Does not sound like it, but how did he ever get on Armed Forces Radio? That sounds like the first mistake.
Jim
Well, what is your topic? Congress isn’t actually trying to do anything to Limbaugh, so there’s no topic to be had there. Wesley Clark is playing loose with something Limbaugh said, but your OP said: “Limbaugh does not always play nice with his enemies and there is no reason why his enemies should play nice with him… That’s not the debate.” And now you’re saying the topic isn’t about whether political commentators like Limabugh should be on AFR. So what exactly are we supposed to be discussing here?
I cannot stand Rush Limbaugh. His ad hominem attacks and vast gulf of ignorance raise my hackles and make me want to bite something.
That being said, if he is on AFR (which he is), and the listeners of AFR are happy with him (which they probably are), then he should not be removed for this apparently spurious reason.
I wouldn’t mind, though, Congress reviewing the purpose of AFR, and if political topics are inappropriate, pulling Limbaugh and other pundits off AFR for that reason.
I don’t think that would be unconstitutional. I don’t think it would be a good thing, and would probably kill NPR since it was created to be independent of the gov’t in its broadcasting, and I don’t think many people would listen if it lost that independence and became a propoganda station.
But glancing at AFN website, their purpose, unlike that of NPR, isn’t to be an independent media source, but to provide moral and information for the troops. So its somewhat of a different beast the NPR and I’m not as set against Congress taking a direct roll in its programming as I would be of them tampering with NPR. If Clarke really feels that Rush is hurting moral by claiming that soilders who speak up are “fake troops”, and he’s able to convince majorities in Congress of that, then censor away.
Can we establish as a basic parameter of our discussion that Rush Limbaugh is a lying sack of shit?
Well, you will get much agreement here, and it is fun to say it, but does it get us anywhere? 
Since when is quoting the entire statement and not the edited version released by the fatass gasbag considered taking Limbaugh out of context? I swear to God, black is white with you right-wing Kool-Aid drinkers.
(A) Re: Clark, he’s entitled to express his desire that Rush be off AFN (though in the current climate it would take Rush calling someone “a bunch of nappy-headed Hos” or something like that), and I’m entitled to express to the network my desire not to see General Clark on my TV set again just because I don’t like his face. As long as the Congress does not actually attempt to put a rider on the AFN appropriation to forbid carrying Limbaugh – *THAT would be alarming! * --, they can ask for his head all they want, and the management of AFN, upon determining that Limbaugh did not do what he’s accused of, can and should ignore the gratuituous accusations. Actually filing a motion of censure, which in the end is worth little more than the paper it’s printed on, is just the kind of wastage of legislative resources that by now I’m numb to.
(OTOH, if AFN carries “Dr. Laura” then I’m for keeping her but shutting down her callers, who are such utter losers that people are at risk of catching Teh Stupid just from listening)
(B) It’s not necessarily Rush, although he’s definitely the poster boy for it, but what happens is that this has been latched on in the course of an ongoing revival of the on-again-off-again debate over whether to reinstate the so-called “fairness doctrine” for broadcasters. Here’s the Wikipedia on the FD. (We lived with THAT throughout much of the Cold War, so as a legal doctrine it’s not so stalinistic per se). I say to them, though, lotsa luck with that one, I believe no amount of Witch Doctors or Cosmic Rays can reanimate *that * cadaver however sympathetic it may be in theory. The debate as to whether to bring back the FD has been brewing and sporadically going dormant then active then dormant again since it was dropped back in late Reagan days, but it got more active in the 2000’s with the elimination of a few remaining associtated rules, specifically those regarding direct personal attacks. An incident like this, of course, only makes the advocates thereof more agitated. But then again, agitated avocates often end up just making themselves look bad.
And yes, if you admit that since Rush doesn’t play nice, his antagonists should not be expected to do otherwise either, then as long as no actual legislative action is taken to censor as opposed to merely censure him, there’s no problem. Yes, that this time around the antagonists have “friends in high places” that could potentially do more against him than just write a letter and whine makes things more delicate than usual, but then again, his gig IS to piss off half the political spectrum (and when he was at his best he did it outstandingly well; he has been past peak for a while now). He’s been in this biz for a long time, he expects that certain outlets will pick up and drop him depending on whether he’s cool, or hot, or too hot; he’ll do fine for himself through this one, losing AFN, if he does, won’t hurt him much at all.
Glancing at their programming, AFR doesn’t seem terribly partisan. It’s basically a subset of popular talk-radio stuff here (they even have Al Franken, probably specifically to blunt criticism of having Limbaugh), with a slant for NPR shows (presumably because the gov’t gets them cheap). I don’t really see a problem with a partisan talk show or two.
Apparently my image of AFR as only carrying 60’s rock music a public service announcements about how to avoid VD in foreign ports is somewhat dated.
Hmm. I was initially with Scylla on this one, but i’ve done some searching and it appears there were two occasions on which Limbaugh mentioned “phony soldiers”. One appears to be mentioned in conjunction with Macbeth, but the other appears in a conversation with a caller and does seem at least a bit more understandable as to how people could attribute the position to him. The problem is whether he’s using phony soldiers to talk about just a particular group brought up then, or about the entire group they’re generally talking about. Either way, I don’t think it’s as clear-cut as Scylla makes it out to be.
I’m going by the transcript from Mediamatters, so I hope it’s still acceptable. This seems like the type of thing that’d be up on YouTube with “OMG SO RITE” or “LIMBAUGH SUKKS” commentary, but I can’t find an actual thing of it. The comment in question is at the bottom of the page, though reading the context is of course better.
It went w/o you saying
Unless we care to get into pro-Bushlike parsings of “lie”
Limbaugh’s use and abuse of the language is master level IMHO
What is the nature of this appellation?
Certainly you’re not trying to apply it to anyone here in this conversation.
I wouldn’t be so certain, alas.
I can’t share Scylla’s terror. The government has every right to decide to boot a particular show off armed forces radio, and the decision doesn’t cause me any particular upset.
However, I will say that in my unprovable opinion, many of the people approving of this move as it applies to Limbaugh would be up in arms if the target were a liberal commentator.
Not playing Limbaugh’s show on AFR is not “censoring” him, any more than playing his show is “censoring” any of the plethora of other people they could be playing in that time slot.
Censure is an inappropriate bit of political theater, but it seems to me that sowing the wind (pushing for a censure of the MoveOn Petraeus ad) has now led to this particular whirlwind.
Just an aside, not that anyone should care, but years ago I worked for Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (“A-farts”) back when the navy didn’t want any entertainment transmissions crowding up the other stuff on the mast. So they had guys like me on board to take in, play and ship out a rotating library of radio tapes and TV shows (on beta, because the cartridges were physically smaller).
It was war movies and cop shows and recent sports (which the radiomen were always smug about since they knew who’d won), and hair band & rap music videos (to show how long ago I’m talking about here) and as close to porno as we dared get (the executive officer made us take “The Lady In Red” off the air one night).
And this wasn’t some idyllic pre-9/11 never-never land that never was. There were guys on the ship who’d been in Beruit when the Marines were blown up, and this was when Hezbolla had killed Robert Dean Stethem when he’d shown a military ID instead of a passport.
But besides an on-ship, dull newscast (read as crisply as fresh cowshit by yours truly) nothing whatsoever had any political content. “Indoctrination” ended after boot camp. A-farts was just an electronic counterpart to the soft-serve ice cream machine on the mess deck and the basketball hoop on the hangar deck.
What the Hell happened? Why can’t we respect the traditional right of the man & woman in uniform to hold whatever any civillian has to say in contempt?
I can find no connection between Limbaugh’s “phony soldiers” remark and the issue of this Macbeth character (except in Limbaugh’s re-written history).
I can find no evidence that any motion in Congress is trying to remove Limbaugh from AFN.
I have seen numerous calls from left-wing blogs and letters calling for Limbaugh to be censured ands several calls for Limbaugh to be censored (at least on AFN), although I have not yet seen any censure movement in Congress.
AFN should be allowed to broadcast whomever the military audience wishes to hear. I find the idea that AFN should avoid political commentary silly, but I can’t find anyone in Congress entertaining the idea, anyway.
So, basically, this is a manufactured story, with the extremes of both sides participating in its creation while reasonable people ignore the whole thing.
I dunno. Why don’t you quote it, and I’ll see if I have a problem?
You really shouldn’t bend over and spread them until after I report your post. People will think you wanted it.
Has Media Matters ever manufactured a transcript? Sure, they have a pronounced opinion, but honesty is a separate issue. Only blinkered ideologues can’t understand this distinction.
Scylla: The transcript is at the bottom of the Media Matters page. Why don’t you have a look?
According to Mediamatters he mentions Mac Beth 1 minute and forty seconds after he originally made the “phony soldiers” comment. It’s in the same segment, in the same context and pretty close. Seeing as he made them consecutively on topic I don’t think much, if any rewriting has been done.
Well since nobody is saying they did, this is hardly an astute observation.
"Udall’s resolution, introduced Monday night, says that Congress condemns “the personal attacks made by the broadcaster Rush impugning the integrity and professionalism of Americans serving in the Armed Forces.”
There were 19 co-sponsors Monday night. None were from Colorado.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., asked other senators to sign a letter of censure."
That is interesting logic. You state 3 times that you have not seen something and conclude therefore that it does not exist.
argumentum ad ignorantium.