The Phony Phony Soldier Controversy

Greetings from the Left Coast! I was going to go back and cite more examples of how the Democrats alienated me to the point where I can't imagine ever voting for them again. Turns out I don't have to go back very far - they reminded me again just this week.

In case you've been out of touch and haven't heard, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid went to the floor of the U.S. Senate on Monday, October 1, to accuse Rush Limbaugh of attacking U.S. troops who oppose the war by referring to them as "phony soldiers." He called on the rest of the Senate to sign onto a letter he had drafted to Mark Mays, the CEO of Clear Channel, which handles the syndication of Limbaugh's show, asking Mays to publicly repudiate the comments and to ask Limbaugh to apologize for them. If you want to read Senator Reid's statement, you can find the full text of the statement, and the letter, here.

Ultimately 41 Senators (all Democrats, of course) signed the letter. Wait a minute - don't the Democrat's hold a majority in the Senate? Yep - but only 41 of them were willing to sign the letter. The rest of them tiptoed up to the cliff, peeked over the edge, and decided not to jump.

So - let's look at who the Senators were who were so diligently supporting the troops against the dastardly insinuations of Rush Limbaugh. The letter was originated by Harry "this war is lost" Reid, who, by the way, voted against the resolution to condemn MoveOn's "General Betray Us" ad. It was signed by Senator Chuck Schumer - who assured us that the violence in Anbar Province was decreasing in spite of our soldiers' presence, not because of it - and who also voted against the resolution to condemn the ad. Senator Hillary Clinton, who also voted against condemning the ad, signed the letter. Senator Ted Kennedy, who also voted against condemning the ad, signed the letter. Starting to see a pattern here? Senator John Kerry, who shot himself in the foot (figuratively, this time) during his Presidential campaign by quipping that young people needed to stay in school or they might wake up and find themselves in Iraq, signed the letter. If you want a full list of all 41 Senators who signed the letter, you can find it here. I'll let you do the rest of the research to see just how many of the 41 who thought the "phony soldiers" comment was simply beyond the pale didn't think that the Senate should condemn the "General Betray Us" ad.

Now, aside from the rather astounding spectacle of the Senate Majority Leader of the United States wasting the taxpayers' time and money denouncing a radio talk show host, the allegation is absurd on its face. Anyone who has actually listened to Rush Limbaugh knows that there is no public figure in the nation today, with the possible exception of President Bush himself, who has been more consistently supportive of our troops and their mission than Rush Limbaugh. It is clear from the transcript of the broadcast in question, and the context of the remarks, that Limbaugh was referring to soldiers (or alleged soldiers) who come forward with outrageous claims, are used by the anti-war movement to try to stir up more opposition to the war, but whose claims later turn out to be false.

The day before, Limbaugh had broadcast a segment on Jessie MacBeth, who did just that. (More on him in a minute.) ABC News had also just run a segment on "Operation Stolen Valor," a federal investigation of scam artists who posed as military heros to bilk the government of disability and medical benefits. (As I write this, the video of this segment is still available on the Web, here, under the headline, "Phony War Vets.") You can read the press release from the United States Attorney's Office of Western Washington, which talks about several specific cases from Operation Stolen Valor, which uncovered over $1.4 Million in fraudulent payments, right here. So there has been quite a buzz lately about phony soldiers, and unless Senator Reid has suddenly developed the amazing ability to read minds, it seems a bit far-fetched to take this phrase out of context and claim that Limbaugh was referring to genuine solders and veterans who happen to oppose the war. Almost as far-fetched as the concept of Harry Reid as a staunch defender of our troops.

Jessie MacBeth is a particularly vile example of a phony soldier. He popped up in Tacoma, WA, in early 2006, claiming to have been an Army Ranger who served in Iraq. Among other things, he claimed to have killed more than 200 people, many at close range, some as they prayed in a mosque. "They would actually feel the hot muzzle of my rifle on their forehead," he said in one video interview, "We would burn their bodies...hang their bodies from the rafters in the mosque." He claimed to have been awarded a Purple Heart, and to have been discharged because he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. If you want to know more about his claims of atrocities, just do an Internet search on his name.

This video, and his comments, were not just used in this country - they were broadcast across the Arab world, where they were no doubt used as a recruiting tool by Al Qaeda and other groups to inflame the passions of people who are trying to kill our genuine soldiers who, whether they agree with the President or not, are honorably attempting to carry out their mission. But none of it was true. MacBeth washed out after six weeks of basic training. He was never an Army Ranger. He was never in Iraq. He never killed anyone. He never witnessed the atrocities he claimed to have seen and helped to perpetrate. In June of this year he was convicted of filing a bogus claim for VA benefits that included a falsified military-discharge form. You can read the article in the Seattle Times here.

Once the lies were exposed, the anti-war crowd took down the videos and stopped distributing them. Funny, though, but I don't remember anyone apologizing for the episode. And, internationally, the damage was done. Somehow I doubt that Al Jazeera was interested in publishing a retraction.

There have been phony soldiers around for a long time. Heck, one of the guys who was arrested in Operation Stolen Valor was an 83-year-old who falsely claimed to have been shot down while a pilot in World War II. Korean War, Vietnam War, you name it, we've had scammers who made false claims of military service to defraud the government - and by "the government," by the way, I mean you and me. The government doesn't have any money of its own, all it has is ours. But here's what makes events like the Jessie MacBeth episode so insidious: The liberals in this country are so eager to get anything that they can use to discredit George Bush and his policies that when something comes along that fits their preconceived notions, they rush to embrace it without bothering to find out whether it's actually true. It confirms what they already believe, so it must be true. That's what cost Dan Rather his job at CBS News. And that's what made an anti-war poster boy out of phony soldier Jessie MacBeth.

By the way, Mark Mays wrote a very respectful letter back to Harry Reid. You might want to read it, too. You can find it here. He was a lot nicer than I would have been in his place. What I'd like to know from Senator Reid and the forty other Democrats who signed his letter is this: If you're going to waste our time and money publicly attacking someone for being disrespectful to our troops, why don't you direct your ire at someone who slandered every honorable man and woman serving in our military and whose lies were used to inflame our enemies and probably contributed directly to additional U.S. casualties? Someone like, oh, I don't know, Jessie MacBeth?

Thanks for listening.

P.S.: To our own Senator Patty Murray of Washington, who was one of the 41 signatories: you should be ashamed of yourself.