I think AFN should either have no political commentary or balanced political commentary. If all they hear is Rush Limbaugh, they get a grossly distorted picture of how the war is playing in Peoria. The political hacks who run AFN reneged on a promise to put Ed Schultz on the air because they couldn’t bear the idea of the troops finding out that some people disagree with the Dear Leader.
Does anyone have an actual playlist for AFN as broadcast in Iraq? I am not sure that I am all that excited about insisting on “balance” (which carried to its typical conclusion results in the minimal, wimpiest of advocates for two arbitrarily chosen “sides”), although I would be concerned about a deliberate exclusion of any widely recognized source. If AFN is running All Things Considered or Morning Edition (or Talk of the Nation 
), then that should be sufficient “balance” to Limbaugh. If they are running Limbaugh and Hannity and Beck and O’Reilly and the only thing from the “left” is Car Talk or This American Life, then I would consider that inappropriate.
Actually on doing more research, I withdraw my criticism. Here is the only schedule I could find for AFN.
MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY SCHEDULE
0000 Pure Gold Oldies
0300 Country Hits
0400 ESPN Game Nigh – Live
0600 AFN Morning Newswatch – Live
0900 Power Talk Mornings
Mon. Perspective
Tue. Newsweek on Air
Wed. Car Talk
Thu. Sound Money
Fri. Parents Journal
1000 NPR or AFN OpenLine, when scheduled
Mon. On The Media
Tue. – Fri. Fresh Air
1100 Fox Radio Sports Talk - Live
1200 NPR Morning Edition – Live
1400 AFN Evening Newswatch & Connections – Live
1800 Rush Limbaugh – Live
1900 Dr. Laura Schlessinger
1945 Paul Harvey News and Commentary
2000 NPR Talk of the Nation – Live
2100 Ed Shultz
2200 NPR All Things Considered – Live
It seems as though AFN has reversed itself and allowed Shultz on the air. So there is some balance to their programming after all.
Well that explains how he got on, but I note the very next sentence,
They never used to allow partisan talk on the AFN, this does not mean that times cannot change, but I dislike the idea of our military being influenced to either party. I don’t trust the party in charge, no matter who the party in charge is.
I don’t think my worries are silly. AFN was music, sports and straight news when I was in. I guess I am an old fart that thinks it should have stayed the same. Somehow even in the Reagan years, the AFN remained simply an entertainment or distraction.
Jim
“Comments are being taken out of context and used to attribrute attitudes to Limbaugh that he categorically denies and cannot in good faith be said to hold.”
What goes around comes around.
From the start, I’ve been ambivalent about this whole issue. I figured Rush said something that could be taken a couple different ways. Those that like him, will take it one way, that he was only talking about MacBeth, and those who don’t will take it another, that he thinks soldiers against the war are phony. I actually don’t put any stock in what Rush says, and I was actually surprised to see that it became an apparently big deal.
I still feel that way, but, if Media Matters is correct, Limbaugh out and out lied about it. By playing an edited audio tape and claiming it was the entire transcript, he just flat out lied. The couple of pieces I’ve seen on Media Matters have had compete audio clips and transcripts. There is no doubt that Media Matters has been much more credible about the whole issue than Rush. The extremely sad part is that 95% of Rush’s audience won’t even realize it.
Forget about Rush Limbaugh. According to BobLibDem, Laura Schlessinger is being broadcast on AFR. I want Congress to investigate who authorized this torture of American troops.
I’m not seeing anything in the bolded/edited part that is damning.
Is it just that he edited it at all?
Limbaugh edited the tape to make it sound as if he brought up Jesse MacBeth right after the “phony soldiers” comment, when in fact it was almost two minutes later.
That would be pretty stupid of him since he couldn’t possibly get away with it. Leads me to believe he did it in order to condense the tape.
Limbaugh claims to have mentioned the phony soldier the day before but I can’t find anything on that.
you have to hear the difference
But condensing the tape created a dishonest implication that the “phony soldiers” comment was said in conjunction with the Macbeth comments when it wasn’t. His whole defense rests on that one false claim. As or “getting away with it,” your own post just goes to show that his fans will believe what they want to believe and bend over backwards to defend him no matter what. he doesn’t have to convince his fans of anything, all he has to do is give them some kind of bogus argument to cling to and claim persecution by the liberal media. Mission accomplished.
Why can’t he get away with it? Many of his listeners will believe him and won’t bother checking his claims against any other source. As long as he has listeners who are willing to accept anything he says without question, he can say pretty much anything he wants.
By the way, he denied that he had edited the tape at all. That was unquestionably a lie, was it not?
Rush and the truth are merely acquaintences of convenience. The moment the truth becomes less than convenient, they part company.
Uh huh. And whatever explanation he’s offering right now is collapsing with me when he brings Murtha into the argument. Much as I dislike John Murtha for many legitimate reasons, his military service by all accounts was commendable and shouldn’t be brought into a debate concerning phony soldiers.
Now, I think there is a debate to be had there - Jesse MacBeth was a fraud whose story was bought for too long by the antiwar crowd. The damage he did to Iraq Veterans Against the War was considerable - they now require proof of service to join up. Good for them for that, but they have to do it because of Macbeth, and that’s a fact.
And MacBeth isn’t the only fraud who has affected this debate.
Still, Limbaugh is making his case poorly. I can’t support that.
Limbaugh said: “Media Matters had the transcript, but they selectively choose what they want to make their point. Here is – it runs about 3 minutes and 13 seconds – the entire transcript, in context, that led to this so-called controversy.” Bolding mine.
If he was condensing the tape, why did he claim that it was “the entire transcript, in context…”?
Leads me to believe that Rush Limbaugh can get away with a lot with his listeners.
And it seemed that he edited it because the deleted portion was in regards to a secondary comment that had nothing to do with “phony soldiers”.
And to the posters who think that AFN should have no political commentary: Why not? Should our soldiers not listen to politics because they might be influenced somehow?
Or, to put it another way, are they too immature and childlike to be able to listen to what is on almost every other talk radio station in the US?
The soldiers don’t have other options. They can’t carry DirecTV dishes with them on patrol. AFN should provide them, as adults, with the things that other adults get to hear…
As a longstanding member of said “crowd”, I find it odd that you seem to know far more about this than I. I had not heard of MacBeth (!) before now. Will the testimony of one soldier to the horror and obscenity of war change the record that goes back beyond Thucididyes? Do we require more evidence?
Mr. Limbaugh is a skilled propagandist, he gets far more mileage out of insinuation that statement. The narrative that ties to Murtha, MacBeth, Reid, is all in service of larger sack o’ shit: that the true soldiers are not like this phony soldier, the true soldier does not tell outrageous lies about Iraq. By extended insinuation, the true soldier is not anti-war. Anti-war soldiers cannot be trusted, so of course their stories of brutality and atrocity are lies. Haditha never happened, Murtha is lying. A massive return in innuendo from a paltry investment of fact.
Thanks Dio. Your adherence to “facts” and “truthfulness” have essentially run Scylla off his own thread. :mad: Why can’t you play by the* rules?
*“the” meaning “Scylla’s selective”