Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Okay, so what's the subtext for the debate tonight?
What is what is the uh uh not even a subtext.
I mean, what it what what what is the spin?
The pre-debate spin.
The pre-debate spin for the debate tonight is don't expect too much from Biden.
He's always been an idiot.
Well, it's what it is.
We got a month.
Joe just needs to be Joe.
Well, what's Joe?
Joe's an idiot.
Okay, they're really trying to tamp down the expectations of Biden in this debate tonight, and he's got the unenviable task of trying to defend Obama's record and his record, which Obama couldn't do.
So everybody revved up uh to watch this thing tonight.
This is gonna get a big audience, too.
You know, the for the first debate, 65, 70 million people, that that that's who did I hear?
Somebody, some I I think it was one of the guys, by the way, hi, Rush Limbaugh.
You know that EIB network, you know that.
Uh phone number 800-282-2882.
You know that, even though it doesn't matter.
Um the one of these guys that does the from California that projects the election based on the economy.
They haven't been wrong since 1980.
This guy says, one of these guys says, Look, the thing to take away from the first debate is the size of the audience that tuned in.
He says 70 million people tuning in means that there are a whole lot of people out there who really are paying attention there and want to change their vote, who I mean, not so much want to change their vote, but are open to changing their vote.
That seventy million is the is the is the greatest indication of of uh dissatisfaction with status quo.
That if a small number of people tuned in, nah, no big deal.
Why watch this debate?
I'm not changing my mind, but 70 million watching means that there are a lot of people not happy at current circumstance.
I thought it was an interesting point of view.
Anyway, we're great to be with you folks here.
As always, the Fascist Week in Media.
I am L. Rush Bo, and we serve humanity here simply by showing up.
Now I've been talking to you well since uh when I first got for earlier this week, Suffolk University polling says that they're gonna stop polling in North Carolina, Florida, and Virginia.
Obama can't win there.
That was just a little blurb.
It was just a little blurb earlier in the week, and now they've caught up with it at the Hill.com.
Suffolk University pollstered David Paleologos, whose polls are aggregated into mainstream averages to show where the race stands in the swing states, says he's finished polling in Florida, North Carolina, Virginia.
Obama has no shot of winning those states.
Florida, North Carolina, Virginia can't win there.
Before the debate, the Suffolk Pole had Obama ahead 4643 in Florida.
Now they're pulling out.
That was the head-to-head number.
A poor place to be for a couple of reasons.
Number one, his ballot test, head-to-head number, was below 47% before the debate.
It's very, very difficult.
When you have the known quantity, the incumbent, they have to claw your way up to 50.
If the incumbent's not at 50, it's over.
Very, very poor place for him to be.
So we're looking at this data not only in Florida, but in Virginia and North Carolina, and it's overwhelming.
They're pulling out of there.
Let's go to Carl Roth.
Carl Rove was talking about this last night on um the O'Reilly factor.
North Carolina, that state has been trending into the Romney camp for months.
Even real clear politics had before the debate, a Romney lead of about eight tenths of a percent.
There's only been one poll in North Carolina after the debate, and it had a Romney margin of nine.
The Obama campaign is spending money in the state, but they've reduced the amount of their television by by 40% from where it was in June, at a time when they're ramping up in every other battleground state.
They can't pull out of the state without it being a news story.
Right.
The pollster has pulled out.
The regime can't pull out.
But do you remember six months ago, maybe not that long, three months ago, we were told that North Carolina was going to determine the election.
And particularly specifically what what they call the uh Not the golden triangle, the research triangle.
There were 49,000 yuppies.
Remember this story?
Forty-nine thousand people who live in this triangle area at Raleigh Durham.
They were going to determine the outcome of the election.
And it was a serious analysis.
I'm not making fun of it.
It was people who were dead serious about it.
It was a very persuasive case that they were making.
And I think it was obviously it was prior to the Democrat convention, and it talked about the circumstance over in Charlotte and Obama having trouble with the black vote.
And at that research triangle area, the yuppies in there, whoever they are, the great undecided, the independence, whatever their makeup was.
I don't remember.
I should have looked the story up.
I should have gotten it from the archives.
I just remembered this on the fly.
Just remembered it right now.
But I just remembered everybody said that.
The whole election could turn on North Carolina and those 49,000 people.
Well, let's just assume that they're right and the election's over.
Uh, folks.
Now there's something going on.
You know, Obama's down to 53% in California.
He went out to California over the weekend, had a powwow with some of the big Hollywood types, another $25,000, $30,000 at plate dinner, Wolfgang Puck's place.
I said, what's he doing there?
If he needs money, have him send a check.
What's he wasting time going out there for?
And now he's down to 53%.
Now, don't anybody misunderstand.
I'm not I'm not one of these people that, oh, whoa, Romney could win call for him.
I'm not saying that.
I'm saying down to 53% in a state where you you have to you have to call a search party to find a Republican in that state.
To be down to 53% there says something.
And then the politico today.
The Obama campaign telling everybody not to believe the polls, especially now that they show Romney ahead.
Or even claiming they never believed the polls when they showed Obama to be ahead.
That's right, so don't believe the polls.
Tell everybody out there just not to believe the polls.
We didn't believe the polls when they showed us way ahead.
We don't believe the polls now.
Now this is I'll tell you why this is ironic, because it's exactly what I've been saying all along, and I was mocked for it.
I was made fun of for it by these very clowns at the politico a couple of weeks ago.
And so now the Obama campaign's saying it, so it must be true now.
The polls must not mean anything now that Obama's saying it.
After all, they call themselves a truth team.
So Joe Biden, big debate tonight.
Folks, we're we have more on the hearings yesterday involving Libya.
Wait till you hear Cybercast News Service has a story.
We learned yesterday that we didn't have professional security for the ambassadorial team in Benghazi.
We had bodyguards, Libyan bodyguards, maybe a bodyguard.
Cybercast News Service, I just printed the story.
I haven't had a chance to really digest it.
Just came in three minutes before we went live here.
And I gave it a quick glance.
But apparently in the notice, they had the job opening listed for bodyguard.
And they solicited for same-sex couples.
They said that was one of the things that would be okay.
Bodyguards with limited English, but they gave preference to citizen same-sex domestic partners of U.S. government employees.
I'm just telling you.
And we've got there was there was an interview last night, Anderson Cooper on CNN.
Pat Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, the computer specialist killed at the consulate in Benghazi.
This is unbelievable.
Play this for you after the break.
But she is livid.
The Obama administration and the campaign have been lying to her face that it was the video.
She can't to this day get a straight answer out of anybody in the regime, from Leon Panetta to Susan Rice to Obama himself.
She can't even find anybody who cares.
She can't find anybody who cares enough to tell her what actually happened to her son.
She still doesn't know.
Wait till you hear this.
It's it's it's tearjerker stuff.
And it's unacceptable.
At the uh at the same time.
John Bolt was on Greta last night.
I had a great show.
Snurley, you didn't hear it yesterday because you're jury duty.
I wonder if there's anything.
I had a great show and you weren't here.
I wonder if there's a connection.
You should see the pained look on his face.
I'm just half.
So you had jury duty.
I'm just kidding.
You have jury duty yesterday.
Half the people in the jury panel were unemployed.
What's why why why is that remarkable?
Half of them.
Half of them in the whole panel, not just the jury, it's at the 12, because you weren't accepted.
How'd you get rejected?
You mentioned my name.
How'd you get rejected?
Told them what you did for a living and you were who threw you out?
The prosecution or defense?
So you told him what you do for what did you tell him you do?
You uh what'd you tell him you do?
Okay.
All you had to say is Rush Limbaugh syndicated radio show and you were gone.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah.
It's a half day and you were gone.
And half half of the pool was on.
Why is that surprise you?
Half the country's unemployed.
Why does it surprise you that a microcosm sample of it would be unemployed?
What does it matter anyway?
Are you saying the unemployed can't be fair jurors?
You discriminating in the air?
I don't know.
He's he's snorkeling telling her he can't believe it's it's one thing to see the unemployment number and see it as a stat.
He ran into a room yesterday.
How many people total in that room that you're eighteen people at his panel alone, and there's far minute and a lot of panels.
Hundreds of people in there said half of them are unemployed.
He said it was shocking to run into that many unemployed people, unemployed for a year or more.
Two years.
Yeah.
That's real life.
That's why, you know, spend time here.
These unemployment numbers are real people.
They are real people.
Real lives are being affected by this administration, and it's it's it's ill-conceived policies.
Anyway, it's uh well, welcome back.
It's it's good to have you.
What'd you do the rest of the day?
Um when it's been a half day getting rejected, then what'd you do?
That's cool.
Went home and went to sleep.
We've put together a montage, big debate tonight, a little montage of um Obama and and other Democrats and their singular advice for Joe Biden tonight in his debate with Paul Ryan.
What's your message to Joe Biden about tomorrow night?
Well, I think Joe just needs to be Joe.
You're gonna put you all back in chains.
Joe just needs to be Joe.
You got the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean, nice looking guy.
Joe just needs to be Joe.
You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Duncan Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.
I'm not talking.
Joe just needs to be Joe.
My grandpop used to say, Joey, when the guy in Dunmore, the next town over is out of work, it's an economic slowdown.
When your brother-in-law's out of work, it's a recession.
When you're out of work, it's a depression.
It's a depression for millions and millions of Americans.
Joe just needs to be Joe.
This is deadly earnest.
How they can justify raising taxes in the middle class has been buried the last four years.
How in Lord's name?
Joe just needs to be Joe.
Chuck Graham, State Senator's here.
Stand up, Chuck, let him see you.
Oh, God love you.
What am I talking about?
I tell you what, you're making everybody else stand up, though, pal.
I tell you what, stand up for Chuck.
Joe just needs to be Joe.
Joe just needs to be Joe.
That was uh that was that was uh Chuck Graham, State Senator Missouri's in a wheelchair.
Stand up, Chuck, let him see Oh, God love you, Chuck.
Oh, what the hell, Hammer?
What am I talking about?
Joe just needs to be Joe.
And I'm sure you can think of countless other examples that we could have plugged into our montage.
Brief time out here, my friends will be back.
We'll continue with all the rest of today's exciting excursion into broadcast excellence.
We get back.
The views expressed by the host on this program documented to be almost always right, 99 point, still 7% of the time.
You know what I found out?
The Sullivan group moved from Sacramento and didn't tell me.
I've been sending my opinion audit requests to a vacated Sullivan Group office.
They moved down to Southern California, and he didn't tell me.
Well, maybe they told me, I just got the notice.
So they don't know.
They're just now hearing that I have made a supplemental emergency request for an opinion audit based on overwhelming predictions made a year ago that the unemployment rate would be under 8% in October of 2012.
Here oh, what I was going to say about about John Bolton, I was watching Greta last night, and we had a thoroughly comprehensive program presentation yesterday on this entire Benghazi situation and how the administration just lied about the video being responsible, sent everybody out the lie.
By the way, we've got Debbie Blabbermouth Schultz out there.
It's not a lie.
We were just wrong.
And it's unAmerican to criticize the regime.
It's not a lie.
We were just right.
Yeah, that really worked for George W. Bush on weapons of mass destruction, didn't it?
These people are shameless.
Anyway, it was a thorough presentation, but John Bolton said something to Greta last night that I frankly should have thought of that.
I it should have been part of my presentation.
I gotta give him credit for it.
It's all about explain, and when I say this to you, it's gonna be obvious.
It's it's nothing earth-shattering.
It's something I should have thought of myself, have said it before.
But Obama's out there blaming the video, blaming the video, blaming the video, and so forth.
Now, in addition to blaming the video so as to cover up the fact that the terror group Al Qaeda is still alive and kicking.
And by the way, coming back to life big time.
See, Obama wanted everybody to believe it when we killed Osama that that was the end of Al-Qaeda as well.
And so blaming it on the video was making sure that people didn't blame it on terrorism.
And the point that John Bolton made was that Obama is really a dangerous person to have as president of the United States because of his ideology.
His worldview and Obama's ideology and worldview is, of course, that you always blame America first when things go wrong.
It's always America's fault.
Now, we know this about leftists.
That's what the San Francisco Democrats at their convention of 1984 were known for.
And Gene Kirkpatrick even dubbed them.
Even named them.
San Francisco Democrats, the blame America first crowd.
Well, maybe Obama didn't have to worry about trying to cover up for the fact that Al-Qaeda was still alive and kicking.
Maybe his ideology is such.
And he really believed his video is responsible for it because obviously it has to be America's fault.
Blame America first.
That's why the video had to be responsible.
It's why an American had to be responsible.
America is responsible for all the crap.
America's responsible for all the we do it to ourselves.
We have mistreated, we have big timed it, we've big footed it around the world, our whole career, our life of the country, and this is just people getting even with us.
And by the way, in Obama's worldview, we understand that.
We've got to be made to feel like they have being stepped on by us all these.
We've got to get a taste of our own medicine.
A chicken's a come home to roost.
Uh in the words of Reverend Wright.
So I wanted to throw that in as another explanation for why Obama and his entire regime was so easily blame a video that nobody ever saw, and a guy who made the video, and then in a in a subtext way blame the Constitution, blame the First Amendment, blame free speech, blame America.
We actually have a man leading the country who thinks the country's wrong, who thinks this country's guilty.
And it's just another illustration of that.
And of course, all the apologizing around the world.
And the Cybercast news service story.
In the months leading up to the 9 11 terror attack in Benghazi, U.S. Embassy in Libya was seeking to hire two bodyguards with limited English skills at salaries of $13,000 a year.
The job description explicitly stated that this included same-sex domestic partners of U.S. government employees.
That was a job prerequisite.
It's amazing.
Sometimes I amaze even myself.
It has just been pointed out to me that it was on September 24th that I, L. Rushbo, on this program actually did chalk up Obama blaming the video to his left wing proclivity to blame America first.
And see, Bolton probably got it from you.
You said it all the way back on September 24th.
I knew there was a reason I liked it when I heard Bolton say it.
Folks, let me tell you something 15 hours a week.
It is impossible to remember everything that I've said.
It's just so it's why we have a primary role of staff is to go back and remind me of things I have said in the past.
Because I'm always looking forward.
And I um I'm often people show me transcripts of previous programs, and I frankly sometimes am amazed how smart I really am.
I mean, I know I am anyway, but some might go back and I read this stuff, and I dazzle even me.
And this is one of those instances.
But it was still, it was great to hear Bolton say it because it's exactly right.
And they're still out today.
Axel Rod and the boy are still today, after all that happened yesterday at the congressional hearing, they are still elements of the regime are still blaming this video.
Now, one thing before we get to the audio of Pat Smith that was on CNN last night, the mother of one of the slain Americans in our consulate in Benghazi.
The debate tonight.
We sit around here and we laugh at and make fun of Joe Biden, but I just want to remind you of something.
This guy used to be the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the, I don't know if he was ranking during the Clarence Thomas hearings.
But he was he can be as below the belt, sleazy, dishonest, typical left wing as anybody out there.
He may now have this image of bumbling old grandfather running around saying inane things.
But he has a track record of sleeve.
Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork, Ed Mees.
This guy can employ all of the filthy tactics that anybody on the left can.
And don't think for a moment.
He's going to come out, and he'll still the way he does this, he will go overboard complimenting Ryan.
He'll come out.
This is a so honored to be here.
Paul Ryan, he'll talk about him as a great up and comer, how we're all lucky to have such a caring and decent guy in the House, and he'll go on and on and on about how wonderful a guy Ryan is and then.
But he just, you know, he didn't know what he's talking about.
He but he really cares.
But I mean, come on, man, he doesn't really have a clue.
He's he tries, he's working real hard.
It'll be his condescending.
You wait.
And the purpose of this, they're going to try to rattle Ryan, get him off his game, trying to get him to go personal with uh with Biden, and I I Ryden Ryan knows this, and I think well prepared For it.
I just want to warn you, he's Biden is not this bumbling doddering old grandfather that's half senile.
Now it is true, it is true that Biden has not faced media questions in in five months.
He hasn't, they they've shielded him.
You know when the last time he had any any major media time was when he went out and talked about how he has no problem with same-sex marriage.
And this was prior to the Democrat convention.
If you recall Obama was was holding that in reserve.
At the time Obama was what was the thinking about it?
What was the word labor?
He was reflecting.
It was uh yes, yes, he was evolving.
Obama was evolving on the issue of same-sex marriage because up to that moment he had not come out for it.
But he was evolving on it.
He was going to make a big grand announcement where he had completed his evolving, his evolution.
And it was going to be either at the convention or shortly after.
Because there was some damage they had to limit.
A number of African American churches and preachers want no part of same-sex marriage.
In fact, there's a a group of same-sex or a group of black preachers that's going to spend a million dollars running an ad campaign trying to convince 25% of blacks in this country not to vote for Obama.
Now, I don't know how much they're going to succeed with a million bucks, but that's what they're going to spend.
That's a big issue for some of these black churches and black preachers.
And they don't like any.
So Obama was evolving, and Biden went out there, and one of the theories was that Biden preempted Obama on purpose because there was talk at the time of brooming him and replacing him with Hillary.
And Biden don't want to be humiliated.
Biden didn't want to be thrown off a ticket.
Biden, for all we know, wants to be president someday.
He's run before.
And if he gets thrown off the ticket, that kind of kaboshes that.
So some people theorize that Biden was, oh, you're going to throw me off the ticket.
Well, here, watch this.
And it went out and stole all the thunder on same-sex marriage.
A, and then possibly embarrassed Obama, kind of forced Obama to go ahead and finish his evolving.
And some people thought that Biden might be taking a woodshed, and he might have been taken to the woodshed, was ever since then we haven't seen Biden.
Since then we haven't heard from Biden.
Now they built an exact replica of the set tonight for Biden to rehearse.
And he's been rehearsing with Chris Van Holland, a congressman from Maryland.
Uh equally sleazy, mean, potentially very mean guy.
And that's what Biden is.
And I just want to warn you again, I fully expect him to come out here and be overwhelmingly gracious and nice and complimentary until he digs the knife in.
And it'll be in a grandfatherly, I got all kinds of wisdom.
This is a great up and comer, but it's not his time yet.
We're so fortunate to have a guy like Paul Ryan in our government.
We're so fortunate to have many such great potential.
But it just Paul, you just don't know what you're talking about yet, man, but you've got to keep working on it.
I really love you, man.
But you don't have a clue.
It'll be something like that.
Mark my words.
And if not at the beginning of the debate, it'll be somewhere in the debate.
But it's going to be condescension.
I know all.
I've been here years.
I got experience.
You're a neophyte, you know what you're talking about.
You're a nice guy, but you're really a fool.
Now let's go to the audio soundbase.
This.
Ladies and gentlemen, we talk about the mainstream media on this program a lot.
And we I oftentimes talk in a very celebratory manner in how we busted up their monopoly.
You know, 1989 when this program was 88 when this program started.
This was the only national media program that featured an alternative point of view, conservatism.
Everywhere else, it was identical.
It was the same.
And you had the three networks and you had the big newspapers and the magazines.
The only cable network was CNN.
Starting in 1988, the success of this program, then Bred additional radio talk shows, then Fox News, then the blogosphere, to the point their monopoly's gone.
They don't have the monopoly.
They they but they still have sadly an incredible amount of power.
And I think people not that you do, but I think there's some people on our side of the aisle who, because the monopoly's gone, don't quite take as seriously as they should the real benefit to Obama of having these people in the tank for him.
It's huge.
And I'm here to tell you that if this media was in any way what they pretend to be, if they were objective, Obama wouldn't be anywhere near where he is.
It really there are people in this country, and they vote, and there are sizable number of them who still only watch the three network nightly newscasts and only read the newspapers.
That's it.
They do not avail themselves of the new media, what I call uh partisan media, and I don't mean that in a derogatory way, but we obviously have a point of view here.
So I'd call myself partisan media.
They don't they don't pay attention to it, some don't even know it exists.
If they do, they don't for whatever reason want any part of it, or the left either.
They just they think that the drive-by media is it, still fair balance, the whole thing.
And it's their Bible, and there are a lot of them.
And I'm telling you, it is a huge advantage for Obama.
It's major.
So when something happens there that goes against Obama, it has the potential to be just as huge as all the support.
And that's what this CNN interview is.
The CN interview with the with the mother of one of the slain Americans in Benghazi is a powerful thing.
And it's it's it's the kind of thing if it if it would happen every day, and there's opportunities for it every day.
If there if this media were not in the tank for Obama and hadn't been all along, it'd be an entirely different world that we live in.
It would be an entirely different country.
I'd even go so far as to say if they weren't, I would like to say that I'm doing the job they used to do.
Which is true.
You get more sides of an issue presented to you on this show than you do in the mainstream media.
But by the same token, if they weren't doing what they're doing, market-wise, there wouldn't be a place for me.
So I'm kind of torn.
We'll start with the uh audio sound bites of this mother of the slain American, and you realize this thing aired on CNN, that is gonna have far much more impact than if it aired on Fox.
Be back after this.
Don't go away.
Folks, this is very hard to listen to.
It's it's tear-invoking, it's tear-jerking, but it's also gonna make you mad.
It's going to infuriate you.
This is last night on Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN.
He interviewed Pat Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, computer specialist killed at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
Anderson Cooper said, Who told you that they would give you information about Sean's death?
Obama told me, Gilbert promised me.
They promised me that I told them, please tell me what happened.
Just tell me what happened.
I told him, please don't give me any baloney that comes through with this political stuff.
And I still don't know.
In fact, today I just heard something more that he died of smoke inhalation.
I look at TV and I see bloody handprints on walls, thinking, my God, is that my son's?
They haven't told me anything.
They're still studying it.
And the things that they are telling me are just outright lies.
That Susan Rice, she talked to me personally and she said, this is the way it was.
It was because of this film that came out.
They're purposely lying to this mother.
Her son did not die to a movie, but died because of a terror attack that our consultant was not prepared for.
It's no more complicated than that.
Who is this woman, Pat Smith?
She's an American.
Her son killed in action.
It's a real woman.
These people, Obama, Susan Rice, everybody...
The political class, the elites.
Whatever they want they can have.
They went to the house dining room, Senate dining room, get whatever they want.
Doesn't cost much health care doesn't have to worry about it.
Uh take an Air Force plane to fly home, Air Force One, what have you.
These are people that get thrilled in life over things that the political class in this country takes for granted.
Political class would probably make fun of going to McDonald's or Olive Garden to these people.
It might be a treat.
I mean, these but these are real Americans.
I mean, this this woman who knows what her economic circumstances is or are.
But her son's dead.
Killed in action because this government did not care enough or wasn't smart enough to take adequate security precautions at an embassy on 9-11.
The one thing that when a family sees its son or daughter go off to the military, the one thing that they always trust is that their country's looking out for them, that their government's personally invested because they so appreciate the the gesture, the volunteering that takes place for people join the military.
And these are real people.
Their lives are not glamorous.
They're probably very hard right now, like most people's lives are.
And they don't have time to be worried about focus groups and how they look on television and whether or not they were polite enough in a debate or whatever.
And it's one of privilege and entitlement compared to the people who make this country work and to the people who have as members of their family volunteers to join the military to defend and protect everybody else.
all this woman wants to know she's not asking for anything she She just wants to know what happened.
Why is her son dead?
How did it happen?
And they still have the gall to tell her it's a video.
And she knows that she's not getting the truth.
From Hillary, from Obama, from Susan Rice.
This to me is horrible.
I have sympathy for this woman.
I also have empathy, and I also feel anger for people just like her.
I just I I don't think that I don't think many in the political class, and clearly the elites in the Washington, New York, Boston court, I don't think they know what people's lives are like.
I don't think they know what people go through.
I don't I don't think all this compassion and concern they claim to have, I don't see any evidence of it.
Anderson Cooper then said, so she told you, Susan Rice told you personally she thought it was result of the video of the protest.
Oh, absolutely.
In fact, all of them did.
All of them did.
Leon Panetta actually took my face in his hands like this.
And he says, Trust me, I will tell you what happened.
And so far he's told me nothing.
Nothing at all.
And I want to know.
I cried on Obama's shoulder.
And he then he kind of looked off into the distance.
So that was worthless to me.
I want to know for God's sakes.
Or for Allah's sake, or whoever's sake is there.
What happened to her son?
She can't get a straight answer.
When they tell her something she knows it isn't true.
It's all political with these people.
Anyway, this on CNN, this matters.
This doesn't happen on CNN or anywhere else in the mainstream media very much.
This very, very and do not discount the impact this has, and we've got more of it.
So sit tight.
The latest unemployment number, the well, the uh jobless claims number, very, very mysterious.
Second week of the war, it's very weird.
And some people think they've finally gotten to the bottom of what happened and why the number is wrong or phony.