Ok, now we're entering the ridiculous phase. Rush never SAID Brian McGough was a suicide bomber...he said those who told him that Limbaugh was saying the phony soldier bit about him are using this soldier like Al Qaeda use those people to "fall on their sword for the greater good".

Okay. So, according to you, Rush is fine because he didn't actually SAY that a decorated soldier was a suicide bomber, he merely COMPARED a decorated soldier to a suicide bomber. Am I understanding you correctly?

Also, what is this about "falling on his sword for the greater good?" Brian McGough rightly confronts Rush for calling him and people like him who object to Bush's Iraq policy "phony soldiers." Nothing of this is falling on a sword; it's calling bullshit on a chickenhawk who denigrates the troops. There's no question that Rush did that, except for those of you who believe Rush's edited transcript represents his full comments (in which case, I've got a bridge I want to sell you -- contact me privately).

You can request that they take Rush off the air...and it's possible that the Department of Defense will cave in and take him off...but you can't make the military personnel LISTEN to someone else. THEY will pick what they want to listen to.

I agree with Anonymouse here. You can't force soldiers to make smart decisions with how they choose to inform themselves, any more than you can expect a toddler to make a smart decision when choosing between green beans or ice cream. Ultimately, we need to trust the forces of evolution to enable the slowest among us (Rush's fan base) to wake up and smell the coffee. Forcing them to make this choice is to set up a nanny state, and remove people from the consequences of their stupidity.

Rush wasn't comparing the soldier to a suicide bomber...he was comparing the leftwing nuts who sent him out without fully knowing the facts to Al Qaeda.

It doesn't look like Rush agrees:

"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 in a TV ad to walk into as many people as he can walk into"

Oh Brian McGough did indeed fall on his sword, because anyone who listened to the broadcast knows Rush was talking about MacBeth and his ilk and not McGough

"MacBeth and his ilk" in this case means military personnel who disagree with the Iraq policy. This is perfectly clear if you read the entire transcript, not the out-of-context bit edited down by Rush:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200709280009

Why release the edited version? Because we are a society of sound bytes and time watchers. People are constantly using soundbytes to do the job because of the time context.

Okay. So, according to you, it's no problem that Rush claimed he was providing a full transcript when he was really providing an edited transcript. One has no reason to be honest (in fact, it sounds like you're saying it's actually irresponsible to be honest) in today's political climate. And you see no disconnect with the fact that, in order to make the claim that he was not calling all anti-war troops "phony soldiers", he had to carefully edit his comments so they read that way. Is that about the gist of it? Is there anything else you'd like to add?