Rush Limbaugh Continues to Justify Iraqi Prison Torture, Downplays Severity of Torture, Says Media Matters for America; Limbaugh Downplays Severity of Torture; Suggests it was 'Decent Punishment' 5/11/2004
From: Naomi Seligman of Media Matters for America, 202-544-9177 WASHINGTON, May 11 -- Media Matters for America has posted Rush Limbaugh's latest comments (May 10, 2004, Rush Limbaugh Show) about the torture of Abu Ghraib prisoners by U.S. Guards. Limbaugh continues to downplay the severity of the prison abuse, suggesting it was "decent punishment," and questioning the sincerity of the outrage expressed by Democrats, the media, and the public. Limbaugh continued that the prisoners were getting "a taste of (their) own medicine." "Rush Limbaugh's consistently extreme commentary has operated with almost total impunity for far too long," Media Matters for America President David Brock said today. "Media Matters for America now has in place a system to monitor, analyze and correct conservative misinformation in the media -- including Rush Limbaugh, America's most listened-to political commentator." Also on May 10, Limbaugh appeared to be referring to Media Matters for America in criticizing a new website for, he claimed, taking his quotes out of context : "I think what happens is that the media has come across a new website that's supposedly chronicling what I say, and they all go there and they read it and they see and then they take the propaganda of that website and repackage it and call it news. And they leave the context of my remarks out. For example, nowhere where I've been quoted have I been quoted as saying that I think what happened there is not good. I don't support it, and I don't encourage more of it. I have not said that -- or I have said that, they've not quoted me on that. There's a number of things that they've left out, uh, most of it contextBut now there's just a central clearinghouse for out-of-context quotes from this program. They can go there and present as news, even though it's just repackaged propaganda." "Rush Limbaugh falsely claims that Media Matters for America is taking his comments out of context," Brock said. "Since he does not point out any specific examples, we would encourage Mr. Limbaugh to show us where we have taken his words out of context. We stand by the validity of our reports." "Limbaugh on latest photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse" and more analyses of conservative misinformation, can be found at the Media Matters for America website: http://www.mediamatters.org. ------ Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Media Matters for America is the first organization to systematically monitor the media for conservative misinformation -- every day, in real time -- in 2004 and beyond. For more information, log on to http://www.mediamatters.org. |