Microscope Turns on Media Matters

RUSH: We’ve talked today about some of the media that’s not gotten this right. CNN yesterday, Wolf Blitzer, I was disappointed. Wolf’s a good journalist, I still maintain that, but Wolf fell hook, line, and sinker for the Media Matters premise, and started with that premise, and then took a report, well, Limbaugh is saying something else. ‘Well, but Limbaugh, of course, would say something else.’ But there have been people who have stood up. O’Reilly last night on The O’Reilly Factor with Brian Maloney from the Radio Equalizer blog which we post at RushLimbaugh.com now and then, did a great segment on Media Matters and its funding and who’s behind it. This morning on MSNBC, Joe Scarborough had a couple of guests on, Willie Geist and the news babe there, Mika Brzezinski, and Scarborough says, ‘The Democrats are so funny this way. They’re always a step behind, and so now they’re going after Rush Limbaugh saying that he claimed that if you’re against the war you’re a phony soldier, but really, that’s really not the case, is it?’

GEIST: Well, he was talking to a caller on his show, and they were talking about people from the left who have attacked the war, and he said, Limbaugh said, they trot out these quote, phony soldiers. And he says he’s referring to this guy Jesse MacBeth, who is, in fact, a phony soldier.

SCARBOROUGH: He’s a phony soldier.

GEIST: But people like Tom Harkin came out the other day and said, quote, ‘maybe he’s on drugs again,’ Rush.

BRZEZINSKI: Oh, okay.

SCARBOROUGH: Well, I don’t know —

BRZEZINSKI: That wasn’t nice.

RUSH: Yeah, that wasn’t nice, Mika Brzezinski weighing in. Then there was contributor Courtney Hazlett. Geist, said, ‘Courtney, before we let you go, I want to ask you quickly about the Rush Limbaugh situation, the phony soldier quote that we’re hearing.’

HAZLETT: The phony soldier quote completely taken out of context. But I have to say, when I immediately heard it as well, when all you had was the Media Matters context to look at it in, it did, on paper, look really, really badly. And when you have a radio show and you’re talking for hours and hours, pulling something out of context of course is going to create issues. But I think it’s just so interesting that Media Matters, because it’s their sole job to look at everything under such a microscope, they seem to have this new right now to really trash people in the press. So I just think it’s interesting that they’ve got this type of leverage, and nobody is looking at the big picture and saying that, you know what, maybe Media Matters should take a step back a little bit and we should give everyone a little bit more of a shot. At some point, you have to look at these watchdog organizations and say, ‘Okay, how seriously are we going to take them, the minute after they publish something?’ More time should have to elapse.

RUSH: Unbelievable! The most brilliant, reasonable comment we have heard in the Drive-By Media about these watchdog groups. That’s Courtney Hazlett, a contributor for MSNBC, on Joe Scarborough’s show this morning and getting it right. I mean, they purposely smeared, took it out of context and lied about it on purpose, but the magnifying glass is now on them, folks.