Michele,Why did you leave out one minute plus of stuff in between?Here’s what gets me: if Limpball says he made a mistake and meant to be talking about ONE soldier, then that’s fine, but he doesn’t he uses the plural of “soldiers”.Also, if he didn’t have a history of attacking soldiers, then that would be fine too, but he has a history of attacking soldiers that don’t agree with him (Kerry, Hagle and saying Paul Hackett joined the military for “resume building”.)Shameful. But here is what is funniest – I in Limpball’s eyes, people lie you are phony patriots because you’ve never been in the military.

Typical! I’m done, if you partisanship is this deep, nothing I can say will change it.

Michele,You’ve lost me…You have left out over a minute and a half of dialog from Limpball. There was a clear separation from his “phony soldiers” comments to his Jesse whoever comments. Or do you not even know that? But hey, go ahead and follow the type of man who avoided the military draft because of some ingrown hairs on his backside…..

I copied it from the transcript as is without editing it.

Michele, Who’s edit? Limpball’s right?I can’t believe how much has been edited out. Do you want me to cut and paste it for you?And whether you can be honest or not, the way the caller describes and the way Limbaugh agrees, the seven, active duty COMBAT soldiers that wrote a NY Times Op-Ed, clearly fall into their definition of “phony soldiers”. (And sadly,at least two of these soldiers are now dead – possibly a third).Lastly, notice how in the start they are talking about “phony” soldiers and then later Rush goes back to his Morning Update where the discussion is about “fake” soldiers.

Get over it moonbats liberals. You’ve lost. People who actually were listening to the Limbaugh show live know he was referring to Jesse MacBeth and other individuals claiming military service they did not have. The big three networks are backing away from the story big time. At the same time Rush is ramping up his rebuttal. So go ahead and parse words and make excuses. The liberal propaganda machine took a bite bigger than it could chew this time. They have done something publicly that dramatically illustrates their left bias and blatant lies. You have “screwed the pooch” on this one.

i love the liberal bias B.S. – it always gives me a chuckle. blame the messenger. you’re so paranoid, and that’s rather sad.this has to be the biggest right-wing lie and conspiracy ever dreamed up and you buy into it because it’s so much easier to just avoid anything that might be contrary to your beliefs.you have to have some “big” enemy, and when you can’t find a legitimate one, you manufacture your own. the mainstream media is not liberal… it’s mainstream. and the right has made it into their fall-back boogie man.

Mikeb,Yeah, right, go ahead and join Limpball in his great comments about people like those seven 82nd ABN Div soldiers who spoke to the media in their op ed. Because this group IS included in their agreement whether you admit it or not.He DID not make it clear he was talking about this Jesse character. But that’s all right because we all know you people really support the troops and prove it every day.

I would describe myself as an anti-Bush Republican. Having read Limbaugh’s site (your link) for its account, and then the Media Matters site for (what they allege) is the full transscript of Sept 26, it seems very simple: one is lying. Rush re-aired “the entire transcript, in context”. Media Matters posted the “entire transcript” on their site, which includes a part not heard on Rush’s re-airing. So, I think the first important question is very simple, very factual: Did Rush discuss WMDs with the second Mike that morning? If he did, why was that one minute and 55 seconds not part of the “entire transcript”? It would seem to be disingenuous and intentionally misleading to his listeners to, during an argument about context, say ‘here is the entire context’ and then not present the entire context.

I am speaking on behalf of my daughter who is in Iraq right now (third time), who is a liberal democrat, who opposes the war, yet does her job regardless of hardships and hazards, who has earned two bronze stars and seven distinguished service citations for her performance. “Phoney soldier” indeed.Since 9/11, my daughter has missed every family milestone – every holiday, every birth, and every death. I call it “Family Interrupted.” With each passing year, there is always the empty place at the family dinner table. I watch the evening news and note the losses of other families, hoping my daughter’s name will never appear on a casualty list. “Phoney soldier” indeed.I think you can well understand my rage over this remark.About that Jingo Limbo comment, it offends me to the point of wanting to hunt him down like a dog and push in his face and pluck out his eyes.

I enlisted in the U. S. Army January, 1951. I wasn’t drafted-I enlisted. After three years service I was honorably discharged. I get sick of people like Brash Lamebrain who avoided military service questioning the patriotism of serving military personnel who disagree with his extreme views.As a Christian, I am offended by his ridiculing God by so often repeating “…with talent on loan from Gawd!”J. H.

If you’re upset by the term “phoney soldier,” then go complain on the ABC News wedsite. It was in the context of that story that Rush was speaking. You all can spin all you want but I was listening that day and knew exactly what he was talking about.Lie about him all you want, you’re not going to get very far and you look silly doing it.

BTW, I’m thankful for your daughter’s service. It takes a lot to still do the job that she does even if she doesn’t believe in the mission. That true professionalism.And one more thing, I’ve never in all the years I’ve been listening to Rush’s show have ever heard him say anything against the military.

Michele,Possibly you have never heard Limpball say anything about those in the military or of the military that have the same perspective of him; Look around, there are plenty of comments by Limpball toward those he does not agree with. Plenty. And this is why I refuse to give him the benefit of doubt. He has done it before to many others.

Yes, he does make comments with those he disagrees with but the majority of his comments are aimed at Democrats in Congress. We all make comments about people we disagree with including you, remember calling me a “War Loving Mommas” and telling me to stay in the kitchen baking cookies?

Whether or not Rush Limbaugh is a patriot or a scoundrel, the real matter is that we have American soldiers in Iraq right now killing and being killed.Iraq is in much worse shape (less security, less electricity, less healthcare, less gas, less food, less clean water) than it was, which encourages more people to become violent.I don’t like war, but sometimes it’s necessary, which is why I was in favor of invading Afghanistan in an attempt to make it less dangerous and more democratic, and to capture Osama Bin Laden, the perpetrator of the 9/11 attacks. But I was strongly opposed to invading Iraq, because I feared what might result – and now my worst fears have come to pass:- Iraq is now a tinderbox of violence and instability- our standing in the world is tarnished- we’re spending more than $200,000,000.00 dollars a day in Iraq- we’ve put ourselves in an un-winnable situation- thousands of American soldiers have died- 100,000′s of thousands of Iraqis have diedFrom what I know, Rush Limbaugh supports and has always supported President Bush’s approach to Iraq, and look where it’s gotten us.That’s the real issue – at some point, a person loses credibility and trust by continually being wrong, or misguided. His way hasn’t worked so maybe we should try something new.

The level of violence has decreased this month in both civilian and military casualties. That’s just a fact. We’re trying something new in Iraq, it’s a new way to fight the enemy. It means more troops and this appears to be working. I’m sorry if you’re tired of the war but you just don’t abandon a nation because you don’t like fighting.

Michele, you listened to the show, did Rush’s “entire transcript” re-airing on 9/28 contain the entire 9/26 conversation from “phony soldier” to “MacBeth” or was it edited? I’m not a fan of Rush or Media Matters (extremists frighten me with their certainty) and I think it’s a very fair and simple question.Second, “The level of violence has decreased [...] That’s just a fact.” I agree… once you define “level of violence.” Is this fact based on the idea that someone shot in the back of the head is counted because it’s sectarian violence, while someone shot in the front of the head is not counted, because it’s simply street crime? How do you measure chaos? I know it has to be done for reporting purposes, and therefore some lines have to be drawn, I would just like to know more about those (classified) lines before accepting the conclusion as fact. Even if you assume the best intentions for the Administration, you still have to acknowledge some of their intelligence and assumptions turned out to be wrong and ask yourself “why am I certain they are right this time?” Is the surge bringing peace or have many contentious areas killed or expunged one of the two sides from the area over the last few months? Sorry to diverge from the initial topic.

Look, it doesn’t matter what went between the use of the term and then talking about Macbeth. He was obviously thinking about the term used by the ABC news report. I knew what he meant because I had read the same news report. Context is the issue.

Michele,And as usual, while you scream and moan about ‘context’ you fail to mention my “war loving mommas” and cooking comment was SARCASM and SATIRE! By the way, are you going to delete that one bizarre reply?

My final thoughts, I just want to make sure I understand your position: it doesn’t matter what was said right before and after the “phony soldiers” comment, but “context is the issue.” Furthermore, you know what he was thinking and it is so ‘obvious’ that there was a national debate. Finally, you are able to ignore the factual inaccuracy of a statement he made as the crux of his defense (“the entire transcript”), as thought it’s ok to deceive because the accusations aren’t warranted.I seek the truth, whether that aligns me with the Right or the Left, Rush or Media Matters. I fear too many in the country know the side they will end on and then look to justify their position.

Sorry, the extended transcript doesn’t clear up much in Rush’s favor. The caller in your truncated transcript is referring to a previous caller (the first caller) who just hungup. The second caller makes his comments in relation to the first caller (in this transcript). He does not reference the single individual who fraudulently applied for VA benefits and made up stories about what he did in Iraq. The second caller says they never talk to “real soldiers”. Then states they talk to these “soldiers that come out of the blue.” Rush then calls these soliders “Phony Soldiers”. The second caller then states, “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.” At this point it seems clear that the caller distinguishes “phony” from “real” by their stance on the war. If Rush thought that this caller was referring only to the “fake solider”, the one who committed a criminal act by falsely claiming VA benefits, you can’t tell at this point. Later he makes reference to the “fake solider” but this is after the “phony soldier” comment. Also “phony soldiers” makes it appear that Rush is thinking of more than one. The placement of this comment also makes it appear he agrees that only soldiers who support the war are “real”. If he did not agree with this, he should have said so at the time. You will note that he felt the first caller could not be a real Republican because he had misgivings about the war. It is easy to believe that he feels soldiers who don’t support the war are not real based on what he said here.