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Oct. 2, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:25
October 2, 2007, Tuesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 247 podcast.
The views expressed by the host on this program make more sense than anything anybody else out there happens to be saying, and that's because the views expressed by the host on this program are now documented to be almost always right.
98.8% of the time we have gone up one-tenth of a percentage point my accuracy rating in the last three days.
Ladies and gentlemen, greetings, nice to have you.
Rush Limbaugh, once again, behind a golden EIB microphone, three hours of broadcast excellence straight ahead.com.
Now I know there are two schools of thought.
I've I've read some of your emails out there, and there are two schools of thought uh being expressed on the uh the whole situation with me, a private citizen being castigated and denounced on the floor of the U.S. Senate by the Senate majority leader.
Also the subject of a House resolution, a private citizen.
Uh me, denounced by Democrats on the floor of the House, and these resolutions are demanding that others condemn me and that I apologize for something that never happened and didn't and I didn't say.
The two schools of thought are ignore it, Rush, don't let them distract you, don't let them divert you.
Folks, they cannot distract me and they cannot divert me, and I'm not going to let this slide.
Tom Harkin was pathetic.
Uh, feel like apologizing to his family yesterday for what he said yesterday on the on the floor of the Senate.
Such a uh demeaning thing that he did, and so below the decorum and the stature one would associate with the United States Senate.
But that's who these people have come.
What uh what Harry Reed and Tom Harkin are doing is predictable.
Uh, it's what all leaders of all top-down repressive movements do.
They find ways to rile up and distract their dissatisfied, disaffected, and disappointed followers.
It's a convenient and non-substantive way to stay in power.
After all, Harry Reed and Tom Harkin and all the other Democrats have failed miserably to come through what their elected uh what their supporters have demanded of them, and that is to end the Iraq war and bring the tubes home.
So they have to distract from their own failures.
Their general betrayus ad was an absolute disaster.
They need to change the subject.
They need to try to redeem themselves after that disaster, and they do so by focusing on me, because they know that their lunatic fringe base hates me.
And if anybody is being distracted, ladies and gentlemen, it's the Democrat base.
The Democrat base is being distracted from noticing the abject failure of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to deliver on what their supporters considered their mandate to be following the November 06 elections.
Congress approval rating under Harry Reid Nancy Pelosi is at an historic low.
It's about 11%.
They have not secured America's defeat, as was the implied bargain with their hard left fanatics.
Now, these grassroots kooks on the left got so mad about that very thing they took out an ad in the New York Times smearing General Petraeus.
They took matters into their own hands.
So what now does Harry Reed do?
What is Tom Phony war hero Harkin do?
What do I mean by that?
He lied about being in Vietnam in combat.
What do they do?
They smear me in hopes of distracting their base, their angry, jilted, destructive base.
Which is cynical, my friends.
The assumption is that there will be people out there who will take the bait.
Now, this goes on in the Middle East all the time.
What do you think?
Death to America, death to America, death to Satan is all about.
It's all about distracting the miserable people in the Middle East from the horrible, squalid economic circumstances in which they live in order to get hatred ginned up against a supposed reason for their squalor and hatred, the United States of America.
So the mullahs in Iran and the uh the Zawaheris and so forth organize marches.
The President of the United States Is burned in effigy, and for a while the masses are distracted.
This is what I call repressive governing 101.
And it's exactly what Harry Reed and Tom Harkin have engaged in.
They are not seeking the truth.
They are buying time for themselves.
They are making me a distraction from their horrendous approval ratings and their failures to do anything as far as legislation beyond naming some buildings.
Oh, and a minimum wage.
Repressive regimes never succeed in the long term, not with without lies, propaganda, and an angry following.
And when things go south on them, the propaganda arm of the thugocracy moves into high gear, which is what's happened now.
The left, ladies and gentlemen, is imploding.
They are fixated on taking down anyone and anything in the process.
Me, General Petraeus, anybody they think stands in the way of their ascension to the White House and their further consolidation of power.
They are Stalinist like.
Anybody who says something that they don't want to hear that they don't like must be officially condemned by the state publicly.
Even private citizens who get in their way in the free market must be condemned, must be smeared, must be lied about.
Achmadinejad in Iran, no different.
He needs the great Satan to hang on to control there.
Harry Reed needs to do the same thing.
Both men, Ahmadinezad and Harry Reed have been disappointments, miserable failures to the people they claim to lead.
Both of them are in trouble, and their publicity stunts prove it.
I think this Harry Reed move was boneheaded.
It was not smart.
It was unwise.
And the thing that we ought to demand here is that Harry Reed step down and resign as the leader of the Democrats in the Senate for his constant, uncontrollable contempt of our armed forces, his repeated use of our troops for political purposes.
Harry Reed has failed in his mission to lead the Democrats in the Senate to get what they want.
He's the one who should step down.
He is the one who is dishonoring the troops.
He is the one who is making a mockery of their service.
We've got the sound bites coming up later in the program to document all of this.
I would also like to point out that yesterday I issued an invitation to Senator Reed to come on the program and say what he said in that resolution or letter that he read on the floor of the Senate yesterday afternoon.
Come here and say those things to my face.
You're more than welcome.
Democrats are constantly saying they don't have a chance in conservative talk radio because consolidation has frozen them out and they need the fairness doctrine for equal time.
Senator, I offer you equal time yesterday, I offer you equal time today.
Come on the program, say those things to my face, and let's discuss this.
You are more than welcome to come to the EIB studios behind our golden EIB microphone and tell me whatever you want to tell me about what you think I said.
You're more than welcome here.
We do not freeze liberals out.
We welcome them when they want to come on and discuss things openly and honestly.
I would like to point out Senator Reed and his long, sorry record of abandoning the troops on the battlefield.
What do you think fifty-five resolutions to bring the troops home since they took office in January of this year is about?
It's about defeat.
It was about destroying this presidency.
It was about using the U.S. military to advance his own party's political fortunes.
That's why I say the military are political pawns.
Our hero troops are mere pawns on the chess board that they're playing.
Harry Reed challenged my patriotism yesterday.
He did so openly and blatantly on the force on the floor of the United States Senate.
I don't know who his sources are.
Well, I do know Media Matters for America.
It's the Democrats are constantly caterwalling, complaining and whining and moaning about their patriotism being challenged.
And we've always said that when their patriotism is being challenged, it's actually their judgment, but I have said in the recent past, I don't know, sometimes how we cannot question their patriotism, given that they have sought the defeat of their own country.
In the war on terror and the war in Iraq.
They themselves, folks, are undermining the troops on the battlefield with their words and their votes, vote after vote demanding that we surrender, vote after vote condemning the mission.
Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Dick Durbin, Tom Harkin, Jack Murpha, others smearing our troops in words and deeds.
We should all be indignant about this.
Every one of us who love this country should be outraged at the things these Democrats have said, the things that they have tried to do.
And it is laughable to watch them now try to redeem themselves as supporters of the United States military.
After months and months and months of proclaiming the surge of failure, after calling General Petraeus essentially a liar before he had said a word before them when he came to issue the report they required on the effects of the surge.
The surge is working.
Had we listened to Harry Reed, the number of deaths in Iraq, both American and Iraqi would be sky high today compared to the death toll that is plummeting compared to a year ago.
Look what they did to one of their own, ladies and gentlemen, Joe Lieberman.
Look what they did to Joe simply because he supports the United States in the war on terror and the war in Iraq.
They destroyed him.
They tried to destroy him.
They tried to destroy his career simply because he supported the troops.
Zell Miller parted with the Democrats over the war, first and foremost, they treated him like a pariah.
Now there's a group out there called Vote Vets.
I think it's a subsidiary of MoveOn.org.
They are running an ad starting today in selected places.
I'll tell you about it, and it's a shame how they are using some valiant troops in their in their uh mission here to try to redeem themselves, the anti-war movement attempting now to come off as pro-military.
It's sad and laughable at the same time.
Brief timeout, we will continue after this on the EIB network.
Stay with us.
Well, look what just cleared the wires, uh, ladies and gentlemen from our buddies and associated press, Democrats, proposed tax surcharge for war.
Democrats on Tuesday proposed an income tax surcharge to finance the 150 billion dollar annual cost of operations in Iraq, saying it's unfair to pass the cost of the war onto future generations.
This is bogus.
This is simply a way to defund it.
Because listen, the plan unveiled by David Obey, Democrat Wisconsin, Jack Murpha, Democrat Pennsylvania, Jim McGovern, Democrat Massachusetts, would require low and middle income taxpayers to add two percent to their tax bill.
Wealthier people would pay an additional twelve to fifteen percent.
Now, this is gonna get vetoed if it ever goes anywhere.
The purpose of this, by the way, Obi announced that Democrats will not pass a supplemental spending bill for the Iraq war until next year, when Democrats hope public pressure could force Bush to change the course of the war.
Obi, you better make up your mind because your buddies Tom Harkin and Harry Reed are trying to make it sound like they're the biggest patriots on the face of the earth right now, supporting the troops and all that.
You still want to end the war and a tax increase on poor and middle class uh Americans to pay for it so it's not paid for by future generations.
I saw Dick Durbin on the floor of the Senate today, almost in tears, reciting the stories of a couple heroes from Illinois who uh died as heroes in Iraq, and then said, Mr. President, we must end this and get these troops home and safe.
I'm paraphrasing as quickly as we can.
So yesterday, they were all about making themselves out to be these big patriots, supporting the troops and so forth, and today they're back trying to do what they can to end the war to keep their disaffected base happy.
So here's what's happened.
Vote Vets.org has uh they described themselves as an organization comprised of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns who oppose current policy in Iraq.
They put together a TV ad that takes aim at me.
This ad's going to run on Fox News on CNN, it's gonna run on WMAL Radio in Washington, $60,000 ad by, and it's gonna run uh, I think on our local uh West Palm Beach station down here.
And there is a man identified as Brian McCoff, uh McGoffitt's M C G O U U G H not sure how he pronounces it, Mago, McGough.
Uh I haven't watched the uh the ad.
He discusses his service in Iraq, the wounds he suffered there, and he says to me in this ad, until you have the guts to call me a phony soldier to my face, stop telling lies about my service.
You know, this is such a blatant use of a valiant combat veteran, lying to him about what I said.
Then strapping those lies to his belt, sending him out via the media and a TV ad to walk into as many people as he can walk into.
This man will always be a hero to this country, with everyone.
Whoever pumped him full of these lies about what I said and embarrassed him with this ad has betrayed him.
They're not hurting me, they're betraying this soldier.
Now, unless he actually believes what he's saying, in which case it's just so unfortunate and sad when the truth of what I said is right out there to be learned.
So here's how this works, though, folks.
Move on.org is exposed with the portrayus ed.
Then Media Matters comes to their defense.
By the way, Hillary Clinton, we have the audio soundbite, Mrs. Clinton told the Yearly Cause Convention, she started Media Matters.
She helped start and support Media Matters for America.
And I've had many people say, Rush, you can't prove that Hillary's involved in yes, I she admitted it.
On August 6th of this year.
In fact, play the soundbite.
It's uh number 16.
This is from my show, August 6th of this year.
Clinton, we have several sound bites here.
We are certainly uh better prepared and more focused on taking our arguments and making them effective and disseminating them widely and really putting together a network uh in the block sphere in a lot of the new uh progressive infrastructure uh institutions that I helped to start and support, like Media Matters and Center for American Progress.
You know, we're beginning to match.
So there that's it, that's it.
Mrs. Clinton admits starting media matters.
What does that mean?
It means what I've always told you.
Media matters is a group oriented toward advancing the cause of Hillary Clinton and getting in the way and stopping anybody who opposes Mrs. Clinton's quest to become president of the United States, and that's why they exist, and she just admitted it.
And yet the drive-by media willingly accepts what this group says without question, as gospel and as fact.
So essentially the drive-by media, when they use Media Matters.org furnished material, is actually listening and accepting press releases disguised as news reports from the Clinton presidential campaign.
It's just that simple.
So move on.org's exposed.
Media Matters, who we've exposed now, comes to their defense.
Then the liberal media regurgitate Media Matters talking points.
The Congressional Democrats then cite to the media, and now the anti-war groups run ads like this vote vets group, full circle.
And as they keep this up, they reveal themselves to more and more people.
They reveal their technique, they reveal their agenda, and they reveal how corrupt they all are.
So here is Harry Reid.
I extend to him an invitation yesterday to come on this program.
I extend it to him again today.
Harry Reed relies on others.
A vote vets group, move on.org, whatever, to make his case rather than come on the show like a man as I invited him yesterday.
I did not extend an invitation to Mr. Clough, glove, McGluff, whatever his name is.
I extended the invitation to Harry Reid.
And if Harry Reid wants to accept the invitation, fine and dandy.
If he doesn't, it'll be quite telling.
But you can you can make much of uh of this.
Now the entire Hillary Democrat Soros machine is aimed at me.
Because they have to do something to placate their base to distract them.
They have to do something to recover from the disaster that was the betrayus ad.
In truth, folks, This really isn't about me personally, although it sounds like it, it's about them.
And they are trying desperately to salvage themselves with their own lunatic fringe base, who they not only are disappointing, they are deceiving.
Because the dirty little secret, as I also predicted, was that if the Democrats win the White House in 08, they're not pulling out of Iraq.
All the top-tier presidential candidates have said so.
That has caused some blowback too.
Time to distract those uh peasants with pitchforks out there who are fit to be tied over being betrayed by Harry Reed, Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of the Democrats.
I'm up to their challenge, even though it's not about me.
Look, nothing they say or throw this way will work, nothing they say or throw this way will in any way prevent me from speaking the truth about them.
All they're doing is exposing themselves.
Their connections to one another, how corrupt they are, how illegitimate they are as genuine news sources, and they are infuriating this audience and tens of millions of Americans who see them for what they are more clearly each day.
You know, it's sad to um be told, ladies and gentlemen, by a wounded vet returning from theater that I have challenged his legitimacy and his heroism and his service and called him phony when no such thing has ever been said.
I really don't even want to accept the premise of this because that would mean it necessary to defend it, and there's nothing to defend here because this is a smear and a false charge.
And I've been to Walter Reed.
I have the uh amputee rehab unit.
I have been to basis combat bases in Afghanistan on troop visits.
Uh, raised millions of dollars and donated a lot to the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation.
Uh to have these people lied to like this is just shameless on the part of the people who are lying.
And what's happening with all this, folks, I must tell you that uh people say, Rush, what have you accomplished?
Well, I mean, what's left to accomplish?
Why do you keep doing this?
You don't need to do this, folks.
This stuff energizes me.
They are energizing me, they are energizing conservatives throughout the country in ways that they don't even understand.
They are underscoring for the 1,000th time to our military and civilians alike how they abuse and lie about our soldiers and lie to them.
Uh folks, I am I am more energized and focused on the task of advancing liberty and victory than ever before.
I am more energized and focused on the task of defeating Harry Reed, Nancy Pelosi, and Hillary Clinton than ever before.
I will not rest.
I'm not going to stop until they are exposed, until they are pushed back and defeated.
They must not control our government.
They must not be put in charge of our military.
They must not gain the power they crave to shut down talk radio and free speech wherever they don't like it.
They must not control anything in which our future is at stake.
Let me add another point about all this.
It has not gone unnoticed here that only a handful of Republicans and conservatives have dared to speak up about what has been taking place here.
I see it.
Doesn't I mean I most of them think I can handle these things on my own and so forth, but there's a fear out there.
The fear and the weakness that permeates the Republican Party, and even parts of the conservative movement is also on display now, as it has been for too long.
We've talked about it at length on this program and on many occasions.
It's this fear and the weakness that you, members of the base of the conservative movement, the Republican Party, are sick and tired of.
And I am too.
And I was thinking about this last night.
I have a theory to advance.
Where are the Bill Buckleys of today who dared take on Whitaker, or join up with Whitaker Chambers?
That was gutsy.
Okay.
Whitaker Chambers, a defector from the Communist Party.
Where are these great they aren't around?
And I I my theory is that all these new blogs and all this new cable TV and all this media has actually not been helpful to our side.
I don't want to mention any names, but it is it is apparent to me that many on our side are far more interested in image, reputation, getting Time on television just to get time on television rather than being focused on a movement, the issues, if you will.
People who used to be of substance have lost some of the substance and have now are focused on being media stars, focused on being on television, and I think it's been detrimental.
And there is a fear that if they take on anything controversial, say defend something that's happening out there to somebody, that they will be associated with the smear, and they'd rather not be associated with the smear, so they leave it alone.
Which is understandable if you understand motives and reasons, and it doesn't, it doesn't bother me.
I'm just passing this off to you because you and I talk on this program constantly.
Where are the Republicans?
Where are the conservatives?
Where are they where are they not r where are they not responding?
Well, they don't want to defend President Bush because they're afraid they'll be tarred and feathered just like him if they do.
And this extends not just to elected Republicans, but also people in the media, who have their own little turf staked out and happy with what they've got, and they've got their TV appearances, and they want to hold on to those.
And they don't want controversy swirling around them.
So they, you know, hunker down and let these things play out as they might.
It's easier that way, and there's less opposition.
But what are we conservatives about?
We're about liberty.
We are about country.
We are about faith.
We are about loyalty to our troops on the battlefield.
We are about winning wars.
We are about sending whatever reinforcements and resources our soldiers need to defeat the terrorists, or our enemies anywhere they appear on the battlefield.
We are about, as conservatives, limited government and individual liberty.
Free, genuinely free political speech.
The freedom to exercise your religion, your private property rights, the right to keep most of what you earn.
This is who we are.
This is what we believe.
This used to be our movement.
These are things that Harry Reed, Tom Harkin, Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of the Democrats work day and night to diminish.
The left is about seizing and keeping power.
They are about undermining the traditions and institutions that have made the country great.
That would include the Constitution, which they dismiss as a living and breathing document to be interpreted by activist judges at the behest of liberal trial lawyers.
They want the Constitution to bend in shape to accommodate where they happen to be in a given year, in a given month, on a given day.
We know who they are.
They are John Kerry, who was celebrated when he lied about our soldiers in Vietnam in testimony before a Senate committee, who met with the enemy while still in the military, and who has spent most of his career smearing the military and undermining them.
It's about Jack Mertha, who is now the subject of a lawsuit for calling our brave Marines murderers of innocent civilians before any facts were known, and he did it at a press conference, not the floor of the House, just to make sure the entire world would hear him.
It's about Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate, who actually compared our soldiers to Nazis, to Stalin's assassins, and to Pol Pot's killers.
It's about Ted Kennedy, who compared our military to Saddam Hussein's henchmen.
What he said was, during Abu Ghrab, no difference just under new management, the U.S. military.
It's about Harry Reed, who declared the war lost, while brave men and women are on the battlefield winning the war against the terrorists.
These are the leaders and the voices of the Democrat opposition.
Not a single resolution was offered by any Democrat or Republican repudiating these libels against our armed forces.
Not a single vote was taken to condemn any of the things these Democrats have said and offered.
And why would there be?
These are the beliefs of the Democrat leadership, and the Republicans are too scared and weak to confront them.
So I confront them with you, my audience, giving me the strength to do so, because I know that you are always going to be there.
I denounce them, I expose them again with you, my audience.
We are disgusted with the abuse that our soldiers, hell, our entire country.
We are fed up with the abuse.
Our entire country has taken at the hands of Reed and Pelosi and the rest of them.
We are sick and tired, getting up every day and looking at the news and listening to Democrats about how this is wrong and that's bad.
Everything's going to hell in a handbasket.
Every day is a crisis.
We're going to die of global warming, we're going to die too much coffee.
They scare us.
They are dem doom and gloom of apocalyptic pessimists.
And we are sick and tired of this abuse of our military and our country.
And we don't want to sit quietly while they try to lose this war.
While they stab the troops in the back, lying to them, misleading them, while they run roughshod over anyone and anything they perceive as standing in their way.
They wage war on me with greater energy and more sense of purpose than they wage war on the enemies of the United States of America.
They wage war on President Bush with more fervor and more energy, more passion, more desire, than they join the war on genuine enemies of this country.
We are not going to sit quietly while their hit operation move on dot org trashes the very general who is leading our troops in this current victory, and who cannot defend himself against these vile attacks and attackers.
We're not going to be silenced, we're not going to be intimidated by these same political hacks who have lied repeatedly about what I said.
More importantly, didn't say.
They can try to use Hillary's group, which she admits to helping found and form media matters.
They can try to use their favorite anti-war organization.
They can write all the letters they want.
They can introduce resolutions.
They mean nothing to me.
They can't do a thing to me.
There are tens of millions of us, both in this audience and outside this audience, who have had enough of what these people are doing.
And that is why Congress rates at eleven percent approval an all-time low.
We despise, do we not, what these people are doing to our country?
But we can remove them.
It's what elections are about, one by one, if necessary.
For example, I don't believe the people of Nevada thought they were voting for an anti-war, big government, big taxing character assassin when they voted for Harry Reed.
Reed tells his constituents he supports the troops.
Somebody tell me how.
I guess you support the troops by attacking me.
He's proclaimed defeat, weighed the white flag of surrender, said the surge wouldn't work, offered numerous resolutions to bring the troops home in defeat.
Somebody name a single way in which Senator Reed's helped fight the war in Iraq and the war against the terrorists generally.
Tells his constituents he is a frugal steward of their tax dollars, yet in Washington he demands massive new spending and tax increases.
He better represents the views of the people of Massachusetts than the people of Nevada.
Tells the people of Nevada that he supports good people being named the federal bench, but back in Washington he leads filibusters to block some of the greatest legal minds from becoming judges because he, in truth, supports activist judges who undermine the Constitution.
Wanted to read the way he sees it.
One day he's gonna have to answer to the people, Harry Reed will, as do all of these politicians.
They're just they're temporary inhabitants of these public offices.
And when they abuse their offices, as Reed does every day and eventually catches up with them.
Ask Tom Foley.
Ask Tom Dashell.
Be right back, folks.
Stay with us.
Hi, welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
It's time somebody told liberals, and it's somebody as me, that they don't get to say what people meant, either by virtue of their pronouns or their phrases.
Liberals do not get to interpret the supposed code words of speech, especially since they reserve the infinite right to revise And extend or otherwise clarify their remarks, such as Joe Biden and his insult to Barack Obama.
Well, we got a clean, articulate black guy for a change.
Oh, I didn't really mean that.
Of course, Senator Biden, of course he didn't mean that.
No resolutions against Senator Biden from anyone on the floor of the Senate.
One of my favorite examples of this, changing the meaning of words, comes from Charlie Wrangell talking about the 1994 Republican Congress.
He used a couple of racial epithets.
The S-word to describe Mexicans, the N-word to describe blacks.
He said it's not S or N anymore.
They say let's cut taxes.
This was Charlie Wrangell redefining the term, the S-wordy N-word to mean let's cut taxes.
And of course, we all remember the Wither on the Vine example.
They took Newt Gingrich totally out of context when he was talking about Medicare.
So go to the audio sound bites.
We'll start at the top.
Tom Harkin.
Yesterday, floor of the Senate, weighing in on the phony soldiers debate when he has admitted to inflating his own military record in the past.
I must add, as a veteran, I find it offensive that Rush Limbaugh, who never put on the uniform of this country, would attack the patriotism or the dedication of any soldier fighting in Iraq.
I've often said about someone like that, before they draped themselves in the flag of this country, they had to put on the uniform first to defend it.
And in Mr. Limbaugh's case, he wouldn't do that.
Well, I also find it disserving that his offensive comments have not been condemned by our Republican colleagues or by the commander in chief, all of whom were so quick to condemn a similar personal attack on General Petraeus several weeks ago.
Why should they condemn something that wasn't said?
You know what ought to be condemned here is your just wanton inability to find the truth.
Something fits your narrative, Senator Harkin, and you just run to the floor of the Senate with it.
I can't believe these people do not know the truth.
I think they know the truth.
I think they know they are lying, I think they know that they are engaged in a smear, and they are doing so happily.
Now, Senator Harkin talked about uh the fact that uh he was a veteran.
While running for his Senate seat in 1984, and again while running for the Democrat presidential nomination in 92, Senator Harkin faced criticism for claiming he had flown combat missions over North Vietnam.
In a 1979 roundtable discussion with other congressional veterans, Harkin said of his service as a Navy pilot, quote, one year was in Vietnam as flying F-4s and F-8s on combat air patrols and photo recon support missions.
These comments later published in a 1981 book by David Broder.
After subsequent inquiries by Barry Goldwater in the Wall Street Journal, Harkin clarified that he had been stationed in Japan.
Sometimes flew recently repaired aircraft on test missions over Vietnam.
His service flying F-4s and F-8s was later while he was stationed in Cuba.
References to this controversy have been deleted from Wikipedia by staffers from Harkin's Senate office.
Also note, I haven't worn the uniform.
I'm not allowed.
This is a Stalinist-like approach.
One more soundbite here from Harkin.
Rush Limbaugh says these provocative things to make more money.
So he castigates our soldiers.
This makes more news.
It becomes in the news, more people tune in, he makes more money.
Well, I don't know.
Maybe he was just high on his drugs again.
I don't know whether he was or not.
If so, he ought to let us know.
But that shouldn't be an excuse.
I want to make it clear that I respect Mr. Limbaugh's right to say whatever he wants.
But we also have a right.
We have a right not to listen to him.
So I think the best thing to do for him is tune him out.
Just tune out Rush Limbaugh and listen to more responsible talk show hosts in this country.
I have never castigated the troops.
I didn't manufacture a news story out of this.
Your buddies did, Senator Harkin.
To say these kinds Of things and desecrate the floor of the Senate of the United States is what these Democrats have become.
Quick timeout, back after this.
You realize that what Senator Harkin said about me on the floor of the Senate is something he couldn't say about any other Senator, nor could I say it to a Senator were I a witness or a participant in a Senate committee hearing.
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