If Limbaugh has a “right” to broadcast on AFN, then so does Al Franken, and so do I.
The government can’t make him stop talking, but they don’t have to pro-actively provide his platform for him. Taking him off AFN will in no way shut him up. Jailing him, pressuring commercial stations to take him off, that’s censorship. This tempest in a teapot is not.
What people? No one in this thread has stated approval of this move (beyond the people that want to see AFN totally free of all types of political commentary). Do you mean Wesley Clark specifically, or some bunch of people on some other message board, or some other group of people?
Sure. It’s edited. I heard the whole thing live. They took a big piece out of the middle where Rush clarifies his position and they cut the piece out of the end where he talks about Mac Beth.
I’ve heard it live, Rush has replayed it.
The transcript you are showing has been edited with two important segments ommitted. The ommission materially changes Rush’s statements to make it seem as if he is arguing a position he has never espoused and vehemently denied.
Selectively editing somebody’s statements in order to materially change the meaning of what they said is deliberate misquoting, and fundamentally dishonest.
Since nobody has said he has that right, your point is moot.
Dude, calling it “censorship” implicitly equates it with a right.
According to wikipedia
It seems to me like he’s making a transition when he starts talking about MacBeth. In the context of the call, it’s clear to me that “phony soldiers” refers to soldiers who oppose the war in Iraq.
Rush made that even clearer in the middle of one of his attempts to explain:
So he makes it clear–“phony soldiers” also includes Scott Thomas (Beauchamp) and Jack Murtha, the first of whom is still serving in Iraq and the other of whom is a decorated veteran.
I have yet to see any explanation for how Media Matters is taking Limbaugh “out of context”. (Limbaugh, like Bill O’Reilly, obviously doesn’t understand what that phrase means.) Even if you give Limbaugh a pass on his original comments, how can you ignore the addition of Beauchamp and Murtha to the “phony soldiers” list?
Get your facts right. Limbaugh is the one who removed a large chunk of the conversation in between where he called troops who oppose the war “phony soldiers” and when he moved on, much later, to the topic of Jesse Macbeth. He replayed an edited version of what was said with the Macbeth stuff pasted on directly after the “phony soldier” comment on order to fabricate a phony “context” by which he could extricate his fat, junkie ass from his own stupid words.
I think censure is stupid and calls to remove him from the air waves are even more stupid (and anti-American), but let’s not pretend he wasn’t referring to soldiers who oppose the war. He absolutely was, as the original, untampered transcript makes clear.
Where does this original untampered manuscript reside?
here you go. The bolded part is what Limbaugh chopped out of his phony replay.
I think MediaMatters is a biased source.
BUT – that’s a hell of a specific claim for a source – even a biased source – to simply create out of thin air. I find myself thinking that MediaMatters is most likely truthful here.
It’s a little late, but I agree with this. I would add though that the litmus test of true dishonesty comes if the error is pointed out and the source refuses to correct the record.
Speaking generally, that is.
Moderator’s Warning: Frostillicus you can (within reason) call Rush Limbaugh names, but personal insults directed at other posters aren’t allowed in this forum. You ought to know by now to tone it down or take it to the Pit, please.
So, having already made his “phony soldiers” comment, he ran around and tagged on a different topic, linking them.
meh
If you agree that Congress has not called for Limbaugh to be removed from AFN, then I stick by my “manufactured” observation. The loonies on the left are taking his idiotic comment and (foolishly) blowing it out of proportion while the fools on the right are twisting themselves into pretzels trying to pretend that his comment was “really” about Macbeth.
I agree that he should not be removed from AFN and that AFN should be allowed, (nay, encouraged), to play political commentary.
All else is posturing.
Sorry to hammer this point again, but – yes MediaMatters is biased. But so what? I can filter out bias: the real issue is fairness and honesty.
I’m a regular reader of the Economist, which at times has rather pronounced biases. But provided that I’m giving sufficient information to make my own assessment, I have sufficient fortitude not to whine about it.
(Not that Bricker or Scylla was whining-- again, I’m just pressing my POV.)
How is this a “crisis”, even under the most generous of conditions?
No error has been pointed out. Limbaugh lied about the context and tampered with the tape himself when he played it back.
Unless you think mediamatters just made up a transcript out of thin air. They might be biased but I don’t find it credible that they would fabricate a fictional transcript.
Moderator’s Warning: Oh, and this isn’t appropriate either. There’s really no need for any “I’ve reported this post, neener neener neener” posting in the thread–just proceed on with the thread and ignore the bad post (or the bad parts of the post). And this particular instance is definitely over the line.
Right. It seems from the existing evidence that Rush has displayed dishonesty, at least by Scylla’s criteria, which I mostly agree with. If OTOH MM could be shown to have played games with ellipses, and then refused to correct the record, that would be very different.
Well the lefties are playing payback for the 'Wingers obsession with Moveon’s rhetorical question regarding General Petraeus (or was it General …)
The real issue is the selective pseudo-patriotism of those bothered by factual challenges to public testimony.
If Scylla’s able to come up with video evidence of a different transcript i’d certainly be willing to revise my opinion.
If he can’t, I think for him to say you can’t come to a different conclusion than he “in good faith” is going too far. Clearly we are reading different sources (according to him); if he cannot provide the original, is it not reasonable to assume the Mediamatters one is the correct one?