Liberals smear Limbaugh to get payback for the MoveOn.org fury
By Doc Holliday Posted in War — Comments (41) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The left wing is still smarting from that Moveon.org Petraues (betray us) add. Now they are trying to get back at conservatives by smearing Rush Limbaugh. The left has cooked up a false controversy by claiming Limbaugh said "all soldiers who support an Iraq pullout are phony soldiers"
The problem with this smear on Limbaugh is it simply did not happen. The context of this attack is a little complicated because the left is taking a two word line out of a phone conversation. A caller to the Limbaugh show was discussing how the "drive-by media" seems to go out of their way to find soldiers who oppose the war to interview. Then Limbaugh said "phony soldiers" and the caller continued to speak over Rush.
Rush was trying to mention that the far left kooks and the main stream media have in the past used PHONY SOLDIERS to push their attacks on our troops. It has been proven that leftists have come forward, lied about their military service, and claimed to have witnessed atrocities by our troops.
The fact of the matter is Rush Limbaugh NEVER said "American troops who oppose the war are phony soldiers". We need to defend Rush and all conservatives right now because the left is trying to make hay out of this. They are going to introduce a resolution in Congress to condemn Limbaugh. This is the most obvious attempt at a "gotcha" and a lame attempt to assuage the damage Moveon.org has done to the tattered credibility of the left wing of the Democratic Party
it is well documented, but the left wing attack machine will make up their own "facts". The MSM will parrot the same false information and many will be tricked. Senator Webb and several other Dems in Congress have already attacked, and I repeat, their is going to be a resolution introduced on Monday.
Molon Labe!
I want to illustrate something for you today, folks. I've done it before. I want to do it again. I call this the anatomy of a smear, and what this is is a great illustration of the liberals and the Democrat Party playbook for '08, which is underway now. The morning update on Wednesday dealt with a soldier, a fake, phony soldier by the name of Jesse MacBeth who never served in Iraq; he was never an Army Ranger. He was drummed out of the military in 44 days. He had his day in court; he never got the Purple Heart as he claimed, and he described all these war atrocities. He became a hero to the anti-war left. They love phony soldiers, and they prop 'em up. When it is demonstrated that they have been lying about things, then they just forget about it. There's no retraction; there's no apology; there's no, "Uh-oh, sorry." After doing that morning update on Wednesday, I got a phone call yesterday from somebody, we were talking about the troops, and this gentleman said something which you'll hear here in just a second, prompting me to reply "yeah, the phony soldiers."
That comment, "phony soldiers" was posted yesterday afternoon on the famous Media Matters website, which is where all leftists go to find out what I say. I have a website, and I have a radio program that reaches far more people than Media Matters could ever hope to, but the critics of this program never listen to this program. They never go to my website. All they do is read Media Matters and they get the lies and the out-of-context reports. They assume it's all true because they want it to be true, and then they start their campaigns. This has led to me being denounced on the floor of the House. Howard Dean has released a statement demanding I apologize; Jim Webb; John Kerry issued a statement, three Congress people went out on the floor of the House last night and said some things, and it's starting to blossom now in the Drive-By Media. So this is the anatomy of a smear, and this is how it starts. 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. So the illustration begins with just a sample report from MSNBC whose content is produced almost exclusively by Media Matters for America and MoveOn.org. This is this morning with the anchorette Contessa Brewer reporting on the phony soldier controversy, spawned by me.
BREWER: Some leading Democrats are attacking radio talk show personality Rush Limbaugh because he called soldiers who opposed the Iraq war "phony." Limbaugh was criticizing the anti-war movement generally and made the comment to a caller.
RUSH ARCHIVE: 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 spout to the media.
RUSH: The phony soldiers.
BREWER: Democratic Senator John Kerry is demanding an apology from Limbaugh, whose comments he calls "disgusting and an embarrassment."
RUSH: That's really rich. John Kerry, whose own soldiers, his own personnel, fellow soldiers in those Swift Boats, at least many of them who said he was lying about his supposed heroics, this is the same John Kerry who went out and insulted the intelligence of the troops, thereby torpedoing his own 2008 presidential candidacy. His statement includes these words: "This disgusting attack from Rush Limbaugh, cheerleader for the chicken hawk wing of the far right is an insult to American troops." 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. It's Michael J. Fox all over again. Media Matters had the transcript. But they selectively choose what they want to make their point. It runs about three minutes and 13 seconds, the entire transcript, in context, that led to this so-called controversy.
RUSH ARCHIVE: 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 spout to the media.
RUSH: The phony soldiers.
CALLER: The phony soldiers. If you talk to any real soldier and they're proud to serve, they want to be over in Iraq, they understand their sacrifice and they're willing to sacrifice for the country.
RUSH: They joined to be in Iraq.
RUSH: It's frustrating and maddening, and why they must be kept in the minority. 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 soldiers. This is a story of who the left props up as heroes. They have their celebrities and one of them was Army Ranger Jesse MacBeth. Now, he was a "corporal." I say in quotes. Twenty-three years old. 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. No. 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, 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. Forty-four 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 in the Drive-By Media and the Democrat Party as to who is a genuine war hero. 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 for the left is fiction that serves their purpose. They have to lie about such atrocities because they can't find any that fit the template of the way they see the US military. In other words, for the American anti-war left, the greatest inconvenience they face is the truth.
RUSH: 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 congressman, nobody has called our office to ask, "Did you really say this? And what did you mean by it?" The reason this does not 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 US military personnel in uniform that there is.
Just another MSM "hit-piece" - courtesy of Media Matters.
***
“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan
Back in the good old days, before viewers had access to machines that enabled them to tape record and the internet that allowed them to point out the "mistakes" "accidently" made by the MSM, a "drive-by shooting" such as the one Edward R. Morrow and Fred Friendly did on Senator McCarthy could go relatively unchallenged.
Today, bloggers quickly respond with copies of the actual incident and of the media reporting. It is becoming impossible to do a decent "drive-by shooting" as Dan Rather almost learned. It must be frustrating for Media Matters and their supporters that their smears have such a short shelf life.
That The "Journalists" aren't summarily dismissed when they make the attempt. Dan Rather should have been gone, after he pulled the ambush interview on Bush the elder. If that wasn't enough there was the tennis incident.
The lack of self policing by the MSM is off the scale.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
who had plenty of experience with phony soldiers in the Winter Soldier debacle.
Oh wait I should correct that. In his case it wasn't phony soldiers - it was fake but accurate soldiers.
You must watch this to fully understand the context and the full details.
Wubbies World, MSgt, USAF (Retired):
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("An argument is a sequence of statements aimed at demonstrating the truth of an assertion.); }
But I think Rush has a big enough audience that it is not going to matter much because we all know better. I think the more they (the left) keep trying to do things like this, the more ignorant they look.
It's not Rush's audience that is the problem. Its the rest of the millions of people who don't pay much attention to politics/government.
If we all knew better the Dem party would be extinct in its current form. The problem is there are millions of people who do not know better and take headlines as KnownFacts gospel.
As long as we continue to discount and brush off the effect of biased media we'll be a couple steps behind.
Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you. Washington Elected Elite
Except that I've thought about this and regrettably it's only half true. While it is true that the Democrats would lose a lot of their support if some people really knew better, in this country there exists a certain cohort of the population who would actually like them *more* because of it. Remember, you're talking about people who get dead people to vote. Purposefully.
...what Limbaugh (and other talkers, btw) does invites this kind of obfuscation.
By that, I mean that he's talking 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. It's easy to take somebody out of context if you aren't regularly listening....he builds on themes, previous stories and events, etc.
I'm sure the left will be quick to point out that he used the plural "soldiers" rather than the singular "soldier" as a reference to Macbeth. And that does go to show just how much they're willing to make stuff up to create a snapshot history (ie, Rush mimicked Michael J. Fox's Parkinson movements and said he was faking it, etc.) that may or may not be in harmony with the actual story.
Whatever criticism Macbeth gets is warranted. And he is, without question, a "phony soldier" who was trotted out by the antiwar left as some kind of courageous whistle-blower. There have been others, too -- not only Scott Beauchamp but several "conscientious objectors" who fled to Canada and elsewhere to avoid combat service.
You watch: the left is going to take this to Limbaugh's advertisers and pressure them to stop sponsoring the show of somebody who would say such a dastardly thing about a guy like Jesse Macbeth.
The man's apparently got 1/15th of the population of the United States listening to him*, and he's doesn't seem inclined to back down on this.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
*I'm assuming that foreign Rush listeners aren't a significant fraction of the total, obviously.
Anybody who's listened to him more than once -- and is objectively and fairly critical -- knows that he frequently will talk about one particular incident of something (like the saga of Jesse Macbeth) and then will refer back to this incident in more general, less specific terms.
It's just not that uncommon for him to talk about one case, which may or may not be isolated, and then essentially turn that into some sort of trend.
Frankly -- and I say this as a fan of Limbaugh's -- it's about the same thing that John Kerry was guilty of in his Jenjis Khan testimony way back when. It's quite possible that some or all of the dastardly things he cited happened. His rhetorical crime (besides leveling unsupported charges) was saying that they were not "isolated incidents."
Don't get me wrong, I think the criticisms here are ridiculous. And I imagine that the vast majority of people (including military) who listened to it, in full context, would have little problem with it.
But Rush himself needs to be more careful -- and he can do so by trying, best he can, to refrain from generalizing. He talked about one "phony soldier" and he made it sound as if there were lots of them.
We have documented at least two examples in recent months where the media wing of the democrat party has placed "phony soldiers" on a pedestal in order to advance the left's anti-war agenda (Jesse MacBeth and Scott Beauchamp). Although Rush was right to use the plural in his original assertion, he chose to prove his point by providing only one example (Jesse McBeth).
That doesn't disprove his assertion that the media wing of the democrat party provides a platform for "phony soldiers" while ignoring the young men and women of the US military that possess a real commitment to honor and duty simply because they don't advance the "action-line" of the Partisan Press.™
***
“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan
...let's keep in mind, too, that there have been plenty of soldiers who are anything but phony who have been critical of the war, the policy, our prospects, etc.
While the left has grabbed on to a couple of faux causes celebres, they've also trotted out their share of soldiers with very honorable records of service in the GWoT.
Paul Hackett comes to mind -- as does Tammy Duckworth, who left behind a couple limbs in Iraq. Pat Tillman's brother (an Army Ranger, IIRC) has had some harsh words to say about the war and our political leadership (although I think he's resisted the call to become a spokesman for the antiwar cause).
Frankly, all of this is just background noise...and that includes the Petraeus situation, which I saw as a tempest in a teapot.
would we interview soldiers in WW2 to show whether they war was worth fighting or not? The soldiers are professionals, they are doing their job. Their opinions are as important as any others but at some point we need to decide as a nation whether to fight or not.
The Petraeus matter was NOT a tempest in a teapot, the cowardly Moveon attacked a professional soldier who could not respond. The thing Moveon did wrong, was they forgot who "we" are.
Molon Labe!
the left has been going after Limbaugh's advertisers ever since he's been on the air.
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling
The left going after advertisers of Rush, Dr Laura, etc. is "free speech".
Any similar pressure put on advertisers at the CSU student paper is "attempted censorship".
What I find laughable about this whole affair (this non-story story), is the status of the two networks pushing it.
CNN has become pretty much irrelevant - FOX NEWS daily wipes the floor with them in ratings - and MSBNC has never been a major news network player at all. I think they are usually something like a distant 5th in the daily ratings.
Both of these loser networks have made it standard practice to attack FOX NEWS. CNN calls FOX the "F-Word Network" and MSNBC goes after BILL O'REILY on a daily basis. And of course, both networks hate RUSH LIMBAUGH who's audience of 20 + Million easily beats their viewing audiences total.
All this is laughable because neither network can compete and this is the passive-agressive route they take to try to make up for their network's lack of popularity.
As my signature says, I'm a moderate liberal who likes to read RedState to have my beliefs challenged, get a conservative point of view, etc. I rarely post because I don't want to mess with what you guys are trying to do here - i.e., build a place for conservatives to share ideas about the movement and/or Republicans to talk strategy as to the best direction for the Party and for specific elections.
But I just wanted to poke my head up here to say that, as a liberal, I hate this kind of stuff. I don't listen to Limbaugh (I don't drive to work and I can't really listen to talk radio at work), but my sense of him is that he's a really smart conservative with whom I disagree strongly about many issues, but a good joe. This hit job is just silly, stupid, dishonest, fill in the blank. Between the "macaca" moment, the "betray us" ad by moveon.org, the vacant "don't tase me, bro!" guy at Florida, and this, liberals are increasingly becoming a whiny set of people trying to "catch" conservatives saying things that could cause controversy. This, of course, is to cover up the fact that Democrats have no new ideas as to how to fix problems in our country.
I don't mean to kvetch. And I know this stuff cuts both ways - the "gotcha!" fake controversies about who said what about whom just kill me (e.g., the controversy about Obama's comments on Pakistan - who wouldn't bomb Pakistan if we knew we could a top AQ guy?). But I just want you to know that not all liberals agree with this crap. There's a lot I think Rush is dead wrong about - I'm a moderate liberal, after all. But I think I can beat him on ideas - I don't need made-up charges.
Altogether all of this stuff makes me, at only 31, want to stop participating in the process. The more liberals do stuff like this, the more likely it is I just won't vote in 2008, rather than holding my nose and voting Democrat, as I've done every year since 1994 (save 2006, when I couldn't vote because of a technicality).
My usual caveat: I'm a moderate liberal who lurks and sometimes posts on RedState. Please be patient.
Welcome, long-time lurker! In the interests of dialogue, I would however like to engage you one point you made and invite you to "revise and extend" (as the hacks say)...
...the controversy about Obama's comments on Pakistan - who wouldn't bomb Pakistan if we knew we could a top AQ guy?
To my mind, there are actually quite a few very good reasons why what Obama said was, to put it bluntly, moronic and immature. Topping the list is that this is Pakistan we're talking about - a country that is probably but 1-2 at most elections from giving radical islamists yet another country with nuclear weapons (I'm assuming Iran already has them). Dropping a MOAB on Pakistan, even with the "best of intentions", only brings that day to the week after tomorrow and makes the borders with Afghanistan and India white hot.
My only point is that I think you're wrong to dismiss out of hand criticism of Obama's comments in that manner. I, for one, think they pointed to the level of maturity one would expect from a bright person 3-years removed from a State Senate (as in, Obama) and not from someone who is probably 15-months from being sworn-in as President (as in - Hillary - excuse me: Aaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiggggggggghhhhhh!!!! - OK, I'm all better now...)
Again, welcome - post as often as you feel comfortable.
-------------
Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
is more about how the Dems have such a double standard.
I've given this example several times here before, but we had Kerry criticizing Bush for "going it alone" on the war and at the same time for "outsourcing" Tora Bora. Which is it? Are we supposed to go it alone or not?
Obama's comment is the same thing. We need more dialogue, less military action, to work closer with our allies, blah blah blah, but then we also need to blow that off whenever Obama feels he should ignore our allies and blow the hell out of part of their country.
I'm not saying we shouldn't do something to take out Osama whether he's in Pakistan or elsewhere, but don't act all sanctimonious when you're contradicting yourself.
Maybe it's because I live in Massachusetts - where there are plenty of homes I pass every single day on my way to work that have "Save Darfur" signs on their 'scaped lawns and "Impeach Bush" stickers on their $60K-and-up SUVs - that makes me somewhat immune to the double-standards of left-wingers.
It falls under the category of "it goes without saying..." to me.
-------------
Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
bk, about the following: I'm not saying we shouldn't do something to take out Osama whether he's in Pakistan or elsewhere, but don't act all sanctimonious when you're contradicting yourself.
Do you mean that I'm contradicting myself? I agree with you that many liberals do, but I'm pretty sure I haven't. I've never criticized the President for "going it alone" or for "failing to work closer with our allies." And my views on Iraq have stayed consistent over time. And I certainly hope I'm not being sanctimonious.
My usual caveat: I'm a liberal who lurks and sometimes posts on RedState. Please be patient.
Sorry if it came off that way. I meant Obama and Kerry and the like who are holier than thou in their comments about Bush, then do a 180 when it suits their cause.
I thought your comments were excellent.
I never really post here often because I don't want to screw with you guys. And I don't want to be misunderstood, so I was probably being too quick to defend myself. Thanks.
. . . the broader answer to your assertion is that you're right. Most liberals have been two-faced on security issues since 9/11 because they don't have a consistent, coherent,set of ideas as to how to prosecute the GWOT. So they just oppose whatever Bush says because they hate him for winning two elections. So if he misses getting OBL, it's because he didn't have guts but if he invades Iraq, it's because he's too reckless.
First, thanks for the welcome. I think I've actually been hanging out here for about a year and a half now - it's been awhile.
Here's what I'd say re: Obabma's comments. I have two opinions about it. The first is favorable regarding what Obama actually meant. The second is unfavorable regrading why he said it.
First, I agree with your basic assessment about the dangers of hitting Pakistan. But think of it this way - if I were the POTUS (God help us) and my NSA came to me and said "Mr. President, we have good intel on where bin Laden is. If we get our planes in the air in the next hour, the Joint Chiefs and I agree that we've got a 50% probability of getting him," I'd do it. And I wouldn't tell Musharraf about it. I don't trust Musharraf - he's only an ally in the GWOT because we pay him to be; his military and intelligence services in the past have helped the Taleban (and some claim they still do), as I understand the issue. So I'd be very, very worried about warning Musharraf we were coming in. I'd tell him after it was over and order the strike without a second thought. I think you would agree with me on this question. Now let's say we could vary this hypothetical according to two variables: the value of the target versus the probability we'd be successful. I don't know exactly where the line is, but at some point, I'm sure I wouldn't violate Pakistani sovereignty to hit OBL's former cook with only a 10% probability. I'm just unsure where the line is. docj, does that make sense? At some point, the dangers of hitting Pakistan (high in your estimation and I agree) would be worth it and at some point, it's not. What Obama actually said was pretty vague, probably to leave himself wiggle room.
Which brings me to my second point. Clearly, Obama's team was dismayed that, about a week before he made the comments about Pakistan, Hilary Clinton was able to a paint him as weak and naive because he said that he'd talk to Iran, Syria, and others without preconditions. So he had to look tough. So he said something meaningless and tough-sounding about Pakistan to boost his image. So I'm not an Obama fan, really. He was trying to take a cheap shot in order to make himself sound tough. All types of politicians do it, of course. But, to me at least, he sounded like Fredo Corleone: "I can handle things! I'm smart! Not like everybody says... like dumb... I'm smart and I want respect!"
My sense is that this is the real reason so many conservatives, particularly foreign policy hawks, reacted so strongly to Obama. It's not what he said, it's why he said it.
My usual caveat: I'm a liberal who lurks and sometimes posts on RedState. Please be patient.
If we had or have good intel on where Osama is, he would be more useful to us alive. By simply tracking him and following his contacts we would be able to roll up AQ cells we might never find otherwise.
Yes I want to see him dead, but I want to see AQ destroyed much more.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
You raise a larger issue, I think - what is the value of killing Osama Bin Laden? The argument that backs you is that AQ is pretty decentralized and that killing the head does little to the body, so to speak. The other argument is that Osama has symbolic value and his loss would hurt AQ in deeper ways. Though there's a perfectly viable argument in response is that the death of Osama would make him a martyr and reinvigorate their cause. I'm unsure where I come out on this argument, toe tell you the truth. But the purpose of example was to point out that there are circumstances where any POTUS would violate Pakistani sovereignty if the potential gain was worth it.
The other issue worth raising is that no POTUS - liberal or conservative - would pass up an opportunity to be the guy who gets Osama. It'd be too valuable of a political opportunity and I figure that, even if you're right (possible) most politicians are more politically opportunistic to take your advice. Osama's head on pike = reelection.
Part of the brilliance of term limits is that it makes certain that office holders know its not forever.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
But presidents do stupid stuff for the sake of their "legacy." From my limited experience with politicians I've met in Washington, they are pretty much all ego-maniacs who's sell their mothers into slavery to get public praise.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
Doubts that if we could take UBL out, we would and I am pretty sure that we already have such an agreement with Musharaff.
The problem with Obama's statement is two fold for me. First, it is not something that should have been announced in such a way. This is something that should be done on the super DL so to speak. By announcing it as such, it is not only telegraphed but also it becomes a challenge to a weak ally. The flag burning that followed is an example of the consequences. Second, it is one thing to lob a missile and quite another for a full assault with ground forces. That would set off a firestorm and it would be a situation we could not control. Violating the sovereignty of an ally is reckless imo. Obama was not specific with what he meant and thus it could and has been construed as a full assault on Pakistan.
I expect the Prez to get UBL wherever he is but to also know not to boldly and confrontationally announce said intentions. Those are the nuances of diplomacy. That Obama clearly does not get yet.
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'"
Ronald Reagan
is why more average citizens don't think for themselves like you do. It seems there is a large percentage of Democratic voters who robotically believe whatever any Democratic politician or left-wing news outlet tells them without ever thinking about it for themselves. The far lefties love to paint conservatives as robotic followers of Rush, but I think in general we tend to be more suspicious of everyone regardless of who they are and try to make up our own minds.
Now obviously that observation is not true across the board, but would you agree that it seems like there are many more robots on the left than on the right? If you agree, do you have any idea why that is the case? Is it mostly a matter of education, upbringing, what? It's bad enough to try to argue fact vs emotion, butit seems more often we are argung more or less provable (or at least reasonable) fact vs made-up fact.
I'd like to hear your insight. Thanks!
I'd be a happy man, bk. But here's a hunch, not all of which you'll like.
To paraphrase your argument a bit (tell me if I'm wrong) your claim is that there are more close-minded liberals than close-minded conservatives. There, I disagree. I grew up in a conservative state (Texas) in a conservative family and have many, many conservative friends. I've also taught undergraduate students in political science at a large state university. I read conservative as well as liberal blogs. And I'm more conservative that I let on, really. But my sense of it is that there are just as many conservative robots (to take your word) as liberal ones. Again, just a hunch. Yes, there are stupid liberal people who accuse any conservative of being a fascist. And there are stupid conservatives, too, unfortunately. Both parties have a wing that is pretty embarrassing. Sadly.
As for the broader question - why are people like that? - I wish I had a better response. Education should be a remedy to being a robotic slave of a particular point of view, but it's not. In college (where I teach), my impression is that it has much less to do with the liberal bias of many professors (which, in my mind, is a little over-stated) and more to do with horrifically low standards, grade inflation, and a sickening fear of pushing students to work harder. So the educational process should produce critical thinkers, but it doesn't.
It also has something to do with upbringing. My parents are conservatives and always told me to think for myself.
Sometimes, I think it's just personality type. I'm a cynic and pretty much have been since I was 8. I'm unsure why I'm like this.
Pretty crappy answers, huh? :-)
That being said, the wisdom you display in your tender years is encouraging! I'm sure there are many 'more seasoned' bloggers here that will remember having similar feelings about government, society, and the state of our political nation at your age. Given another 10 to 20 years of maturing, absorbing observations of the human condition, and coming to recognize consequences for irresponsible acts and ideas, you TOO will proudly declare yourself a staunch RedStater!
Point out that this story like the O'Reilly controversy originated from Media Matters. This is the Soros funded attack dog popping its head up again.
MSNBC almost literally devoted the entire to this story. There is an excellent summary at Newsbusters. I would link but that is too hard from my BlackBerry.
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'"
Ronald Reagan
This is the headline of a recent column in Fox news:
'Top military officials are a disgrace to those they lead'.
The Cornyn resolution 'strongly condemn[ed] any effort to attack the honor and integrity of General Petreaus and all the members of the United States Armed Forces
This piece is despicable. In one paragraph the analyst says, "Our generals are betraying our soldiers . . . again."
I was hoping the Cornyn resolution would protect our honorable men and women in uniform/ but my hopes were shattered in a matter of days.
...the smart thing to do is not to ignore the warning.
Go.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
...the more they'll find themselves stepping in it. Everything is always so well documented with Rush (the transcripts, the audio, the dittocam) that the more they continue with this smear tactic, the more red-faced they'll be.
Right now, I'm just laughing at them. There won't be anything serious that comes out of this. (At least, not against El Rushbo.) It's just too obvious what he said, and what he was talking about.
--
Marc Bublitz