The faux-controversy over a generated non-story
I wasn't going to wade into this because as far as we're concerned this is a non-story. I'm speaking of the contrived, mock outrage on the Left over a statement taken completely out of context which was uttered by Rush Limbaugh. Over at NRO Andy McCarthy weighs in on this phony, liberally-contrived non-scandal:
There really was a news story, generated by the mainstream media of all people, about phony soldiers — poseurs who falsely claim to have put their lives on the line in our country’s armed forces, at least some of whom engage the pretense precisely to libel real heroes as terrorists and marauders.
Rush Limbaugh, one of this nation’s single-most ardent supporters of the military, was briefed on the news story by his staff and was, unsurprisingly, offended by it.Rush alluded to the said phony soldiers during his hugely successful daily radio broadcast, prompted by what he reasonably believed was a caller’s reference to it.
As a result, he is being castigated for dishonoring authentic troops in a trumped up controversy generated by Media Matters — a left-wing propaganda machine with pockets lined by left-wing activists. The charge is being led by top Democrats who, when not busy defending other top Democrats for smearing our troops as “reminiscent of Genghis Khan,” terrorists, murderers, and comparable to “Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings,” fall mute when the vanguard of their hard-left base, MoveOn.org (abetted by the New York Times), describes the general heroically leading our forces in Iraq a traitor.
And this is a story?
It's not a story. It's payback. Let's face facts here. Rush has the largest radio audience across America. And that audience is at the grass-roots level of political activism. This was proven with the killing of the shamnesty bill. Talk radio took the lead, and the 'Sphere picked it up and ran it even further. But with this story the Left has decided they're going to try and take him down over this.
Folks, he was referring to phony soldiers like Jesse MacBeth (who has been charged for defrauding the Veteran's Administration). These are people who think they can skate by on a lie, and poor Jesse forgot that milbloggers could debunk him (and did debunk him) in a matter of minutes. Rush has been abroad with the troops. Were there any animus he had towards the troops, that would have been exposed then. There is no dislike in his body towards any soldiers serving.
This is revenge on the Left because of how bad of a beating MoveOn.numbnuts is taking over their idiotic New York Times ad that slandered General Petraeus. Rush led the way over that ad, and prompted listeners to raise a stink over it. It became a bigger problem for the Left when Democrats refused to sign onto a non-binding condemnation of MoveOn.numbnuts.
The Left is ticked that Rush, and conservatives in general, have beaten the snot out of the liberal group that slandered our commanding general in Iraq. They picked up a singular comment, taken completely out of context (as the Left often does) that was factual and correct. There are phony soldiers that try to make people believe that they have served, have committed crimes in the field, and try to play the "absolute moral authority card" to silence critics when they're caught in their own web of lies. It doesn't work normally, and it's not working now. Furthermore, Tom Harkin should know better than to play this game as he lied about his own service record, and was outed on that subject. Members of his staff went so far as to delete those references from his Wiki bio.
People may say that there aren't nearly as many phony vets and soldiers as others claim, but the Wall Street Journal did a story on this phenomenon back on 6 May 2005. In that piece they observed the following:
The Department of Veterans Affairs will prosecute only those military impostors who try to register for veterans' benefits. Law enforcement lacks the resources to investigate all but the most aggravated situations; as a result, the law that led to Mr. Carlson's arrest is rarely enforced. At the same time, military discharge papers and Purple Hearts can be bought on eBay by the dozen.
Concerned with a burgeoning army of dissemblers, actual veterans and other are turning to the Internet to stop the fakers in their tracks. POWnetwork.org, HomeOfHeroes.com, AuthentiSEAL.org and VeriSEAL.org, among other Web sites, provide concerned citizens with a free investigation into a person's military status. AuthentiSEAL.org and VeriSEAL.org neither solicit nor accept funds. POWnetwork.org and HomeOfHeroes.com both have some sponsors but the vast majority of their funding comes out of their founders' own pockets. None of them make a profit from their endeavors.
Once a fibber is detected by these sites, the jig is up. The investigators have no enforcement power of their own, but they will contact employers, family members, news organizations and even the federal government about the alleged phony. In some cases the fraudsters' personal information along with a photo will be posted on the Web.
AuthentiSEAL.org, which investigates and reveals questionable Navy Seals, says it has exposed nearly 20,000 false ones since its launch in 2000 and currently receives about 20 to 50 inquiries per day; over 99.5% of the leads reveal an imposter, the group says. Inquirers range from a woman curious if her new boyfriend is a real Seal, to contractors in Iraq checking on a job applicant.
"As long as the military is held in high repute, people will co-opt it for their own personal gain," says former Navy Seal William S. "Moose" Robinson, author of the self-published "No Guts No Glory: Unmasking Navy SEAL Impostors."
Mr. Robinson, a 54-year-old blacksmith in Forsyth, Mo., served as a volunteer investigator for AuthentiSEAL.org, a nonprofit Web site that investigates and reveals phony Seals. "Falsely claiming to be a Seal is a direct insult to the veterans we've lost," he says.
This is why we're offended by how the Left is working this issue. As readers know, Marcie's brother serves in the Army as a Ranger in Afghanistan. Phony soldiers are about as common as dogs being walked in a park. (If I had a dollar for all the phony vets I've met, I'd be a millionaire by now.) They may do it as a scam to obtain benefits (like Jesse MacBeth) that they don't deserve. Or they could be doing it to make a name for themselves, and give the government a black eye (like Jimmy Massey).
The Left claims that Rush is the one smearing soldiers here. No, it's them and their enablers, and they're doing a grave disservice in this leftist, media-driven faux controversy. The Left dislikes the military and there's no way they can spin it otherwise. They're open and exposed, just like the faux-vets they hail as "patriots" and "heroes." The Left has none of their own, so they have to latch onto these guys (we call the ones we run into in chatrooms as "keyboard kommandoes") to show that they "support" the troops. They don't support them. They support scam artists and liars.
Publius II
There really was a news story, generated by the mainstream media of all people, about phony soldiers — poseurs who falsely claim to have put their lives on the line in our country’s armed forces, at least some of whom engage the pretense precisely to libel real heroes as terrorists and marauders.
Rush Limbaugh, one of this nation’s single-most ardent supporters of the military, was briefed on the news story by his staff and was, unsurprisingly, offended by it.Rush alluded to the said phony soldiers during his hugely successful daily radio broadcast, prompted by what he reasonably believed was a caller’s reference to it.
As a result, he is being castigated for dishonoring authentic troops in a trumped up controversy generated by Media Matters — a left-wing propaganda machine with pockets lined by left-wing activists. The charge is being led by top Democrats who, when not busy defending other top Democrats for smearing our troops as “reminiscent of Genghis Khan,” terrorists, murderers, and comparable to “Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings,” fall mute when the vanguard of their hard-left base, MoveOn.org (abetted by the New York Times), describes the general heroically leading our forces in Iraq a traitor.
And this is a story?
It's not a story. It's payback. Let's face facts here. Rush has the largest radio audience across America. And that audience is at the grass-roots level of political activism. This was proven with the killing of the shamnesty bill. Talk radio took the lead, and the 'Sphere picked it up and ran it even further. But with this story the Left has decided they're going to try and take him down over this.
Folks, he was referring to phony soldiers like Jesse MacBeth (who has been charged for defrauding the Veteran's Administration). These are people who think they can skate by on a lie, and poor Jesse forgot that milbloggers could debunk him (and did debunk him) in a matter of minutes. Rush has been abroad with the troops. Were there any animus he had towards the troops, that would have been exposed then. There is no dislike in his body towards any soldiers serving.
This is revenge on the Left because of how bad of a beating MoveOn.numbnuts is taking over their idiotic New York Times ad that slandered General Petraeus. Rush led the way over that ad, and prompted listeners to raise a stink over it. It became a bigger problem for the Left when Democrats refused to sign onto a non-binding condemnation of MoveOn.numbnuts.
The Left is ticked that Rush, and conservatives in general, have beaten the snot out of the liberal group that slandered our commanding general in Iraq. They picked up a singular comment, taken completely out of context (as the Left often does) that was factual and correct. There are phony soldiers that try to make people believe that they have served, have committed crimes in the field, and try to play the "absolute moral authority card" to silence critics when they're caught in their own web of lies. It doesn't work normally, and it's not working now. Furthermore, Tom Harkin should know better than to play this game as he lied about his own service record, and was outed on that subject. Members of his staff went so far as to delete those references from his Wiki bio.
People may say that there aren't nearly as many phony vets and soldiers as others claim, but the Wall Street Journal did a story on this phenomenon back on 6 May 2005. In that piece they observed the following:
The Department of Veterans Affairs will prosecute only those military impostors who try to register for veterans' benefits. Law enforcement lacks the resources to investigate all but the most aggravated situations; as a result, the law that led to Mr. Carlson's arrest is rarely enforced. At the same time, military discharge papers and Purple Hearts can be bought on eBay by the dozen.
Concerned with a burgeoning army of dissemblers, actual veterans and other are turning to the Internet to stop the fakers in their tracks. POWnetwork.org, HomeOfHeroes.com, AuthentiSEAL.org and VeriSEAL.org, among other Web sites, provide concerned citizens with a free investigation into a person's military status. AuthentiSEAL.org and VeriSEAL.org neither solicit nor accept funds. POWnetwork.org and HomeOfHeroes.com both have some sponsors but the vast majority of their funding comes out of their founders' own pockets. None of them make a profit from their endeavors.
Once a fibber is detected by these sites, the jig is up. The investigators have no enforcement power of their own, but they will contact employers, family members, news organizations and even the federal government about the alleged phony. In some cases the fraudsters' personal information along with a photo will be posted on the Web.
AuthentiSEAL.org, which investigates and reveals questionable Navy Seals, says it has exposed nearly 20,000 false ones since its launch in 2000 and currently receives about 20 to 50 inquiries per day; over 99.5% of the leads reveal an imposter, the group says. Inquirers range from a woman curious if her new boyfriend is a real Seal, to contractors in Iraq checking on a job applicant.
"As long as the military is held in high repute, people will co-opt it for their own personal gain," says former Navy Seal William S. "Moose" Robinson, author of the self-published "No Guts No Glory: Unmasking Navy SEAL Impostors."
Mr. Robinson, a 54-year-old blacksmith in Forsyth, Mo., served as a volunteer investigator for AuthentiSEAL.org, a nonprofit Web site that investigates and reveals phony Seals. "Falsely claiming to be a Seal is a direct insult to the veterans we've lost," he says.
This is why we're offended by how the Left is working this issue. As readers know, Marcie's brother serves in the Army as a Ranger in Afghanistan. Phony soldiers are about as common as dogs being walked in a park. (If I had a dollar for all the phony vets I've met, I'd be a millionaire by now.) They may do it as a scam to obtain benefits (like Jesse MacBeth) that they don't deserve. Or they could be doing it to make a name for themselves, and give the government a black eye (like Jimmy Massey).
The Left claims that Rush is the one smearing soldiers here. No, it's them and their enablers, and they're doing a grave disservice in this leftist, media-driven faux controversy. The Left dislikes the military and there's no way they can spin it otherwise. They're open and exposed, just like the faux-vets they hail as "patriots" and "heroes." The Left has none of their own, so they have to latch onto these guys (we call the ones we run into in chatrooms as "keyboard kommandoes") to show that they "support" the troops. They don't support them. They support scam artists and liars.
Publius II
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 4:32 PM
1 Comments:
How in the world do you get one of these groups, who obviously has enlisted in the name calling fictioously of imposters when the veteran is NOT an imposter, to stop their Macarthy era tactics?
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