Sandra L. Hood – 10/9/07

This page was last updated on October 15, 2007.

A case of misplaced outrage; Sandra L. Hood; Beaver County Times; October 9, 2007.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“Where was Cathy Lane’s letter to the editor when the Republicans called for a vote to condemn the ad that Moveon.org ran in the New York Times (‘Democrats Rush to judgment,’ Friday)?

“Where was her outrage then? Like most Republicans, it’s do as I say not as I do.”

[RWC] Below is what I wrote in a comment on the Times website.

“Ms. Hood, there’s a big difference. People were upset with what the MoveOn.org ad actually said. Rush Limbaugh never said what was attributed to him. Media Matters for America, a group Hillary Clinton said she co-founded and supports, fabricated the entire smear. According to the MMA website, MMA ‘is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive [read: liberal] research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.’

“I was listening at the time of the ‘phony soldiers’ comment and it was perfectly clear Mr. Limbaugh and the caller referred to people who made fraudulent claims regarding their military service. It was a topic covered by an ABC News story (‘Phony War Vets,’ reported by Brian Ross) earlier in the week and covered by Mr. Limbaugh both before and immediately after the subject conversation. The video of the ‘Phony War Vets’ story is still on the ABC News website at http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3645227.

“This smear is similar to the stunt a local politician tried to pull during the 2004 campaign. Taking snippets from a quote of another person with whom he disagreed politically, the candidate used them out of context to make it sound like the other person said something he did not. The candidate then expressed outrage with the other person and demanded ‘a public apology to every VETERAN in the United States, more especially to those VETERANS in IRAQ and their FAMILIES.’ Sound familiar?

“You wrote, ‘Like most Republicans, it’s do as I say not as I do.’ May I assume that’s also true for the Senate Democrats who did not condemn the MoveOn.org ad yet signed on to Harry Reid’s (Senate Majority Leader) condemnation letter of Mr. Limbaugh?

“That said, I believe Congress has better things to do than condemn the political content of radio shows and political ads.”