Captain's Quarters -

Ed,
It's unbelievable that the NY Slimes gets the story wrong - again!

"After Rush Limbaugh referred to Iraq war veterans critical of the war as “phony soldiers,” he received a letter of complaint signed by 41 Democratic senators."

Limbaugh did NOT refer to vets as "phony soldiers." He referred to "PHONY VETS" as phony soldiers.

Murdoch can't move on the Sulzbergers fast enough.

And the head of this snake is "promise-'em-anything" Hillary... Can you imagine that unholy 3... Hillary, Nancy and Harry? The people had better wake up and smell the bs before they head out to vote~

> liberals don't ask for money -- they tax for
> money, and try to take credit for personal
> compassion while the bill gets paid by others.

This sounds a lot like a 'chickenhawk' argument. I guess liberals must now personally donate and work for every cause they support.

NO, MarkT, just the ones they want to take the credit for -- like Reid tried yesterday.

Harry Reid's whiny little appeasement speech to Rush on the Senate floor reminded me of his eager willingness to claim defeat in Iraq. He has no spine for a fight that might take some oomph. I'm glad Rush called him on it and didn't go on mush mouth in response.

MarkT: This sounds a lot like a 'chickenhawk' argument. I guess liberals must now personally donate and work for every cause they support.

No, but I'd personally like it a lot more if they wouldn't support their causes with MY money.

MarkT: What's compassionate about spending money taken from other people at gunpoint? And if you don't believe it's taken at gunpoint, refuse to pay your taxes and then see what happens....

"Now granted, the Republicans in Congress in 2001-2006 managed to look a lot like the latter than the former, but we're hoping they learned their lesson after the last election."

That's a pretty easy out....lets just sweep the fact that they spent like druken sailors under the rug. Frig they deserve more than a hand slap for the mess they created.

Actually MarkT, you've lurched unwittingly into an interesting point.

The chickenhawk metaphor says if you claim to support the charity you should give to the charity.

But we're not calling Reid a chicken-philanthropist. We're calling him a phony philanthropist in the sense that he claims to have served with honor, but a little digging and you find he was dishonorably discharged and has been flaunting phony purple hearts.

See the difference? Reid is a phony, not a chicken. It's important to keep the metaphors straight.

Jeff from Mpls,
You pegged it completely.
Reid did not even have enough integrity to simply be silent on the topic. He felt compelled to not only pop-off on it, and then to sleaze in and try and pretend he deserved some credit for the charity benefit.
It is like someone capturing a thief, collecting a reward, donating the reward to a charity, and then the thief taking credit for helping the charity.
This episode ahs illustrated to me more clearly than nearly anything in the last several years how lefties act on a personal level.

Thinking about this letter that Harry "and 40 of his friends" signed trying to silence a private citizen (which is in complete opposition to the 1st Amendment of the Constitution btw) I was remembering the last time congress tried to do something similar.

That time it was in reference to Stolen Honor rather than the Stolen Valor of this incident.

It was only 18 senators that time. They sent a letter to the FCC demanding an investigation of Sinclair Broadcasting.

Robert Novak said: "Kerry has nothing but thugs out there. They can threaten, they can coerce, they can cajole -- Can you imagine 18 senators demanding censorship and getting away with it? If a single Republican anywhere attempted to do that, the press would be apoplectic."

A move is in the process; this move could force the "gang of 41" to answer the very question this topic focuses on. Put your money where your mouth is, or risk getting exposed for the phony that all of you will viewed as by millions who now get their news from a variety of sources outside of the MSM.

Meanwhile, ABC News is spinning off the cliff over at their website; changing comments at will. I've been watching this unfold over the past several hours. Literally changing comments made by several posters. Blatant display of dishonesty; they're not even trying to hide their bias anymore. "Willing to go to any lengths" to push an agenda; lying, distorting, publishing national top secret programs; now they are willing to change people's words in plain view.

Completely out of their minds...

Jeff from Mpls
Please provide the source from which the
statement that Reid was "dishonorably discharged and has been flaunting phoney purple hearts" can be found. I know truth is not a factor in Reid's decision making but if this is true its simply unbelievable.

So we have read of the Senate letter attempting to silence Rush Limbaugh, and a similar incident in 2005 aimed at Ann Coulter, and just above, a threat from John Kerry and others to Sinclair Broadcasting. I also recall that there was attempted interference against the program "The Road to 9-11" by the Clintons.

I wonder how many of these things there have been, and worse, how many of them have worked so well that they were never even discovered?

To have the media itself help abet these despicable episodes beggars belief... we are truly living in dangerous times in more ways than just terrorism. We are also subject to information control efforts on the part of shameless politicans... with the willing connivance of a completely corrupted media.

Reid's feeble and transparent attempt to position himself as a co-contributor of this amazing fund-raising event is a further example of the differences between Liberals and Conservatives.

Reid, a Liberal, actually believes that the American People are too dense to see how idiotic and hypocritical his statements were. Most Conservatives, if this donation would have been reversed, would have kept their mouths shut.

What Reid and his gang continue to portray on the stage in Washington is that the American People are sheep. He firmly believes that each and every American has forgotten his comment that "we've lost" and he also is convinced that people like me, didn't "get" how low his trying to horn in on this fund raising was.

The only conclusion I can come up with is that Harry Reid's information inflow comes solely from MSNBC and the New York Times and he's never visited a blog in his life.

This kind of comment just slays me:

"Now granted, the Republicans in Congress in 2001-2006 managed to look a lot like the latter than the former, but we're hoping they learned their lesson after the last election."

That's a pretty easy out....lets just sweep the fact that they spent like druken sailors under the rug.... Let's analyze, won't take long. 2001 - 2004 reduced revenues due to recession and tax cuts. Normal tax policy methods used to shorten and make shallow a recession? Increase Fed spending and lower taxes. Result increased debt (public)/deficit.

2004 to current, controlled spending keeping rate of spending increase well below rate of revenue increase. Result, decreasing deficit/(public debt). 2004 to current reduced taxes spur improved economic conditions. Result, moderate increased income for workers, more jobs, improved profits for businesses. (All this compared to the years recession impacted.) And we also have this undocumented/poorly documented results, increases in FICA collections which result in increased Fed debt (not publicly held.)

So, much (@60%) of the Fed debt increase is caused by the improved economy (compared to the recession impacted years).

So, the Bush administration gets often maligned for overspending when in fact the opposite may very well be more true. Leftist economists supported in the MSM has been claiming this since his election, but by most measurements it is not true. Usually when you see/hear it you must wade through the idealogical rhetoric to see what is being compared, and it is usually some wannabe utupian view or St Bill's administration and not reality.

Robert Quinn, sorry, I was (apparently badly) using a metaphor. Harry Ried didn't actually claim purple hearts. I was saying that Ried's claiming to have raised the 2.1 million dollars is the equivalent of a phony soldier who claims to have served but is shown to be a fraud. I don't think Harry Ried was in the military, & don't think he's ever claimed to be.

I'm hoping Rush doesn't let up and keeps the pressure on Reid.

Reid looks like a complete dope after this episode.

Kick him when he's down. Make him a object of abject ridicule. Destroy him.

There is no way that such a corrupt traitor like Reid should hold a position of authority in this country.

Get rid of him, Rush. For the good of the country.

If the dems truly wanted to show they have principles behind the "chickenhawk" slur, they would sign up so that they could truly take offense.

After all, it only counts to criticize when you're actually a soldier. Otherwise, your criticism is meaningles.

(And for those confused by my post, as GK was in the last section on this, I am mocking the dems chickenhawk slur here, not supporting it)

Reid needs to be Daschle'd. Hairy is certainly doing his part. The Nevada voters just need to close the deal.

By my reading, Harry Reid did not try to take credit for raising the money. I think you all are reading way too much into his words.

Rush did something clever with the letter and Harry Reid was being gracious in defeat.

Please provide the source from which the
statement that Reid was "dishonorably discharged and has been flaunting phoney purple hearts" can be found. I know truth is not a factor in Reid's decision making but if this is true its simply unbelievable.

Robert Quinn - there's currently a radio commercial running in Los Angeles where an earnest person calls an airline asking about "extra leg room". He wants to know if he only has two legs can he use that extra room for something else.

Your obliviousness to the concept of analogy or metaphore makes me wonder if you are the person who wants to use the airline's "extra leg room" for something else because you don't have an extra leg.

MarkT, you might want to read the transcript of Reid's remarks. He was spinning so hard on this issue that you could hook up a generator to him and light downtown Las Vegas for a week.

The MSM coverage of the whole matter has been transparently dishonest to the point of malfeasance.

I've posted a similar story HERE titled: "Phony Senators and Newspaper Spin" :

"Now you have the New York Times and the Washington Post (leading fabricators) not only missing the point of the entire story of a private citizen being admonished by a federal official, but still insisting on fabricating the actual intent that Limbaugh made in his initial scolding of the "phony soldiers". Who's PHONY now?"

(linked and excerpted)

Reid was spinning this so hard that his head began to spin - a la "The Exorcist".

I agree: Rush should keep up the pressure.

Pay up, Reid, or shut the heck up!

Here is my little take on comments to the Washington Post. I started commenting the conservative view on comment threads that were almost 99%liberal and did they squeal. However, I noticed that most of the liberal comments came between the hours of 9AM to 5PM and were almost non-existant on weekends which led me to believe that many of the posters were office workers. If I got in early with a conservative take on a story I found that many times other conservative posters jumped in and the liberal posters left the thread alone (this is just my own take of course). Now, something has happened and I can no longer even read the comments in the Washington Post although I still seem to be registered. Am posting this so that other conservative posters will get into the fray at the WP. They need your smart comments. It drives them crazy.

I think each of us with Senators who signed that letter should be confronting them to personally meet the match challenge. If they had the gumption to sign the letter attempting to suppress a citizen's First Amendment rights with words he didn't say, they should have the guts to put their own money where their mouth (and feet) are.

Think of what this charity could do with over $84,000,000. And it's "for the children", so how could they refuse without looking heartless.

Let them spend some of their own money, instead of ours, to do something that is actually worthwile. It would be a good lesson in why people should try to allow a couple of brain synapses to occur before opening your piehole or putting your signature to anything.

They can afford it, they been doing this type of thing with our money for many years.

Come on, Dems. It's for the Children. Pony Up !!!

Jeff from Mpls said

"Robert Quinn, sorry, I was (apparently badly) using a metaphor. Harry Ried didn't actually claim purple hearts. I was saying that Ried's claiming to have raised the 2.1 million dollars is the equivalent of a phony soldier who claims to have served but is shown to be a fraud. I don't think Harry Ried was in the military, & don't think he's ever claimed to be."

No, Harry basically went from college right into politics-he did spend 3 years in the public sector as a lawyer, and also worked as a member of the Capitol Police, but never served in the military.

There is an aspect of the Reid comments that are in the transcript that I haven't seen discussed yet and I am going to quote those comments and follow each with my own in parentheses
Quote: "co-signed a letter to the chairman of Clear Channel, Mark May, telling him that we wanted him to confer with Rush Limbaugh regarding the }statements he made." (This letter called on Mays to "publicly repudiate these comments that call into question their service and sacrifice and to ask Mr. Limbaugh to apologise for his comments" which we know he never made) "I've since spoken to Mark May about this." (What did he say to Mark May? Did he apologise for sending the letter or did he emphasize putting the pressure on Limbaugh to apologise? Did he at any time infer that a license might be at stake?) "Mark May, in fact, called me regarding this letter this week." (And what did Mark May say to him? Did he tell him that it was improper to contact him about a false accusation? Did he tell him he had turned the letter over to Rush?) It seems to me Mark Mays has a story to tell also.

Reid,Hillary and Pelosi epitomize the liberal philosophy of:

-- lying about and smearing anyone who disagrees with them

-- taking credit for doing good for others when the only thing the libs are good for is confiscating money from others so they can bribe people into voting for them.

-- abuse of power by actively trying to crush all of our Bill of Rights including most notably the freedom of speech

-- turning everyone into a bunch of helpless victims who become so dependent on government services they lose all of their initiative and never are able to become the best they can be

-- smearing private cooperations so the public is blind to the fact that the true threat to our freedoms is an all powerful and corrupt government who can use the force of law to keep its citizens in line,

IE. Soviet Union where millions were murdered by Stalin, Communist Cambodia again where millions were murdered,

I just hope the antics of Reid and company regarding the smearing of a private citizen like Rush Limbaugh will help wake the public up to the real threat the libs like Ried, Hillary and Pelosi represent.

I respectfully suggest you are reading too much into Reid's words.

Rush's idea to sell the letter was great public relations. Witness how much you all liked it. The charity benefits. Rush gets good publicity. Rush gets more popular. Rush can raise his advertising rates. Everyone on the right wins, correct?

Reid seems to me to be conceding that point and trying to be gracious. I just don't see where he is trying to take credit.

You all didn't like it when you thought the left read too much into Rush's 'phony' remarks and now it looks to me like you are doing the same thing in return.

Reid seems to me to be conceding that point and trying to be gracious. I just don't see where he is trying to take credit.

He doesn't have to say: "I, Harry Reid take credit for this donation" for him to try get some of the credit. Let's go to Reid's words:

"We've watched it during the week. It keeps going up, and up, and up, and there's only a little bit of time left on it. But it's certainly going to be more than two million. Never did we think that this letter would bring money of this nature"

WE??? Of course WE didn't because WE didn't write the letter to raise money, we wrote it to try to get Limbaugh silenced. There is absolutely no connect b/w Reid's act of writing the letter and Limbaugh's brilliant use of it. So he is trying to shoe-horn his way in.

"I don't know what we could do more important than helping make sure that children of our fallen soldiers and police officers who have fallen in the line of duty have the opportunity for their children to have a good education. Think about this. More than $2 million, this is going to really help."

There's that WE again. Why WE? What has Reid done? Nothing. It would like if I auction off some of Reid's vomet that I found in a Senate spew bucket and Harry congratulated himself on getting the flu.

"so I would ask those that are wanting to do more, that they can go to the Harry Reid, search -- actually go on say "Harry Reid letter," this will come up on eBay."

And there you have gentleman -- Harry's sole contribution to this effort. Not money. Nope. He doesn't even put up a friggin' Web site devoted to the topic. He tells people to Google it.

"I strongly believe that when we can put our differences aside, even Harry Reid and Rush Limbaugh, we should do that and try to accomplish good things for the American people."

And thus he sums it up: Harry Reid and Rush Limbaugh accomplished good things for the American people. Rush by donating the letter and supplying the matching fund (though Harry is careful never to raise THAT point because if he did then he would have to explain why he isn't donating any of his own funds) and Harry by writing a letter whose sole purpose was NOT to raise money but only to try to silence Limbaugh.

Oh ... and he also told people to do a Web search.

> WE???

Who do you think "we" refers to?

I think he means himself and the other senators that signed the letter and not him and Rush as I think you are implying. I apologize in advance if that's not what you meant.

I would disagree, MarkT. To me, a plain reading indicates that by "we" he's referencing himself and Mark Mays, and it is in that way that he's trying to shoehorn his way into taking credit for the whole thing.

Qwinn

I think it is great what Rush is doing, and having the fortune of being able to listen to him everyday during work, I can say it makes great radio.

Though, I wonder if the benefits of being able to help so many good people outweighs the idea of these scumbag senators trying to silence an American citizen.

NahnCee
“Your obliviousness to the concept of analogy or metaphore makes me wonder if you are the person who wants to use the airline's "extra leg room" for something else because you don't have an extra leg.”

I apologize for offending your superior intellect. It must be a terrible burden protecting it as you do. Jeff from Mpls, the addressee of my comment, doesn’t have that burden. Perhaps you could learn something from him. I sincerely hope you feel better.

By the way, NahnCee, you misspelled Metaphor.

Rush did something clever with the letter and Harry Reid was being gracious in defeat.

Interesting that money being raised to help military families is a defeat for Harry Reid.

The Main Stream News Media Comes Through for Harry Reid

Have you noticed how the mainstream news media, which originally ignored the Rush Limbaugh-Harry Reid Letter flap, now that it has been pointed out, are now giving it a little coverage, but with a positive slant toward Reid? Yesterday, I checked out some of the main news outlets. Here is what I found:

New York Times writer, Stephanie Strom wrote an article (which was printed in the Orange County Register, a libertarian paper in California, on 10-20-07), which started out like this:

" After Rush Limbaugh referred to Iraq war veterans critical of the war as 'phony soldiers' he recieved a letter of complaint signed by 41 Democratic senators." (P A 23)

* Note that Ms Strom presents as fact that Limbaugh's comments were directed at Iraq War veterans opposed to the war, an accusation Limbaugh denies, stating that his comments were directed at Jesse MacBeth, who has been proven to be a fraud.

As the article continues on a back page (A 26), the sub-headline reads:

Limbaugh: "Reid Hails Sale of Letter and Donation of Proceeds"

The article goes on:

"He (Limbaugh) predicted that the sale's success would anger one signer of the letter, Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, whom Limbaugh calls Dingy Harry."

" But in a statement on the floor of the Senate on Friday, Reid, D-NV, praised the auction.' I strongly believe that when we can put our differences aside, even Harry Reid and Rush Limbaugh, we should do that and try to accomplish good things for the American people', he said."

The ABC News website on 10-20-07 ran an article by Byron Wolf headed:

"Who says the political fingerpointing in Washington is all for naught?"

Wolf also opened his article by characterizing Limbaugh's comments as calling "soldiers who opposed the war 'phony soldiers'". He continued:

"For their part, Democrats sent a letter calling for Rush Limbaugh to be reprimanded for calling soldiers who opposed the war 'phony soldiers'".

Wolf then goes on to describe Betty Casey, who sent in the winning bid, listing her donations to various Republicans. He also repeated a 2004 characterization of Casey by the Washington Post as "eccentric and press-shy". As to Reid, Wolf describes the senator as conciliatory toward Limbaugh, repeating some of Reid's statements of 10-19-07.

The Washington Post ran this headline:

"Limbaugh Spins Reid's Letter into Charity Gold"

NBC's Web Site ran an article by Thomas Ferraro on 10-19-07 that included this:

"Regardless, Reid, speaking in the Senate, saluted Limbaugh for raising the money on behalf of the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, which helps children of Marines and law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty".

"' What could be a more worthwhile cause?', said Reid, urging support for the fund-raising drive shortly before the bidding closed."

"Limbaugh, in his posting on eBay, did not appear conciliatory with Reid, who is referred to as Dingy Harry."

"Reid spokesman, Jim Manley, declined comment on Limbaugh's challenge, but said, 'Senator Reid is happy something good came from Rush's outrageous comments.'"

Then there was this from LA Times blog editor, Andrew Malcomb, who spun it this way in Reid's favor:

" Turns out that a genuine letter of complaint about Rush Limbaugh's recent on air 'phony soldiers' remark is producing some real money for a good cause."

"Then, Harry Reid did a clever thing right back. He went on the Senate floor and praised Limbaugh's attempt to raise money for a good cause off his letter and said he could have gotten every Democrat senator's signature if he'd had time. To watch video of Senator Reid's statement and Limbaugh's, uh, firm reaction, click here."

"The bidding on the letter closed today. The final price: 2.1 million."

"Makes you want to sit down and write someone right now, doesn't it?"

Note: The above article is by an LA Times writer via the paper's blog page, so I assume it is supposed to be opinion writing.

Thus, we see examples of how the mainstream news media originally chose to ignore how Limbaugh was making Reid and his colleagues look like fools. Then, when conservative bloggers, who were pretty much alone in reporting the story, mocked the media and pointed out their selective reporting, the mainstreamers grudgingly put out selected articles, which pretty much accepted the Democrats' position that Limbaugh was smearing any and all soldiers who were against the Iraq War, and then described Reid as a gracious figure who was only pleased to see a worthy cause get money off the letter. The reading public, especially those who depend on the mainstream news media for their news, should see this as an example of how said MSN is, in reality, an arm of the Democratic Party. In this case, they are doing Harry Reid's spin for him.

It's bad enough when opinion columnists engage in ridiculous spin, but it is infinitely worse when reporters do it in the guise of straight reporting.

gary fouse
fousesquawk