Rush's Phony Soldiers Timeline
Critics of the wildly popular and patriotic talk show host Rush Limbaugh just don't have the facts, but Carrie Lukas does:
- On Wednesday, September 24th, Rush Limbaugh recorded his Morning Update, which aired the following morning. He talked about how the antiwar left had made another celebrity of "Army Ranger" Jesse MacBeth, who claimed to have witnessed gruesome atrocities committed by American soldiers in Iraq.
- Also, on the evening of September 24th, ABC's World News with Charles Gibson [video] aired a package on military imposters, which used the phrase “phony heroes” three times and “phonies” once, and specifically discussed Jesse MacBeth.
- The day after that “morning update” on Jesse MacBeth aired, Rush took a call from "Mike in Chicago," [transcript] during the second hour of his show. Mike repeatedly claimed to be a Republican, and mentioned in passing that he used to be in the military...Another Mike. This one in Olympia, Washington.” [transcript] This caller was in the military, and referred to those who want us to just pull out of Iraq in order to keep the troops safe, ignoring the chaos which would require troops to return again.
- As soon as the call was concluded, Rush immediately returned to his phony soldiers comment to reprise “the morning update that we did recently, talking about fake soldiers. This is a story of who the left props up as heroes.”
- The next day (September 27th), Media Matters announced on its website “Rush Limbaugh called service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq ‘phony soldiers,’” and cited the brief portion of the transcript where the “phony soldiers” comment was made, ignoring his comments less than two minutes later on phony soldiers and the Morning Update from September 25.
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