This is a bit late but the whole tea kettle tempest about the U.S. Senate, phony soldiers and Rush Limbaugh is always good grist for the mill.
Me? The news that Democrat lawmakers were censuring the talk show host was the best thing I heard all week. Not because Rush was out of line with his "phony soldiers" comment. I actually listened to the show when he made the remark. It was so innocuous (and the segment boring) that I didn't give it another thought until the MediaMatters.org press releases began filtering down to politicians, blogs and news reports.
It's just that every day Congress-weasels gets sidetracked jousting windmills is a good day for the American people. They will be too busy to impose regulations, taxes or sabotage efforts to combat radical Islamism.
Censure Rush? Censor Rush? Bring it on!
The U.S. House of Representatives needs to get in on the act and draw up articles of impeachment against Maha Rushie. Spend a week or two parsing the radio transcripts. Call in witnesses. Hold hearings. Who knew what and when? Besides, the whole O.J. Simpson, Princess Di and Larry Craig news cycle has gotten boring.
Of course in 2008 the Democrat majority will have to defend its actions to the electorate. Instead of doing the "people's business" the Historic Blue Wave Congress needs to explain why it wasted two years sniping at political enemies and pursuing personal vendettas. That's the price that must be paid to get even with a private - and very successful and very rich - talk show host who has the temerity to exercise one of those Amendment thingies.
It was particularly pleasant to learn that Sen. Patty Murray added the weight of her office to the Censure and Censor discussion. There used to be a day when the state had senior senators named Jackson or Magnuson or even Gorton who'd go to D.C. and do things to help, oh, build freeways, obtain military contracts or conduct whatever legislative business was necessary to benefit Washington. Apparently with how structurally sound the Viaduct or 520 floating bridge are that sort of leadership isn't necessary. At least signing a letter is less damaging than holding troop funding hostage to pay off the donors funding her campaigns.
While the Senate is at it, maybe they can censure Donovan McNabb for being a choke-job artist in big games. Or Lou Piniella for pulling one of the biggest bonehead managerial moves in playoff history by yanking starting pitcher Carlos Zambrano in the sixth inning of Game 1 of the NLDS to rest him for a Game 4 which the Chicago Cubs will never play. With Sweet Lou's press conference verbiage, maybe censor might be the operative word...
Extra Errata: Here is a personal anecdote about phony soldiers which occurred just recently at the Bush protest rally in Bellevue last August. Not once but twice I saw individuals insisting they were veterans but were clearly lying.
One was a black chick that accosted a group of Movered.org/College Republicans who were driving the lefties in attendance ape-spit with their counter protest antics. She claimed to be an Iraq War veteran that had just returned from combat and made some accusatory remarks about the bravery six young lads who were surrounded by 500 protestors.
Since I was standing nearby I politely asked the "veteran" what unit she was in.
"I was on the frontline!". Head waggle.
"Oh no she di-int," I thought to myself. Out loud, "OK. What was your MOS?"
Apparently her MOS was also "frontline" and she sputtered, scowled and tromped off.
I don't know what the urge is for anti-war types to lie about their military service. On that day I just attributed it to the fact that the King County Sheriff Office had a Huey helicopter hovering overhead. With the whupp-whupp-whupp of the chopper blades I was certainly having flashbacks to the time Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore and I lit up that VC village...
The fact remains that every soldier, sailor and airman serving in the military today volunteered for the duty. Furthermore, as of October, 2007 every boot on the ground in Iraq has either enlisted or re-upped knowing they will be sent into harms way.
So a dozen, or a hundred or even a thousand Iraq veterans, phony or not, have come out against the war. The number pales to the hundreds of thousands who have willingly served, and quite frankly, probably think the U.S. should be doing more to prosecute the war.
On a side note, Liz Edwards weighed in and struck some loud notes amongst both Rush supporters and detractors!
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1007/Elizabeth_Takes_on_Limbaugh.html
I often wonder if it's the result of a miserable and failing educational environment or the cause of a miserable and failing educational environment.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on October 7, 2007 04:35 PMMoron.
Posted by: Hinton on October 7, 2007 04:59 PM
I wouldn't call the liberals,(or "progressives" if that's what they want to be called these days), and their mainstream media complex buddies conspirators, but one does have to wonder.
When the public finds out that Hillary and her friends are behind the smearing of Rush, Bill O'Reilly, and Juan Williams,(and this is only within the last two weeks), the game might well be over for the "progressives". Let us hope so.
OK, I'm over it now. Was that what you wanted, troll, was just a little attention? Your 15 nanoseconds are up.
Buh-bye.
Posted by: steve miller on October 7, 2007 06:44 PMWell, I suspect you can check RECRUITMENT goals, RE-ENLISTMENT numbers and RETENTION statistics.
Sep 11 2007
The Department of Defense has announced its recruiting statistics by the active and reserve components for the month of August.
Active duty recruiting. All four of the DOD services exceeded their recruiting goals in August:
Army: Recruited 10,126 out of a goal of 9,600 (106 percent)
Navy: Recruited 4,194 out of a goal of 4,194 (100 percent)
Marine Corps: Recruiting 4,700 out of a goal of 4,472 (105 percent)
Air Force: Recruiting 3,128 out of a goal of 3,128 (100 percent)
Reserve forces recruiting. Accession data includes: Recruiting + Active to Reserve Transitions + IRR to Unit Transfers. Four of the six Reserve components met or exceeded their accession goals for August 2007.
Army National Guard: Recruited 5,596 out of a goal of 6,415 (87 percent)
Army Reserves: Recruited 3,659 out of a goal of 3,423 (107 percent)
Navy Reserves: Recruited 1,122 of of a goal of 997 (113 percent)
Marine Corps Reserves: Recruited 560 out of a goal of 474 (118 percent)
Air National Guard: Recruited 1,141 out of a goal of 1,193 (96 percent)
Air Force Reserves: Recruited 858 out of a goal of 858 (100 percent)
Active duty retention. The Army, Air Force and Marine Corps exceeded their annual retention goals. The Navy achieved 91 percent of its mid-career goal.
Reserve forces recruiting. Three of the six reserve components, Army Reserve, Marine Corps Reserve and Air Force Reserve, exceeded their September recruiting goals. The latter two also exceeded their goals for the fiscal year.
One might be able to exptrapolate that none of the above would be in positive territory if soldiers didn't support their mission.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on October 7, 2007 07:14 PMA mixed bag at best - but ultimately irrelevent as a "fact" describing support within those fighting in Iraq.
Again - what's the source of the "fact" that those that are fighting on our behalf are most in support of the effort?
Posted by: BA on October 7, 2007 08:59 PMNote that they take both of their quotes out of context and basically lie about what they say, but MSM typically reports it without verification - and there you have it, the American version of the old Soviet Pravda.
If Hillary gets elected, expect them to at least try and get rid of talk radio via the Fairness Doctrine - but it may well get torpedoed in the Courts. I am not a fan of Rush's, but he has been lied about in the media and while he has made some dumb statements in the past, he was correct in calling the soldiers who he referred to as "Phony Soldiers" and anyone who doesn't believe it - do us a favor and check out the entire transcript before flapping your gums...
Posted by: KS on October 7, 2007 09:14 PMOnly the Army and Air National Guards were below their recruitment goals by 13% and 4% respectively. Only the Navy was below retention goals... by a whopping 9%.
But gee, that just doesn't speak to you, does it?
Furthermore, I was cautious to say One might be able to exptrapolate that none of the above would be in positive territory if soldiers didn't support their mission.
I have no idea where you would find absolute facts that the majority of the military support the mission, but voting record show they vote overwhelmingly for conservative politicians and records show they chose Bush in massive numbers over both Gore and Kerry.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on October 7, 2007 09:16 PMLet the tolerant, diverse left step on their own you know what.
Posted by: Independent Voter on October 8, 2007 05:22 AMNow that the truth is out there, do you think they'll start labelling Mediamatters as "created by Hillary Clinton" or in any other way begin to communicate the true roots of the organization?
Posted by: johnny on October 8, 2007 10:27 AMI can see the House wasting time on this as they are up for reelection every two years, but Senators are supposed to act, well, Senatorial. The six years are supposed to mean they act more professionally since they only face reelection every six years. They can be more reasoned.
Starting with Black Tuesday 1992 (Clinton, Lowry and Murray), I have seen a continuous degrading of public discourse coming from the Senators, in particular.
Posted by: swatter on October 8, 2007 10:43 AMI am fairly sure that Madison, Jefferson and Franklin did not contemplate this as a legitimate activity for the federal government.
This is pure McCarthyism, designed to intimidate, and more worthy of Tony Soprano than the world's greatest deliberative body.
To all Senators supporting the censure of private Americans - have you no shame sirs? You are unfit to serve on a junior high school student council.
Posted by: Steve on October 8, 2007 11:01 AM" When it comes to accusing somebody else of not supporting the troops, Harry Reid is like a thief running out of a department store with a swiped flat screen TV who's pointing at some kid and accusing him of stealing a pack of gum. This is a shameless distraction on Reid's part to cover his own pathetic past of providing aid and comfort to the enemy, nothing more. "
I particularly LOVE his parting shot:
" And when it comes to people who need to be removed from office, the list doesn't end with Harry Reid. Sen.Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, wondered aloud on the Senate floor if Limbaugh was "high on his drugs again." Harkin should at the very least be censured, as making this kind of insensitive substance abuse wisecrack in such proximity to any number of Kennedys is wildly inappropriate. "
Yeah, yeah the perpertually apoplectic liberals will tear their hair out and scream 'RIGHT WING WEB SITE'... get over it.
pyotr
I'm sure will be hearing soon from Seattle lefties about such a blatent threat to freedom of speech/press.
Jump right in, lefties............
.............anytime now..........
..............................guys?