3 March 2005

Rush Limbaugh Lies

Again. This time, by twisting a news story into a divisive message about how Americans don't support the troops during his trip to Afghanistan.
Most entertainers visit Iraq to send the message to our men and women in uniform that Americans are united in their support for them. Not Rush. Rush Limbaugh has been making clear on his show that, on his trip to Afghanistan, he lied in order to mislead our troops into thinking that many Americans don’t support them.

Basically, Limbaugh framed a story about how medical advances were saving the lives of wounded soldiers more often than had been possible in previous wars, and in a despicable fashion, framed it as news that people are upset because they are actually hoping for more battlefield fatalities.

Mentioned this in Kandahar; you could have heard a pin drop. They did not know this story. I repeated the story to them about this Reuters dispatch that we got that found problems with the news that battlefield fatalities were down and lower per capita than ever before in the history of American warfare. Battlefield fatalities are down. And, I said, “Folks, this news was presented as a problem. We couldn’t figure why in the world is the fact that battlefield fatalities are at an all-time low a problem. Why are some people upset? And, we finally figured out that they are actually hoping for more battlefield fatalities because that will help them gin up anti-war support from their mirroring number of supporters in this country.”

I said, “That is going on back home."

If you read the article, it's clear this is another slimy Limbaugh tactic to distort the truth and launch ad hominem assaults on those in the anti-war camp.

The Reuters story in question, “U.S. Medical Advances May Mask Wars’ Human Cost,” cited a study by Harvard’s Atul Gawande and pointed out that medical advances were saving the lives of wounded soldiers more often than had been possible in previous wars--clearly a good thing. However, the article noted, this meant that simply looking at the number of deaths would give a deceptive impression about the scope of the war.


Comments

Ummm....my question is simply, why do we have to listen to "experts and studies" to point out the obvious? I mean WTF? This story is just one more example of so many in so many fields that just disgust the hell out of me.

Of course our medical technology is more superior than even 5 years ago-DUH! Of course there are more injured than dead-DUH! Of course there are more casualties than the Revolutionary War-DUH! Vietnam's first 8 years? That's because there was very little action between 1954-1962-Dead Stat, thank you very much.

So why the story? Why is this news? Who reads this shit and actually is surprised at the news? Who really wasn't aware that there were more casualties than deaths; wasn't aware that medical advances didn't force routine amputations common in the Civil War; wasn't aware that the violent atmosphere continued to create casulaties of war.

That should be the big question, Naum. Nothing in that article was substantive, or revealing, except of course, to the "intellects" who rely only on "academic research and results."

Rush did what all ideologues do--streeeeeetchhhhh the interpretation of the article. Liberals are quite good at that as well. The true intent of the article was to fill in empty paper space by some idiot researcher who had nothing better to do.
And by the way, what's with the partisan hackjob .gifs at the bottom of the story-ad hominem assaults, perhaps?