When right-wing radio hosts are completely bereft of constructive ideas, and when they’re no longer able to persuade their listeners with true statements, they fall back on slander and misrepresentations of the truth, also known as "lies." Let’s take Rush Limbaugh and me for example:
I thought that invading Iraq was a reckless idea in late 2002 and early 2003—especially considering that the job wasn’t finished in Afghanistan. But I went anyway.
Rush, on the other hand, felt otherwise. This is from August 2002:
As New Yorkers prepare to commemorate the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh is addressing the notion of an American assault on Iraq timed for Sept. 11 of this year.
"I think it would be fabulous," Limbaugh said during his national broadcast yesterday. "I think a 9-11 act on Saddam ... you talk about getting this country up!"
But needless to say, for all his cheerleading, Rush didn’t have to go fight in Iraq like many of us did.
Because I know Rush has said things like this in the past, and because I know he’s in some way responsible for helping to shape public opinion in a way that enabled George W. Bush to start his war, Rush doesn’t like me. But rather than have me (or Jon Soltz or Brian McGough) on his show to debate it, he insists on continuing his attack.
After right-wing radio host Rusty Humphries had me on his show last week, Rusty immediately gave the audio to Rush Limbaugh, who scoured it diligently for any nugget that could incriminate me and my motives, or those of VoteVets.org. When Rush couldn’t find one, he just decided to doctor the audio of the transcript in such a way that it changed the meaning of something I said. Because he has trouble fooling people with the truth, he tried to make me look malicious. It’s the same thing he did with the "phony soldiers" affair, as captured by Media Matters. And it’s a pattern. What results is a really fascinating piece chock full of nonsense. Here is the transcript from Rush’s show:
RUSH: I got one more sound bite here from Brandon Friedman, who was on Rusty Humphries' show last night, which airs nine to midnight Eastern time. Humphries does most of the talking in this bite. Brandon Friedman pipes in at the end.
(plays audio)
HUMPHRIES: Again, he talked about this Jesse MacBeth the day before, he talked about him on that show, the day of the show, the day after the show. He's explained himself and still you're going to continue, and you support what Harry Reid said, taking this out of context? Come on, Brandon, that's not fair. That's not right. I could take what you said out of context. I mean this guy explained, and explained, and explained, and you're still spreading these lies, saying that he called a soldier a suicide bomber? And what about Tom Harkin? Do you think it was okay for Tom Harkin to accuse Rush Limbaugh to be on drugs?
FRIEDMAN: Yeah, maybe it's not appropriate for the Senate floor, but it's true.
RUSH: I granted an interview to the Palm Beach Post on Wednesday night, and it was published in the Palm Beach Post today. Somebody over at the pretrial diversion office let a reporter see -- I have to fill out a monthly report to the pretrial diversion office that ends, by the way, this is the last month of it, this will be 18 months. The form asks a bunch of personal questions, information, name, address, phone number, you gotta put it down every month, the e-mail address, how much you earn during the month, and you have to testify whether you've used illegal drugs, this sort of thing. I've had monthly drug tests that are performed, passed them all, have not even been tempted. I told the guy at the newspaper, Jose Lambiet, never been tempted to go back to it. Story today opens, "Sorry, Tom Harkin, Rush Limbaugh is not on drugs." The proof comes from the State of Florida.
So here we have Brandon Friedman -- play this bite again. He thinks it's totally true what Tom Harkin said. It was just inappropriate where Harkin said...
(replaying of Humphries sound bite)
That's Brandon Friedman of VoteVets.org. So, look, these people have been caught in a big lie, they've admitted it themselves. Now they've admitted their own ignorance, their own prejudice, and their own bias, and this is one of the two groups behind this smear that's now in its ninth day. They've been totally exposed and discredited for who they are and what their purpose was. I want to thank Rusty Humphries for making this audio available to me this morning.
Unfortunately for Rush, I too have the actual audio of what was said. Rush conveniently cut me off mid-sentence in his transcript in order to change the meaning of what I was saying. This is the complete sentence from the transcript, with alternate ending:
FRIEDMAN: "Well, I don’t think it was appropriate for the senate floor, but it’s true, I mean, he did have a drug problem and made some nasty remarks about people who had drug problems, so he’s a bit of a hypocrite."
So that’s what they do. Can’t find the right sound bite? Just cut off a sentence halfway through. Now, I’d love to be able to laugh off people like Rush as uneducated, inexperienced tough guy desk jockeys with microphones, but the problem here is real. These people command the hearts and minds of large segments of America. In fact, you can read the hateful, mindless comments of Rush’s listeners here, here, and here. It’s really good stuff.
But this goes beyond simple manipulation of audio transcripts (as important as that may be). There is an overarching problem here. These people who argue so vociferously for war are not only deceitful, but they’re completely unqualified to speak on war or foreign policy with any authority. And that makes them doubly dangerous.
First off, we have to understand that Rush Limbaugh and his ilk peddle in cheerleading. They play on listeners’ fantasies and they do it well. They deliberately whip people into pro-war frenzies, and they do this effortlessly because it costs them nothing. No blood. No sweat. No agonizing life or death decisions. They don’t have to go fight it. And because most people live normal lives, there’s a demand for this excitement. Rush and his peers just exploit it.
The problem lies in the fact that neither Rush (who is a draft dodger) nor most of his contemporaries know anything of war or terrorism, much less Arabs, Persians, and Islam. And this is of immense importance. Because when you cheerlead for war (which is A Very Important Undertaking), you have a responsibility to be right. You have a responsibility to get your facts straight. When you influence large swaths of the American population, you simply have an obligation to be truthful—that is, unless you just don’t care how your actions affect real people.
So to show you how these people have absolutely no interest in the truth, despite the disastrous path down which they’ve led this country, we can look at the show I did with Rusty Humphries last week—the show from which Rush plucked his sound bites. But first, allow me to introduce you to Rusty:
Right-wing radio talk show host Rusty Humphries is one of Rush’s buddies. If you’re not familiar with him, Rusty is well known for his musical CD, "Thank Allah I’m a Jihad Boy," in which he lumps Arabs, Muslims, and terrorists all together and then parodies them. In the CD, Rusty presents us with an example of someone who tries to humorously dismiss the Muslim world as a monolithic land of terrorists. For Rusty, it’s easier than trying to understand real people, real cultures, and real motivations.
Rusty is the type of guy who makes light of the situation because he’s too ignorant to understand it. He laughs at that which he does not understand, all the while never realizing that his cheerleading has led this country into an intractable war in which real people are really getting maimed and killed. But Rusty doesn’t see this. Rusty just wants to make fun of it. He does this loudly and with much chickenhawk bravado because it’s a way to hide the fact that he doesn’t really understand what this conflict is all about. For instance, Rusty doesn’t even know the difference Wahhabist Sunni Muslims and non-Wahhabist Sunni Muslims. It came up in his interview of me last week. You can listen to the audio of the exchange here, or read the transcript below:
FRIEDMAN: The Iraqi government has never gotten along with the Saudis, you know, in the recent past and Osama bin Laden has always been linked to Saudi Wahhabism. . .
HUMPHRIES: Well, I mean he was kicked out of Saudi Arabia. I mean they didn’t want him there.
FRIEDMAN: Well, by the government, but—
HUMPHRIES: Right.
FRIEDMAN: But I mean his, his brand of extremist Islam is Wahhabism and that comes from Saudi Arabia—
HUMPHRIES: But we also know, we also know when it comes to extremist Muslims, when it’s Muslims against us, they don’t care about Shi’a and Sunni and Wahhabee-ism. They put that junk aside because they direct their hatred towards us. It’s only until we’re gone that that stuff kicks in.
FRIEDMAN: That’s not true. Uh, al Qaeda is a Sunni terrorist organization. Al Qaeda is strictly Sunni, uh—
HUMPHRIES: Wa-, Wa-, Wait a second—
FRIEDMAN: And then you have the Iranians on the other hand who don’t work with al Qaeda.
HUMPHRIES: Wait, well you just said, but you just said that Osama bin Laden was Wahhabi.
FRIEDMAN: That’s a, that’s a, that’s a type of Sunni Islam. That’s a sect of Sunni Islam.
HUMPHRIES: Right. . .right. You were separating the. . .okay. . .mhmm. . . .
Now, for most people, this isn’t such an important distinction--whether one is an Arab or Persian, Sunni or Shi'a, or Wahhabi or Salafist. But when you’re in the business of advocating for war with Arabs, you have a responsibility to educate yourself—even if you find it hard or time-consuming. It’s that whole "Know your enemy" thing. Because when chickenhawks cheerlead for wars with cultures about which they know nothing, bad things happen.
This is why the spotlight has to be positioned on these guys day after day. They’re not only attempting to manipulate Americans, but they’re ignorant as well. Mix that in with some charisma, and America has a problem.
Stay classy, Rush and Rusty.