“When Rush referred to “phony soldiers”, he was referring to a group of active duty soldiers who had written a position paper arguing for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. Since that paper was published, two of those so-called “phony soldiers” were killed in action in Baghdad.”

All you have to do is go listen to the actual audio. It is right there for all to see. Why would you go to mediamatters to find out what was said by Rush when all of the audio and transcripts are out there for you to read and listen to? Well here it is. We all know that Mediamatters is a Clinton organization which she herself said she started (http://hotair.com/archives/2007/10/02/audio-hillary-clinton-brags-about-starting-media-matters/).

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thanks for taking my call.

RUSH: You bet.

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

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: 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, what these people don’t understand, is if we pull out of Iraq right now, which is not possible because of all the stuff that’s over there, it would 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.

RUSH: There’s a lot more than that that they don’t understand. The next guy that calls here I’m going to ask them, “What is the imperative of pulling out? What’s in it for the United States to pull out?” I don’t think they have an answer for that other than, “When’s he going to bring the troops home? Keep the troops safe,” whatever.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: 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 pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and spout to the media.

RUSH: The phony soldiers.

CALLER: 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.

CALLER: A lot of people.

RUSH: You know where you’re going these days, the last four years, if you sign up. The odds are you’re going there or Afghanistan, or somewhere.

CALLER: Exactly, sir. My other comment, my original comment, was a retort to Jill about the fact we didn’t find any weapons of mass destruction. Actually, we have found weapons of mass destruction in chemical agents that terrorists have been using against us for a while now. I’ve done two tours in Iraq, I just got back in June, and there are many instances of insurgents not knowing what they’re using in their IEDs. They’re using mustard artillery rounds, VX artillery rounds in their IEDs. Because they didn’t know what they were using, they didn’t do it right, and so it didn’t really hurt anybody. But those munitions are over there. It’s a huge desert. If they bury it somewhere, we’re never going to find it.

RUSH: Well, that’s a moot point for me right now.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: The weapons of mass destruction. We gotta get beyond that. We’re there. We all know they were there, and Mahmoud even admitted it in one of his speeches here talking about Saddam using the poison mustard gas or whatever it is on his own people. But that’s moot. 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 your colleagues over there is a great threat to them. 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.

Did you actually hear the program in question or are you relying on the media matters account. Perhaps if you actually listened to the program, you would know that media matters is lying. The show in question featured an early story about Jesse MacBeth who admitted in federal court on Sept 21 that he had lied about his military service record. This is the same Jesse MacBeth who was touted by the mainstream media when he told stories of attrocities being committed by US troops in Iraq. He lied about the attrocities, he lied about his service, he lied about his rank, he lied about winning a purple heart, he is one (of many) phony soldiers.

The caller on the show that day mentioned how the media likes to highlight these soldiers that tell stories about how the military is committing attrocities (like MacBeth) and Limbaugh mentioned the “phony soldiers.” There was NEVER a discussion about current soldiers who oppose the war before, during or after the call on that day.

Instead of believing the smears being perpetrated by left wing attack groups, why not try to find the truth? Its not that difficult.

Am curious also, where did you hear this amazing lie that president Bush cut VA funding by two billion dollars last year? Its simply not true. In fact, if you look at the budget history of the US, you will see that spending on Veteran’s Affairs has taken off under president Bush (see line item 700.) In 2006, Veterans’ Affair spending was up over 1/4 of a billion dollars from the year before and will increase by 3.5 billion dollars in 2007. In the year 2000, the Veterans Affair spending was only 47 billion. That means spending on Veterans has increase by 27 billion dollars (an increase of 57%) since Bush became president. Nice try though.

.

When Rush referred to “phony soldiers”, he was referring to a group of active duty soldiers who had written a position paper arguing for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. Since that paper was published, two of those so-called “phony soldiers” were killed in action in Baghdad.

Here is the link which has both the audio of the entire exchange regarding Rush’s “phony soldiers” comment, as well as the written transcript:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200709270010?f=i_related

And here is Rush’s first deperate attempt at damage control:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200709280009?f=i_related