we have far-left media assassins on the Internet who know they can get their propaganda, their hateful defamation into not only the media, but on the Senate floor. MALONEY: Well, that s exactly right, Bill. And by the way, Republicans are hopefully going to be introducing their own resolution on the House floor, Jack Kingston Republican representative of Georgia, commending Rush Limbaugh for his support for American troops, telling the truth. Rush Limbaugh has never been against the troops. This is the most outrageous smear I ve ever heard in my life. By the way, your discussion was so far from being racist, it s unbelievable. I mean, you had a very interesting topic where you were truly talking about the fact that people -- O REILLY: Well, everybody. MALONEY: -- aren t being exposed to other kinds of people. O REILLY: At this point. MALONEY: They rely on stereotypes. O REILLY: Mr. Maloney, everybody who s taken the time to listen to the tape, which is on our website, and Juan Williams, and read his article knows them. But it s very disturbing what s happening in this country, Mr. Maloney. And we are trying to get Rush Limbaugh on this broadcast tomorrow to talk about it because I think we now need to go on a counterattack and knock these people out. Because this isn t freedom of speech. This is rank defamation. Mr. Maloney, thanks very much. We appreciate it. MALONEY: Absolutely, thank you.

During the September 28 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, in response to Media Matters for America s documentation of Rush Limbaugh s recent description of service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as "phony soldiers," Fox News host John Gibson asserted, "Rush was specifically talking about a particular one, Jesse MacBeth, who had pled guilty in court to lying about even being in Iraq." Gibson falsely claimed that Media Matters "said Rush said something, posted an audio recording of it and a written transcript, and cut it off at the precise moment where the next thing he said proved them wrong." To support this claim, Gibson aired a clip from the September 28 broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show in which Limbaugh purported to air the "entire" segment in question from the September 26 broadcast of his program. In fact, as Media Matters has documented, the clip Limbaugh aired on September 28, which Gibson reaired, had been spliced. Excised from the clip was a full 1 minute and 35 seconds of the 1 minute and 50 second discussion that occurred between Limbaugh s original "phony soldiers" comment and his reference to MacBeth, the full audio of which can be heard here. Prior to airing the clip from the September 28 Rush Limbaugh Show, Gibson asserted: "Now, the actual liar in this situation is Media Matters itself. And we have the proof. I mean, I have the proof a dozen different ways about me, but it s all pretty complex. This thing about Rush is really crystal clear. You can see how they lie." Gibson stopped the clip at one point, saying, "All right, it ended right there on the Media Matters transcript." He continued, "This is the part that they cut out -- I mean, almost the very next words," and then played the remainder of the clip that Limbaugh used during his September 28 broadcast. Following the clip, Gibson asserted that "it s quite clear if you listen to the -- most of what came -- any of what came after the point where Media Matters cut off the tape -- that when Rush was referring to phony soldiers, he was referring to those like Jesse MacBeth." But at no point during the segment did Gibson indicate that the clip he aired was not of the original September 26 broadcast of Limbaugh s show and that it had, in fact, been edited to remove 1 minute and 35 seconds of discussion that occurred between Limbaugh s reference to "phony soldiers" and his first mention of MacBeth. In addition, while Gibson claimed that "Rush was specifically talking about a particular one [soldier], Jesse MacBeth," Limbaugh expanded the group of "phony soldiers" during his September 28 broadcast to include Vietnam veteran Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA) and Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp, who is currently serving in Iraq. Moreover, as the transcript makes clear, Limbaugh did not refer in the September 26 discussion to a "phony soldier," as he claimed on September 28 before a caller pointed out the contradiction; he referred to "phony soldiers," plural. Responding to the caller s statement on September 26 that supporters of withdrawal "like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media," Limbaugh responded, "The phony soldiers" [emphasis added]. The John Gibson Show is broadcast live beginning at 6 p.m. ET, three hours after the broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show ends. Further, Gibson asserted that Media Matters is "funded by George Soros, even though I get letters from them every day saying, No, we re not! No, we re not! " He continued: "Yes, you are. Yes, you are. Or were, certainly at the start." In fact, philanthropist George Soros has never given money to Media Matters, either directly or through another organization, as has been repeatedly and exhaustively demonstrated. From the September 28 broadcast of Fox News Radio s The John Gibson Show, including (in bold) the portion of the original segment cut from Limbaugh s "entire" audio clip: GIBSON: I have been accused of being a liar in the last couple of days by Bathtub Boy. Now, what was funny about this is I did a "My Word," and Bathtub -- and in it, I accused Bathtub Boy, over there on MSNBC, the Countdown show. OLBERMANN [audio clip]: Resign. GIBSON: I accused him of lifting copy directly from Media Matters and sticking it in the teleprompter. ANGRY RICH (executive producer): And what did he do? GIBSON: Well, Media Matters called me a liar. He picked it right up and stuck it in the teleprompter, and last night called me a liar. Media Matters for America is a left-wing website funded by George Soros, even though I get letters from them every day saying, "No, we re not! No, we re not!" Yes, you are. Yes, you are. Or were, certainly at the start. And it s a Soros front, one of many. We got more on that later in the show. However, Media Matters has been calling me a liar, and then other people then call me a liar. They called O Reilly a liar. And now they call Rush a liar. Now, the actual liar in this situation is Media Matters itself. And we have the proof. I mean, I have the proof a dozen different ways about me, but it s all pretty complex. This thing about Rush is really crystal clear. You can see how they lie. They lie sometimes with an outright misinterpretation of my words. And they ll transcribe it correctly, but say, "See what he said? He means this." No, I didn t. In this case, they said Rush said something, posted an audio recording of it and a written transcript, and cut it off at the precise moment where the next thing he said proved them wrong. This is what you call lying by omission. Now, what this involves is -- let s go back to Friday, September 21st. After the Rush show was over, a guy named Jesse MacBeth, a former celebrated Iraq war vet who claimed he participated in Iraq war atrocities and was a member of anti-war groups, was sentenced for lying to the Veterans Administration about post-traumatic stress disorder and lying about being in Iraq. This Jesse MacBeth was, you know, lionized by the left because he was a soldier, came back from Iraq, told what really went on, which was that American soldiers were all Lt. William Calley, and we were committing My Lais every day, and killing people and so forth. Turns out: all lies. He d never been in Iraq. Now, the next week, Tuesday, September 25th, Rush mentions Jesse MacBeth on the show. Remember, Jesse pleaded guilty to all this on the 21st of September. Twenth-fifth, Rush mentions it, and then on Wednesday the 26th, Rush again brings up Jesse MacBeth in a discussion of so-called "fake soldiers," that is, people who call my show or call other shows, claim to be soldiers -- they re really anti-war protesters in many cases -- and, you know, tell us about awful things we re doing. And, you know, you ve got them on the phone, and it s hard to tell whether they re real or not. Media Matters ran what Rush said prior to bringing up the Jesse MacBeth example of fake soldiers and buries the Jesse MacBeth part, but says Rush is accusing soldiers who object to the war of being fake soldiers, phony soldiers. No, Rush was specifically talking about a particular one, Jesse MacBeth, who had pled guilty in court to lying about even being in Iraq. So, here s how it went down. I ll play this bit, and you can hear what Media Matters posted of what Rush said, and then I ll play you what he -- the words that came next -- the words that came right after they cut it off. And you will see -- hear, because this is radio -- you will hear the lie of omission by this Soros-backed group called Media Matters. [begin audio clip] LIMBAUGH: 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 September 28 audio clip] LIMBAUGH: 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 portion of Limbaugh s original broadcast on September 26 excised by Limbaugh on September 28 (and by Gibson here)] 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 -- CALLER 2: 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. It s just -- [end portion of Limbaugh s original broadcast on September 26 excised by Limbaugh on September 28 (and by Gibson here)] LIMBAUGH: 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. Here is a "Morning Update" that we did recently talking about fake s-- [end audio clip] GIBSON: All right, it ended right there on the Media Matters transcript. ANGRY RICH: Right, that s where they ended it. GIBSON: That s where they ended it. This is the part that they cut out -- I mean, almost the very next words. They lifted out of it and stuck together, you know, what sounded like the end of the interview, and then Rush going on to another subject. In fact, they left out the following: [begin audio clip] LIMBAUGH: And they have their celebrities. One of them was Army Ranger 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." [end audio clip] GIBSON: Jesse MacBeth, of course, was a complete and total phony. He was sentenced for lying to the VA about PTSD. He was sentenced to prison for lying about being in Iraq at all. He was a complete liar. By removing that piece of tape, and this one as well: [begin audio clip] LIMBAUGH: 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. [end audio clip] GIBSON: All right, now, it s quite clear if you listen to the -- most of what came -- any of what came after the point where Media Matters cut off the tape -- that when Rush was referring to phony soldiers, he was referring to those like Jesse MacBeth who have actually been adjudicated as liars and who were telling tales of atrocities that are provable lies. Media Matters, doubtless, did not want to include the Jesse MacBeth stuff because they were doubtless part of the left-wing organizations that went out and made Jesse MacBeth into a hero, and it s embarrassing. So they cut it out. But the word went around that Rush was saying every soldier who does not toe the line and follow the press-release statements and direction of their superiors is a phony soldier.

During the September 28 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, in response to Media Matters for America s documentation of his recent description of service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as "phony soldiers," Rush Limbaugh claimed that he had not been talking "about the anti-war movement generally," but rather "about one soldier ... Jesse MacBeth." Limbaugh further asserted that "Media Matters had the transcript, but they selectively choose what they want to make their point." To support this claim, Limbaugh purported to air the "entire" segment in question from the September 26 broadcast of his show. In fact, the clip he then aired had been edited. Excised from the clip was a full 1 minute and 35 seconds of the 1 minute and 50 second discussion that occurred between Limbaugh s original "phony soldiers" comment and his reference to MacBeth, the full audio of which can be heard here . Prior to airing the edited clip, Limbaugh said: "Here is, it runs about 3 minutes and 13 seconds, the entire transcript, in context, that led to this so-called controversy." After the clip ended, Limbaugh stated: "That was the transcript from yesterday s program, talking about one phony soldier. The truth for the left is fiction that serves their purpose, which is exactly the way the website Media Matters generated this story." 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. [end audio clip] LIMBAUGH: That was the transcript from yesterday s program, talking about one phony soldier. The truth for the left is fiction that serves their purpose, which is exactly the way the website Media Matters generated this story. Fiction, out of context, did so knowingly. What is amazing, is that after all of the examples of how this organization is simply a Democrat Party-Hillary Clinton front group, how they constantly do this, how they take things out of context and embarrass themselves, and get things wrong, they still have credible, so-called journalists and others, members of Congress, Democrat Party, who treat what they say as gospel. Not one member of the media, not one member of Congress has called our office to ask, "Did you really say this, and what did you mean by it?" The reason this doesn t work, ladies and gentlemen, is that I have a 19-and-a-half-year record on this program of being one of the most devoted supporters of U.S. military personnel in uniform that there is. And the effort here is simply to discredit people that they consider effective and powerful on the right, ginning up, leading up into the 08 elections. They cannot beat us in the arena of ideas. They cannot challenge what we say and refute it and come out on top, so this is the anatomy of a smear, and I ll show you how it works when we come after the break. We have a bunch of sound bites here from Jim Webb, Jan Schakowsky, Frank Pallone, Democrats and senators, plus the Kerry statement that I read to you. All that coming up right after this.

In a September 17 blog post on National Review Online s The Corner discussing retired Army Gen. John Abizaid s reported assertion that "we have the power to deter Iran, should it become nuclear," NRO contributing editor Michael Ledeen wrote that it "was under Abizaid that the copious evidence of Iranian activity was suppressed, and we, let s say, took it easy on the thousands of Revolutionary Guards killers running all over the country." A search of the NRO archive conducted September 20 found that no contributor had criticized Ledeen for engaging in "smearing," "slander[ing]," or labeling as a "traitor" a U.S. general. By contrast, when the progressive grassroots group MoveOn.org placed an advertisement in The New York Times on September 10 regarding Gen. David Petraeus congressional testimony, titled "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" several blog posts and syndicated columns on NRO criticized MoveOn.org and Democrats for not condemning the ad. For example: Thomas Sowell asserted in a September 19 syndicated column that "[o]ther people have acted with utter dishonor and dishonesty -- the most shameful recent example being the smearing of General David Petraeus as a liar before he had said a word."In a September 12 post on The Corner, NRO contributor Cliff May wrote: "Partly in response to MoveOn.org s slander of Gen. David Petraeus as a traitor (yes, that s what they said: Webster s New World Dictionary defines betray as to help the enemy ... to be a traitor ) there is now a grassroots petition supporting General Petraeus and his troops."In a September 10 post on the NRO blog The Tank, contributor W. Thomas Smith Jr. asserted: "The disgraceful condescension some of these Democratic congressmen (politicians mind you) are exhibiting toward Gen. Petraeus (a career four-star United States Army officer) is almost more than I can bear."Smith also wrote in a September 14 column: The anti-Iraq-war crowd is always quick to say they "support the troops." But it s not an expression of support when you accuse the top "troop" of lying, cherry-picking facts, and serving as a uniformed mouthpiece for the president, especially when all evidence is to the contrary. That s exactly what MoveOn.org has done with its full-page ad in the New York Times, accusing the top "troop" -- four-star Gen. David Petraeus -- of "betraying" the nation he has sworn to defend against all enemies foreign and domestic. Many top Democrats -- accepting backing from MoveOn and refusing to take a public stance against the organization s very public condemnation of the general -- are also guilty by association. Further, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, whose column appears on NRO, asserted on the September 14 edition of Fox News Special Report With Brit Hume that "[y]ou can be against an unpopular war, but once you go against the military, you ve crossed the line." As Media Matters for America has documented (here and here), media outlets often uncritically air or repeat attacks on Democrats and progressives for criticizing the performance of senior military officers, without reporting similar criticisms made by Republicans. Nor is this the first time Ledeen has criticized an American military commander. In a June 16, 2006, entry on The Corner, Ledeen posted an open letter to Gen. Michael Hagee, the commandant of U.S. Marine Corps, in which Ledeen accused the general of "preemptive surrender" and repeatedly called his behavior "an outrage" for his actions against the Marines alleged to have been responsible for the Haditha massacre. From the September 14 edition of Fox News Special Report with Brit Hume: BRET BAIER (guest host): Charles, is there an issue here for MoveOn.org? They sent out a survey to all of their readers on email saying, "How are we doing?" Is that a sense that this was a really bad week for that organization? KRAUTHAMMER: Well, they made the cardinal mistake that the antiwar movement had made in the Vietnam era. You can be against an unpopular war, but once you go against the military, you ve crossed the line. And the reason why Democrats have been hurt for 30 years as a result of opposing the war in the Vietnam era, which, in the end, America rejected, is because they attacked soldiers. And we saw that with [Sen.] John Kerry s [D-MA] -- the testimony he gave many years ago in which he accused American soldiers of all kinds of atrocities. That is a line that the MoveOn ad had crossed, and that s a mistake. That s why Democrats are very wary of this. If it just happens once, it ll be forgotten. But if it happens again, either by some Democratic or left-wing group, or by a politician or candidate, it becomes a trend, and it becomes a real issue.

In a September 19 article, the Associated Press Anne Flaherty reported that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) "blasted" an amendment by Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) that sought to "specify minimum periods between deployment of units and members of the Armed Forces" deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The article quoted McCain calling the amendment "unconstitutional" and saying that Congress "has the right to declare war and to fund armies and navies. It says nothing about setting tours of duties." Similarly, in a September 19 report, CNN congressional correspondent Dana Bash noted that Webb "knows he s up against staunch opposition from the Pentagon and Republican senators like John McCain, who say it s unconstitutional to limit the president s ability to deploy troops," while a September 20 Washington Post article uncritically reported that Republicans "called [the amendment] unconstitutional, difficult to enforce and certain to be vetoed." But neither the AP nor Bash included comments from Webb or any other Democrat defending the constitutionality of the proposal. During the September 19 edition of CNN s American Morning, Webb was asked to respond to McCain s assertion that the "Constitution of the United States gives no authority for the Congress to set lengths of tour or lengths of duty in the military," and by doing so, he added, Congress is engaging in "micromanagement." Webb replied: "Senator McCain, who I ve known for 30 years, needs to read the Constitution. There s a provision in Article I, Section 8, which clearly gives the Congress the authority to make rules with respect to the governance of the ground and naval forces. There s precedent for this." Article I, Section 8 states: "The Congress shall have power ... [t]o make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces." CNN.com reported in a September 19 article: "Some GOP senators, including Arizona Sen. John McCain, said Webb s proposal amounted to an unconstitutional legislative infringement on Bush s powers as commander-in-chief." The article added that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) "flatly rejected" the argument, saying: "We have a responsibility, by virtue of the Constitution, to work with the military, to set policy for the military," adding, "Anyone that suggests that the Webb amendment is unconstitutional either is not reading the law, or no one s explained it to them very well." From the September 19 edition of CNN s American Morning: KIRAN CHETRY (co-anchor): There have been questions though about whether or not that -- in theory it sounds good, but whether it would actually work tactically. And yesterday in Ohio, Senator John McCain, himself a war veteran, had this to say about the amendment. Let s listen. McCAIN [video clip]: The Constitution of the United States gives no authority for the Congress of the United States to set lengths of tour or lengths of duty in the military, and I hope we will steadfastly reject this kind of micromanagement, which would create chaos. CHETRY: That s what he said. Are you micromanaging or overstepping your bounds as a senator? WEBB: First of all, Senator McCain, who I ve known for 30 years, needs to read the Constitution. There s a provision in Article I, Section 8, which clearly gives the Congress the authority to make rules with respect to the governance of the ground and naval forces. There s precedent for this. I used to run the mobilization programs in the Pentagon when I was assistant secretary of defense. And there s -- CHETRY: Why did it fail earlier this summer then if it s not contentious? WEBB: Well, because the Iraq war is contentious. And it was roughly along party lines, although we did get seven Republicans for it. And I think that from now -- from then until now, hopefully, we ve had enough people begin to understand more clearly how difficult this is for the men and women who are making these repeated deployments. From a September 19 AP article: Reid said the bill will be considered as an amendment to a defense policy bill on the floor, along with a proposal by Feingold that would cut off money for combat operations next year and one by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., limiting combat tours. McCain blasted Webb s amendment as "unconstitutional." "The Congress of the United States has the right to declare war and to fund armies and navies. It says nothing about setting tours of duties," he said. From the 1 p.m. ET hour of the September 19 edition of CNN Newsroom: BASH: Webb, a former Republican, says troop rest is even more critical since the president admitted the U.S. will be in Iraq for some time. WEBB: They were denying it and denying it for years, and now they openly are saying this is going to be like Korea. So, I think they need to get their story straight. BASH: Webb appears to have 57 of the 60 votes he needs and says he has a good chance at finding three more Republicans to pass his legislation. But the senator says he also knows he s up against staunch opposition from the Pentagon and Republican senators like John McCain, who say it s unconstitutional to limit the president s ability to deploy troops. Dana Bash, CNN, Capitol Hill. From the September 20 Washington Post article: The first time Webb offered his amendment, on July 11, it attracted more support than either side anticipated. Reid decided to revive the proposal when Congress resumed the Iraq debate this month. The Democrats list of GOP targets included Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), George V. Voinovich (Ohio) and Elizabeth Dole (N.C.). But as Republican interest grew in recent days, party leaders and Pentagon brass fanned out across the Capitol in a campaign to defeat the plan. They called it unconstitutional, difficult to enforce and certain to be vetoed.

On the August 20 edition of MSNBC s Tucker, host Tucker Carlson discussed an August 19 New York Times op-ed written by seven members of the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division -- which asserted that "[t]he claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework." Carlson, who admitted to being "a little bit uncomfortable" with the servicemen s decision to write the op-ed, stated: "I wonder if weighing in on a political question such as this doesn t squander the awesome moral authority that these guys already have." However, Carlson did not mention that the op-ed responded to assessments made in a previous New York Times op-ed, "A War We Just Might Win," by Brookings Institution scholars Michael O Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack. Carlson, who hosted Pollack on the July 30 edition of Tucker, did not challenge his opinions on whether progress is being made in Iraq, in contrast to his treatment of the servicemen s op-ed. Later on the August 20 program, Carlson said: "I instinctively distrust sentences like this": "A vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force." He added: "These guys may be fighting the war, but they don t have access to the opinions of the vast majority of anybody in Iraq." Retired U.S. Army Col. Jack Jacobs, an MSNBC military analyst, agreed: "Well, that s absolutely correct. They re looking at the world through a straw. They see only what they ve seen." But when Carlson interviewed Pollack, who wrote in the op-ed that he and O Hanlon had just returned from Iraq, where they "spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel," Carlson did not ask him whether he had been able to choose the sites he had visited or the people he had spoken with while there. During a July 30 CNN interview, Pollack said that his trip "was largely organized by the military." As Media Matters for America noted, in the August 19 op-ed, without explicitly referring to O Hanlon and Pollack s op-ed, the seven authors from the 82nd Airborne used language echoing the earlier op-ed and challenged its major claims. During the July 30 edition of the show, Carlson said to Pollack: "[E]verybody knows that Iraq is a disaster, I think, and it s the Bush administration s fault," adding, "But what people, I don t think, have any understanding of is progress at all." He then asked Pollack: "What progress did you see there?" Later, Carlson asserted: "It seems to me, if you re a member of Congress and you re debating whether or not to pull out, or as the situation is now, when to pull out, how quickly to pull out, you ought to be aware of the situation on the ground." Carlson also stated, "I actually decided the war was a disaster by going to Iraq," and said to Pollack: "Speaking of -- I found the place really threatening. Did you feel less threatened than you did when you were there last?" From the July 30 edition of MSNBC s Tucker: CARLSON: Ken, thanks for coming on. POLLACK: My pleasure, Tucker. Good to be here. CARLSON: So, it s not -- I mean, everybody knows that Iraq is a disaster, I think, and it s the Bush administration s fault -- and you say that in the piece. But what people, I don t think, have any understanding of is progress at all. What progress did you see there? POLLACK: Well, we saw progress in a number of different areas. Most important of all, we saw it in the security sector. U.S. forces had changed their tactics, they changed their strategy, and they really were actually having progress or having an impact on the Iraqis, creating some degree of security for them, repairing basic services, allowing them to live normal lives. [...] CARLSON: Here s the first line of the piece, for those who missed it. "Viewed from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has, over four years, lost essentially all credibility. Yet now, the administration s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place in Iraq." It seems to me, if you re a member of Congress and you re debating whether or not to pull out, or as the situation is now, when to pull out, how quickly to pull out, you ought to be aware of the situation on the ground, and yet you say they re not. Why? POLLACK: Well, again, Iraq is an incredibly complicated place, Tucker. And a lot of the changes that we saw, the developments that we saw, are very, very recent. [...] POLLACK: The place has gone from being the worst part of Iraq to, outside of Kurdistan, the best. The Sunni sheikhs, the Sunni tribes, have basically decided they don t want any more part of Al Qaeda and the other Salafi jihadist groups, and they ve come to the United States and said, "We want your help getting rid of them." And they have taken on that challenge and done it to a very significant extent, and that s a very recent development. I sometimes feel like our news cycle, and particularly our political cycle, takes weeks, if not months, to catch up with what s going on -- CARLSON: Well, that s right. POLLACK: -- in a place that s changing as fast as Iraq. CARLSON: That is exactly right. I actually decided the war was a disaster by going to Iraq, and at the time, Hillary Clinton was out there saying that all was well. Speaking of -- I found the place really threatening. Did you feel less threatened than you did when you were there last? POLLACK: In some places, yes; in other places, no. Additionally, as the blog Think Progress noted in response to Carlson s assertion that he "instinctively distrust[s] sentences" like "A vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force," polling supports the statement in the servicemen s op-ed. Specifically, a February 25-March 5 poll by ABC News, USA Today, the BBC, and ARD German TV found that, in a sample of more than 2,000 people across all 18 provinces of Iraq, 69 percent thought "the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq is making security in our country ... worse." The same poll found that 77 percent of those polled thought the United States "is playing a ... negative role in Iraq right now." Polling from 2004 assessing Iraqi attitudes toward the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has found similar results. An April 2004 USA Today/CNN/Gallup survey assessing nearly 3,500 Iraqis of every religious and ethnic group found that, when "[a]sked whether they view[ed] the U.S.-led coalition as liberators or occupiers, 71% of all respondents said occupiers. " Further, in a May 20, 2004, article, Reuters reported on a poll from the Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies, which found that, based on a sample of 1,600 Iraqis, "nearly nine out of 10 Iraqis see U.S. forces as occupiers rather than liberators or peacekeepers." From the August 20 edition of MSNBC s Tucker: CARLSON: A group of U.S. soldiers is weighing in on the politics of Iraq, but these are not retired generals -- not the ones you see on television -- these are active members of the 82nd Airborne Division, fresh from a tour of duty in Iraq. They wrote an op-ed in yesterday s New York Times and disputed talk that the U.S. is getting that country under control. The group pointed to the fragile alliances American forces have had to form to quell violence there, and an Iraqi army in which thousands are loyal only to their militias. Caught in the crossfire, they say, are the Iraqi people, citizens fearful of the terrorists and insurgents and growing wary of a continued American presence there. What should we make of an assessment from enlisted servicemen? Well, let s ask MSNBC military analyst retired U.S. Army Colonel Jack Jacobs. Jack, thanks for coming on. JACOBS: Good evening. CARLSON: So, what do you make of this? JACOBS: Well, it s unusual, to say the least. CARLSON: Yes. JACOBS: I can t remember a single time when this sort of thing has happened. We ve heard a lot, as you suggested, from retired generals and little midget retired colonels like me from time to time castigating the administration and the chain of command for doing what we think shouldn t be done and not doing what they should be done. This is the first time we ve heard from serving enlisted men on this subject and, in my experience, I think it s unique. CARLSON: Well, it just seems to me that -- I m a little -- I mean, let me just speak for myself. I m a little bit uncomfortable with it for two reasons. One, there has traditionally been, as you ve alluded to, the separation between, you know, active duty military and politics in that the, you know, service members kind of act out the policies of the U.S. government, right or wrong, but they don t comment upon them because you want civilian control of the military and that has always been our tradition. And two, I wonder if weighing in on a political question such as this doesn t squander the awesome moral authority that these guys already have. JACOBS: I think there is some detriment to the moral authority you re talking about. I think these soldiers think that they were doing a -- performing a public service by making the public aware of what is -- they see as happening at the lowest possible levels, because, of course, we only see a broad brush of the strategy. We don t see very much of what happens tactically. [...] CARLSON: Yes. See, I m not sure what to think. Like most Americans, I instinctively respect people who are currently serving, who are, you know, in a war zone -- absolutely. And I m not sure whether the surge is working or not. I honestly don t know and I m not taking a position on that cause I don t have the information, but I do know I instinctively distrust sentences like this. And this is from the op-ed from these seven members of the 82nd Airborne, quote: "A vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force." Now, when every -- the president uses phrases like that: "The vast majority of Iraqis" want this or don t want that. My first thought is, well, how the hell does he know? And that s my first thought here. These guys may be fighting the war, but they don t have access to the opinions of the vast majority of anybody in Iraq. JACOBS: Well, that s absolutely correct. They re looking at the world through a straw. They see only what they ve seen. They may have been in an area where in fact the surge is not working, or there isn t a surge, or their tactics are not working. There s a lot of fighting among Shia, for example, or between Shia and Sunni that s not controlled by the American military, where the Iraqi army perhaps is not up to snuff. We do know that there are areas in which the surge is working, where our strategies are working, and we hear about that all the time. We do hear reports, obviously, of places where things are not working well, and that s particularly in areas inside Baghdad. But you raise a significant question: To what extent are we supposed to listen to, or believe, anybody s estimate of what s going on in an environment where almost nobody knows what he s doing or what s going on? CARLSON: Right. JACOBS: We do have to take everybody s comments with a grain of salt -- these included.

Deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove, who announced August 13 that he will resign his position at the end of the month, appeared on the August 19 broadcasts of NBC s Meet the Press, CBS Face the Nation, and Fox Broadcasting Co. s Fox News Sunday. In none of the interviews, however, was Rove asked to reconcile the assertion by White House officials quoted in an August 19 front-page Washington Post article -- that one of Rove s "two basic rules" in putting together briefings for political appointees was "to make sure they complied with the Hatch Act," a federal law that limits political activities by federal employees -- with a finding by the Office of Special Counsel that the Hatch Act was violated during a briefing that was conducted for political appointees in the General Services Administration (GSA) by J. Scott Jennings, a Rove aide and the White House s deputy director of political affairs. The Post article did not quote Rove, yet all three interviewers on the Sunday morning shows passed up the opportunity to ask him about the article. In addition, on each of the programs, key questions regarding Rove s involvement in the leak of the identity of a CIA operative were left unasked. While Meet the Press guest host David Gregory and Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace did ask some scandal-related questions, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer failed to mention a single controversy in which Rove has been implicated. Potential Hatch Act violations The Post article, which did not quote Rove, reported that Drew DeBerry, the Agriculture Department s liaison to the White House from 2001 to 2005, stated, "What was surprising was how adamant Karl and his whole team was that we involve the lawyers in our discussions to make sure we didn t come up with things that ran afoul of the law." However, as Media Matters for America has noted, the OSC, headed by Bush appointee Scott J. Bloch, concluded that GSA chief Lurita Alexis Doan violated the Hatch Act. According to the OSC, following a January presentation by Jennings that detailed 79 candidates targeted by the White House for support or opposition in upcoming elections, Doan asked Jennings, "How can we help our candidates?" The OSC described this question as an "inherently coercive" attempt to "ask and/or encourage her subordinates to engage in political activity." The August 19 Post article reported that "Rove s team gave more than 100 such briefings during the seven years of the Bush administration. The political sessions touched nearly all of the Cabinet departments and a handful of smaller agencies that often had major roles in providing grants, such as the White House office of drug policy and the State Department s Agency for International Development." Rove was not quoted in the article, and Schieffer, Wallace, and Gregory all failed to ask Rove about the Doan meeting or the OSC s findings. CIA leak investigation In 2002, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was sent to Niger by the CIA to investigate whether Iraq had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium from the African country. Wilson s investigation, which was prompted by questions from Vice President Dick Cheney s office, turned up no evidence that any sale had taken place and found that "it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq." After President Bush referred to Iraq s purported attempt to obtain uranium from Africa in his 2003 State of the Union address as justification for invading Iraq, Wilson detailed the findings of his trip in a July 6, 2003, New York Times op-ed. Eight days later, in a July 14, 2003, column, conservative columnist Robert D. Novak identified Wilson s wife, Valerie Plame, as "an Agency [CIA] operative on weapons of mass destruction" and wrote: "Two senior administration officials told me Wilson s wife suggested sending him to Niger." Novak s sources were later revealed to be Rove and then-deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. On Meet the Press, Gregory noted that Rove was "a central part" of the CIA leak investigation. Gregory then asked Rove about his July 8, 2003, conversation with Novak in which he reportedly confirmed to Novak Plame s identity as a CIA operative. Gregory aired a clip of Novak on the July 15 broadcast of Meet the Press claiming that Rove confirmed that information to him. Rove denied that he was, as Gregory put it, a "confirming source for Novak," adding: "[I]f a journalist had said to me, I d like you to confirm this, my answer would have been, I can t. I don t know. I ve heard that, too. " Gregory, however, did not challenge Rove s claim by asking about Time reporter Matt Cooper, who testified that Rove was his primary -- not confirming -- source for Plame s identity. As Media Matters noted, Cooper, on January 31, testified at the trial of former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby that Rove was the first person with whom he discussed Plame s identity. From Cooper s testimony, as documented in journalist Murray Waas book, The United States v. I. Lewis Libby (Union Square, June 2007): Q: And can you tell us when you first discussed Mr. Wilson s wife that week and with whom? A: Sure. It was on Friday, July 11th, 2003. And it was with Karl Rove, a member of the White House staff. Q: And can you tell us how that conversation came about? A: Sure. Well, I put in a call to Mr. Rove s office. I believe I called through the White House switchboard, and I was routed to his office. At first they said he wasn t there or that he was busy, and then they put me through to him, and we talked. Q: And tell us what you recall about the conversation with Mr. Rove on that day. A: Sure. Well, these aren t the exact words, but the gist of it was I said, you know, we are interested in this Wilson story and the sixteen words. By this time, it had become a very big story. And he immediately said, well, don t get too far out on Wilson, which I took to mean, don t lionize Ambassador Wilson or don t idolize him. And he went on to say -- and, again, I am paraphrasing -- that a number of things were going to be coming out about Ambassador Wilson that would cast him in a different light. He said that the director of the CIA had not sent him, I believe he said the Vice President s office had not been involved in sending him. And then he said, you know, it would turn out who was involved in sending him. And I had to draw it out of him a bit. I said, who? And he said, like his wife. And I guess I, until that point, didn t know Wilson had a wife; I hadn t even thought about it. And then I said, "The wife?" And he went on to say that she worked on WMD at the agency, and by that I took to mean the Central Intelligence Agency, not, say, the Environmental Protection Agency. And we talked a bit more. And then, at the end of the conversation, he said words to the effect of, "I have already said too much. I have got to go." And that was it. Gregory did not ask Rove about this discrepancy, even though Gregory was clearly aware of it. Cooper appeared later on the program as part of a panel discussion, during which Gregory asked him about the distinction between Rove s claim that he could not have "confirm[ed]" Plame s identity and Cooper s testimony that Rove was his primary source. Cooper said of Rove s comments, "I think he was dissembling, to put it charitably": GREGORY: Matt Cooper, let s pick up on an aspect of the interview with Karl Rove having to do with the leak case, the CIA leak case that you were part of as well. And something is very interesting: He went out of his way to say, "I would not have been a confirming source on this kind of information," and taking issue with Novak s testimony and his column that he knew who Valerie Plame was. He said he would never confirm that information. That s different from your experience with him. COOPER: Yeah, I think he was dissembling, to put it charitably. Look, Karl Rove told me about Valerie Plame s identity on July 11, 2003. I called him because Ambassador Wilson was in the news that week. I didn t know Ambassador Wilson even had a wife until I talked to Karl Rove, and he said that she worked at the agency and she worked on WMD. I mean, to imply that he didn t know about it, or that this was all the leak of someone else -- GREGORY: Or that he had heard it from somebody else. COOPER: -- or that he heard it as some rumor out in the hallway is nonsense. From the August 19 broadcast of NBC s Meet the Press: GREGORY: Let me talk about the CIA leak case, of which you were obviously a, a central part. This is what the president said in 2003 after the identity of Valerie Plame was divulged in a Robert Novak column. Watch. BUSH [video clip]: If there s a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated laws, that person will be taken care of. GREGORY: Robert Novak, who divulged Valerie Plame s name in his column, appeared on this program with [Meet the Press host] Tim Russert back in July, and Tim asked about his book. Watch. [begin video clip] RUSSERT: Then you go on to say, in the book, "Senior White House adviser Karl Rove returned my call late that afternoon," July 8, 2003, the same day. "I mentioned I had heard that Wilson s wife worked at the CIA in the counterproliferation section and that she had suggested Wilson be sent to Niger. I distinctly remember Rove s reply," quote, " Oh, you know that, too. Rove and I also discussed other aspects of Wilson s mission, but since he never has disclosed them publicly, neither have I." So you considered Rove s comments -- "Oh, you know that, too" -- as a confirmation? NOVAK: Yes. [end video clip] GREGORY: Were you a confirming source for Robert Novak? ROVE: No. And I, I remember it slightly differently. I remember saying, "I ve heard that, too." Let, let me say this. There is a civil lawsuit filed by Mr. Wilson and Ms. Plame. It has been tossed out at the district court level. They ve announced their intention to appeal. I think it is better that I not add anything beyond what is already in the public record until that suit is resolved. But, as I m -- my recollection is that I said, "I heard that, too." We -- I would point you to -- GREGORY: Where, where had you heard that? ROVE: You ll have to wait. GREGORY: But that s an important distinction, because the -- you -- "I heard that, too," suggests that you heard it from somebody else rather than knowing it yourself. ROVE: That s correct. GREGORY: But he, he took those notes down just as you said them. ROVE: Well, but I -- my recollection is, "I ve heard that, too." So -- but the point is, if a journalist had said to me, "I d like you to confirm this," my answer would have been, "I can t. I don t know. I ve heard that, too." GREGORY: It s important to point out that the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, declined to bring any criminal charges against you. But given the president s emphatic statement about getting to the bottom of this, were you ever held to account by the president for what you did? ROVE: You know, I acted in an appropriate manner, made all the appropriate individuals aware of my contact. I met with the FBI right at the beginning of this, told them everything. You re right, the special prosecutor declined to take any action at all. I was never a target. In fact, it s -- what s interesting to me is that the person who did give the name, Richard Armitage, we found out at the end of the process, did, did have the conversation with Novak, took no action against him either. From the August 19 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co. s Fox News Sunday: WALLACE: Why did you discuss with two reporters that Valerie Plame, the wife of ambassador Joe Wilson, worked for the CIA? ROVE: First of all, let me say there is a civil lawsuit filed by Wilson and Plame against a wide variety of people. WALLACE: That s been dismissed. ROVE: Well, it s been dismissed, but they ve announced they intend to appeal. And so, I m not going to add anything to the public record. What I did say to one reporter was, "I ve heard that, too." And what I said to another reporter off the record was, in essence, "I don t think you ought to be writing about this." And, you know, we ll -- I intend to hold my fire and not add anything else to the public record until after this is over. WALLACE: Matt Cooper, the second reporter you re talking about, who then worked for Time, says you told him that Joe Wilson s wife, who worked for the CIA, authorized the trip. ROVE: Which I had been told by a reporter. WALLACE: But did you tell that to Matt Cooper? ROVE: I don t recall Mr. Cooper s conversation. I ll let his notes stand as a record of it. It s clear off the record, that I m talking to him off the record, trying to discourage him. After all, this is the day that the CIA is going to issue a statement. I ll remind you what that statement said. By the CIA director George Tenet on July 11. He said contrary to Mr. Wilson s claim in The New York Times, neither the White House, the vice president, or the director of the CIA sent him to Niger. The information he came back with was not treated as dispositive or conclusive on the question of whether or not Iraq had tried to acquire uranium in Niger. In fact, we now know from the Senate Select Intelligence Committee that Mr. Wilson came back but did not mention in his article information that corroborated the British intelligence report about Iraq trying to acquire uranium in Niger. That he, Mr. Wilson, had found a previously undisclosed contact between Iraq and a third party to pressure the Niger government to accept a trade delegation, which it did, and since the only thing they had to trade was uranium cake, the Niger government was very nervous and basically shut down the meeting. WALLACE: But whether it was off the record, whether you were saying I just heard that, too, whatever it was you were saying, you re a government official. Why traffic at all in the fact that his wife worked for the CIA? ROVE: I didn t confirm it. If somebody -- if you as a reporter said I d like you to confirm this, my answer would have been to say I can t. And again -- WALLACE: But you say that s not what you said to Bob Novak. ROVE: I said I heard that, too. That was not confirmation. If you talk to the CIA, you talk to -- WALLACE: Do you think that you should even have been discussing a CIA operative? ROVE: Look, there are 30-some-odd-thousand people who worked at the CIA. I did not -- under no -- and I m not even certain to this day whether she fit the definition of a CIA operative. WALLACE: I want to take you back -- ROVE: I would remind you also if she were, I suspect that special prosecutor would have done something different about both Mr. Richard Armitage, who was the person who had an extensive conversation with Mr. Novak about this, and would have done something different about me. WALLACE: I want to take you back to the fall of 2003, when both the president and the president s press secretary said -- denied you had spoken to anyone about Valerie Plame. Take a look. BUSH [video clip]: I don t know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I d like to know it and we ll take the appropriate action. [begin video clip] REPORTER: You said this morning that, quote, "The president knows that Karl Rove wasn t involved. How does he know that?" SCOTT McCLELLAN (former White House press secretary): Public knowledge, I ve said that it s not true, and I have spoken with Karl Rove. [end video clip] WALLACE: Question -- did you mislead the president and Scott McClellan. ROVE: No, I didn t. In fact, the president said "classified information." I was very clear right from the very beginning on this with both the counsel s office and with the FBI. And look, if I had leaked classified information, Peter [sic] Fitzgerald would have done something different. And what I told Scott McClellan was I didn t know her name, didn t know her status at the CIA. WALLACE: When was the first time you told the president? ROVE: I m not going to -- again, nice try. I ve said I m not going -- there is a civil lawsuit. I m not going to expand the public record. What I ve just said to you is available on the public record before today. WALLACE: Well, thank you for making it seem even more important, Mr. Rove.

On the July 15 edition of NBC s Meet the Press, discussing Sen. Jim Webb s (D-VA) proposal that would require that U.S. troops spend the same amount of time at home as they spent overseas absent a presidential waiver "to meet an operational emergency posing a threat to vital national security interests of the United States," host Tim Russert asked: "When Congressman [John] Murtha [D] of Pennsylvania introduced similar legislation in the House, it was described as a slow bleed, an attempt, in effect, to micromanage the war and bring the war to an end by limiting the number of troops that were available. Was that your intent?" As Media Matters for America has noted repeatedly (here, here, here, and here), Republicans seized on the phrase "slow bleed" to attack Democrats after it appeared in a February 14 Politico article, by congressional bureau chief John Bresnahan, about Murtha and other Democrats Iraq strategy, but the phrase was not used by Murtha or other Democrats to describe Murtha s proposal. In fact, Politico Editor-in-Chief John Harris "confess[ed]" that Murtha "had nothing to do with" the phrase "slow bleed" and that Harris was "the author of the Democratic Party s slow-bleed strategy for ending the war in Iraq." From the July 15 edition of NBC s Meet the Press: RUSSERT: Let me turn specifically to Senator Webb s amendment, and this is how it was described: "The Webb amendment said any armed services member deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan would have the same amount of time at home that they serve overseas before being redeployed. It also required that no troops, including those in reserve and National Guard units, could be redeployed to Iraq or Afghanistan within three years of their previous deployment." An attempt to reduce the strain, obviously, on military families. When Congressman Murtha of Pennsylvania introduced similar legislation in the House, it was described as a "slow bleed," an attempt, in effect, to micromanage the war and bring the war to an end by limiting the number of troops that were available. Was that your intent? WEBB: Congressman Murtha s provision had a lot of restraints on it. And I think you could argue that it was micromanagement. They had equipment restraints on it, they had unit readiness indicators on it. And let me say, I used to do this for a living. I did this for three years when I was assistant secretary of defense. I had the first 120 days of war, how you lay out the transition from peacetime to wartime, how you merge the reserves in with the Guard, et cetera. And what I did is was I tried to take the one unassailable fact here, and that is that four years into this environment, we ve been experimenting with one different operational requirement versus another -- I was going to say "strategy," but this is not strategy -- and at a minimum, we have to be able to say that if you re going to do this, if you want to stay in Iraq for five, 10 more years, like Senator [Lindsey] Graham [R-SC] does, or if you want to get out within a couple months, like Congressman Murtha does, we have to put some restraints on how our troops are being used.

On the July 10 edition of MSNBC s Countdown, host Keith Olbermann named Fox News anchor Bill O Reilly the "winner" of his nightly "Worst Person in the World" segment for what Olbermann called "the stupid and very possibly libelous claim" that NBC and The New York Times "don t want Iraq to become successful as a nation or to somehow become a wall against terrorism." Olbermann observed, as Media Matters for America documented, that during the July 9 edition of Fox News The O Reilly Factor, O Reilly asserted: "I m still praying for a miracle, as a stable Iraq makes the world a safer place. I believe that prayer is not being shared in some precincts here in America." Olbermann asked: "Precincts? Like the one in which the guy who said this lives: The United States ought to, quote, Hand over everything to the Iraqis as fast as humanly possible. There are so many nuts in the country -- so many crazies -- that we can t control them ? Who said that? Bill O Reilly, February 20, 2006." Olbermann named nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh the "runner-up" for criticizing an op-ed about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), as Media Matters also documented. Olbermann quoted from the op-ed, which said, "The most appealing thing about Clinton has always been her enemies, who often seem not in their right mind, screaming that she is a murderer." Olbermann continued: "Comedian s response, I don t know who s accusing her of murdering anybody. " Olbermann declared that "it was Limbaugh himself who first put out the story nationally on his radio show in 1994 that a report was about to be issued that White House counsel Vince Foster was murdered in an apartment owned by Hillary Clinton and the body was then taken to Fort Marcy Park." Olbermann added: "Not even two years ago, Limbaugh said that if [anti-war activist] Cindy Sheehan criticized Sen. Clinton she would, quote, end up in Fort Marcy Park. " As Media Matters has documented (here, here, here, here, and here), Olbermann frequently names O Reilly in his "Worst Person" segment. Recently, Olbermann named O Reilly the "winner" for "reacting to the arrest in the abduction and murder of the Kansas teenager Kelsey Smith, saying, quote, This guy [who] is charged has a child and a wife. You know, like he s a white-bread guy. And we re all going, "What is that?" " Limbaugh also frequently appears on Olbermann s list, as Media Matters has noted (here, here, here and here), and Limbaugh was recently named "winner" for complaining that Democrats are not asked "why there are no women and minorities on stage" during presidential debates. From the July 10 edition of MSNBC s Countdown with Keith Olbermann: OLBERMANN: The runner-up, comedian Rush Limbaugh criticizing a pro-Hillary Clinton article that observed that the most appealing thing about Clinton has always been her enemies, who often seem not in their right mind, screaming that she is a murderer. Comedian s response: "I don t know who s accusing her of murdering anybody." In fact, of course, it was Limbaugh himself who first put out the story nationally on his radio show in 1994 that a report was about to be issued that White House counsel Vince Foster was murdered in an apartment owned by Hillary Clinton and the body was then taken to Fort Marcy Park. Not even two years ago, Limbaugh said that if Cindy Sheehan criticized Sen. Clinton she would, quote, "end up in Fort Marcy Park." And he doesn t remember anybody accusing her of murdering anybody. Memory loss: side effect of prescription-drug abuse? But our winner, Bill-O attacking NBC and The New York Times with the completely stupid and very possibly libelous claim that these two organizations don t want Iraq to become successful as a nation or to somehow become a wall against terrorism. "I m still praying for a miracle, as a stable Iraq makes the world a safer place. I believe that prayer is not being shared in some precincts here in America." Precincts? Like the one in which the guy who said this lives: The United States ought to, quote, "Hand over everything to the Iraqis as fast as humanly possible. There are so many nuts in the country -- so many crazies -- that we can t control them"? Who said that? Bill O Reilly, February 20, 2006. Bill O Reilly, why do you hate Bill O Reilly? Bill-O, today s "Worst Person in the World."

A July 6-8 USA Today/Gallup poll asked: "Which comes closer to your view about U.S. policy toward the situation in Iraq? Congress should act now to develop a new policy on Iraq. OR, Congress should not develop a new policy on Iraq until September when General Petraeus reports on the progress of the U.S. troop surge in Iraq." According to the poll, 40 percent responded "act now," while 55 percent responded "wait until September," and 5 percent were "unsure." But while presenting respondents with a reason for waiting until September, the poll question offered no reason for acting now, a position that many Democrats and an increasing number of Republicans advocate. Indeed, CNN s John Roberts noted that the results of that question "would seem to go against everything that s going on in Congress right now." In addition, the question did not take note of a separate, preliminary report on the Iraqi government s progress that is scheduled to be delivered to Congress by July 15, which might have suggested another possible time frame for respondents. The New York Times reported on June 24 that the preliminary report s "assessments are likely to conclude that the Iraqi government has failed to use the troop increase for the purpose the president intended, to strike the political accommodations that he said would stabilize the country." On July 9, the day after the USA Today/Gallup poll was completed, the Associated Press reported that the July 15 "progress report on Iraq will conclude that the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad has not met any of its targets for political, economic and other reform, speeding up the Bush administration s reckoning on what to do next, a U.S. official said Monday." Several media outlets uncritically cited the USA Today/Gallup poll s flawed question and its findings. For example, USA Today reported on July 10: In the survey, taken Friday through Sunday, one in five Americans says the increase in U.S. forces in Iraq since January has made the situation there better. Half say it hasn t made a difference. More than seven in 10 favor removing nearly all U.S. troops from Iraq by April. Still, 55% say Congress should wait to develop a new policy on Iraq until Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, delivers a promised assessment in September; 40% say Congress should act now. CNN and the Los Angeles Times uncritically cited the USA Today/Gallup poll s findings. The Los Angeles Times reported on July 11 (reprinted on Newsday.com): Congressional Democrats appear to have the public on their side. A Gallup/USA Today poll released Tuesday showed record opposition to the war, with 71% of respondents saying they favor pulling out of Iraq by April 1. However, 55% also said they believed Congress should wait until the U.S. commander in Iraq delivers a full report Sept. 15 before making any decisions. But Democratic efforts to leverage public sentiment into legislative action continue to founder in the narrowly divided Senate, where Democrats control a one-vote majority. Just as the latest legislative campaign to force the president to alter his approach was getting underway Tuesday, Republican leaders succeeded in stalling it. That upset Democratic plans to march through a series of votes on the war, including a proposal to compel a major withdrawal by spring. A group of moderate lawmakers is also working on proposals that would not explicitly require a withdrawal, but would transition U.S. troops out of their current mission of quelling sectarian violence. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a leading defender of the president s strategy who just returned from a trip to Iraq, blamed Democrats for the delays. "Why do we have to keep taking up the Iraq issue when we know that in September there will be a major debate?" McCain said after delivering an impassioned indictment of the proposal to pull out of Iraq. "The American people are wondering what the heck are we all about here." Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who has helped lead the efforts to bring home U.S. troops, retorted that there was no reason to postpone the debate until then. "Waiting for September ... is a delaying tactic on an issue that is the single most important issue on the minds of Americans today," Levin said on the floor of the Senate. "The American people want us to act." From the July 11 edition of CNN s American Morning: JOHN ROBERTS (host): The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll also found that 71 percent of people would favor removing all U.S. troops by April of next year. What do you find most significant about those numbers? BILL SCHNEIDER (CNN senior political analyst): Well, that they are -- they have concluded by, in overwhelming numbers, it s nearly three-quarters, that we have to get out of Iraq and they want a time certain to do that, which is what the Democrats in Congress are pressing the president to do. Look, the -- the -- the troop buildup has been in place now and it doesn t appear to be working. Only 22 percent of Americans say the situation has improved as a result of the president s policy. Well, if we re not accomplishing our objectives and the Iraqis are not making any progress, Americans are left to conclude one thing: We better get out. ROBERTS: My mistake, Bill, it was a USA Today/Gallup poll. It also found 55 percent of people think that Congress should wait until after General Petraeus reports on September the 15th before taking any action. I mean, that would seem to go against everything that s going on in Congress right now. SCHNEIDER: Well, yes, the president is pleading with Congress to wait for that report. That s another couple of months. And the public seems inclined to say, "OK, we can wait a couple of months." Is that because they have confidence in the president? I don t think so, because his ratings are at an all-time low as well. It s because they want to give the benefit of the doubt to the military. They have confidence in General Petraeus and in the military. So the question simply said, should we wait to hear what the commander in the field, General Petraeus, reports two months from now before Congress acts? They still want out, but they figure, well, we ll give the military the benefit of the doubt here. From the July 10 edition of CNN s Lou Dobbs Tonight: SCHNEIDER: Records are being broken, and we are not talking about the weather. A new Gallup/USA Today poll gives President Bush a record-low job approval rating, 29 percent. There s also a record high in the Gallup poll -- more than 60 percent of Americans now believe the Iraq war was a mistake. The troop buildup is now complete, but only 22 percent of Americans believe the situation in Iraq is any better. The White House argues that it s too early to judge, that this is the beginning of the new policy, not the end. [...] SCHNEIDER: Critics don t see a military failure on our part, they see a political failure on their part. The public has clearly run out of patience. 71 percent favor removing all U.S. troops from Iraq by next April, except for a limited number of counterterrorism forces -- 42 percent of Republicans agree. President Bush is pleading with Congress for more time. BUSH [video clip]: And I believe Congress ought to wait for General Petraeus to come back and give his assessment of the strategy that he s putting in place before they make any decisions. SCHNEIDER: The public says Congress can wait a couple of months for General Petraeus to report. Is it because they trust the president? More likely because they trust the military. On the July 10 broadcast of ABC s Good Morning America, chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos cited President Bush s record-low 29-percent approval rating in the USA Today/Gallup poll during an interview with White House press secretary Tony Snow. Snow responded: "Well, what s also interesting is Americans are pretty fair-minded. Fifty-five percent said, You know, we kind of wanna hear what the generals have to say, which is what we ve been saying." Snow s comment drew no response from Stephanopoulos. From the July 10 broadcast of ABC s Good Morning America: STEPHANOPOULOS: But, Tony, as you know, it s not just the Senate, it s not just the House, it s the American public as well. There, there s a new poll out in USA Today this morning showing that 62 percent of the country believes that sending troops to Iraq was a mistake. That s the highest number ever. Only 29 percent of the public approves of the job that President Bush is doing. That s the lowest number he s ever had. How much longer can the president hold on in the face of numbers like that? SNOW: Well, what s also interesting is Americans are pretty fair-minded. Fifty-five percent said, You know, we kind of wanna hear what the generals have to say," which is what we ve been saying. And, you know, the president certainly understands his approval numbers. We d love them to be higher. They are twice Congress numbers, I m sure they d want those to be higher. War s a tough thing and it is always tough on a country, and I don t think anybody should try to -- to -- to dispute that fact. But what we also have to keep in mind is there, there are seeds being planted right now in Iraq, George, and it s gonna come one of two ways.