Limbaugh squares off with Democrats

By Karyn Chenoweth Oct 3, 2007, 13:59 GMT

Radio show host Rush Limbaugh REUTERS/Micah Walter

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh ratcheted up criticism of Democratic lawmakers Tuesday, saying efforts by Democrats in Congress to smear him are diversionary tactics to detract from their failed efforts to get US Troops out of Iraq.

On his radio show, Limbaugh compared Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claimed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is using a liberal media watchdog to suppress her opposition and said he feels sorry for Sen. Tom Harkin's family for having to be associated with the Iowa Democrat's statements on the Senate floor a day earlier.

"It's about them and they are desperately trying to salvage themselves with their own lunatic fringe base who they are not only disappointing but they are deceiving because the dirty, little secret, as I also predicted, was that if the Democrats win the White House in '08 they are not pulling out of Iraq. All the top tier Democrats have said so," Limbaugh told his audience.

"Time to distract those peasants with pitchforks out there who are fit to be tied over being betrayed by Harry Reid, (House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats," he said.

The conservative talk radio host was fighting back after Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate lambasted him over remarks he made last week suggesting veterans who oppose the Iraq war are "phony soldiers."

In the House, Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., who is running for the open Senate seat in his state, has authored a resolution condemning the host.

But a letter to Mark Mays, president of Clear Channel, the parent company of Limbaugh's broadcast, was signed by 41 Democrats. It called on the network "to publicly repudiate these comments that call into question ('antiwar soldiers') service and sacrifice, and ask Mr. Limbaugh to apologize for his comments."

"Rush Limbaugh took it upon himself to attack the courage and character of those fighting and dying for him and for all of us.  Rush Limbaugh got himself a deferment from serving when he was a young man. He never served in uniform. He never saw in person the extreme difficulty of maintaining peace in a foreign country engaged in a civil war. He never saw a person in combat. Yet, that he thinks his opinion on the war is worth more than those who have been on the front lines," Reid said.

"Rush Limbaugh owes the men and women of our armed forces an apology," he said.
Harkin followed Reid, saying: "Maybe he was just high on his drugs. I don't know." In 2003, Limbaugh admitted a dependency on pain medication, but three years later reached a plea deal that cleared him of prescription shopping for Oxycontin.

"I feel like apologizing for his family for what he said yesterday," Limbaugh said of Harkin. "Such a demeaning thing he did and so below the decorum and stature of (a member) in the United States Senate.

"It's unconscionable what Sen. Reid and Sen. Harkin and these other Democrats are doing. And again I want to apologize today to all of you in the United States military — active duty and retired — for this smear. I am not apologizing for myself. I am apologizing for Media Matters.org, for Hillary Clinton, for Harry Reid. I am apologizing for all of these groups that are undertaking efforts to demoralize you. ... I want to apologize to you on their behalf for this storm having been created out of thin air out of a total lie."

Limbaugh has denied a verbal attack on antiwar servicemen and women. A transcript of the Sept. 26 show in question shows that Limbaugh did not in fact say that soldiers opposing the war are "phony," but his remarks have left confusion as to whom he is referring when he used the phrase.

A caller named Mike, currently serving in the Army, described his anger about talk of a pull-out from Iraq.  Limbaugh readily agrees, according to the recorded exchange:

CALLER 2 (Mike): ...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 talk to the media.
LIMBAUGH: The phony soldiers.

CALLER 2: The phony soldiers. If you talk to a real soldier, they are proud to serve. They want to be over in Iraq. They understand their sacrifice, and they're willing to sacrifice for their country.

Limbaugh has since said on his show that he was referring only to one soldier: disgraced, convicted former Army soldier-turned-antiwar-activist Jesse Macbeth. Macbeth falsely claimed to have participated in war crimes in Iraq and received a Purple Heart, but in reality, he was discharged after only 44 days of service, never placing a foot in Iraq.

Macbeth was sentenced to five months in prison for fraudulently collecting more than $10,000 in benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Tuesday, Limbaugh returned to Macbeth, noting that the convicted soldier's false accounts were the latest in a series of reports that Limbaugh has covered on the air.

"This is a willful and purposeful missing of the context of this program," Limbaugh said of arguments regarding his use of the plural to describe the Macbeth story. "We have discussed many of these phony soldiers over the course of the last few months. We discuss them constantly. Macbeth was just the latest."

He then quoted a Sept. 21 release from the U.S. Attorneys Office from the Western District of Washington state referring to eight "phony vets" who had scammed more than $1.4 million by lying about their military service for financial gain.
Limbaugh also repeated his invitation to Reid to come on his show to debate his record of support for the troops, and said any refusal by Reid would be "quite telling."