Limbaugh -- Defending the Way Things Aren't (USA Today, 7/19/94) By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon If there's one thing Rush Limbaugh seems to find delightful, it's his daily exercise of heaping ridicule on selected targets. But he has proved hypersensitive - and inept - in responding to criticism. A couple of weeks ago, the media-watch group FAIR issued "Limbaugh's Reign of Error," a report detailing dozens of inaccuracies and distortions by the nation's most widely heard commentator. The report didn't fault Limbaugh for being conservative. It faulted him for being wrong - time and again - presenting fantasies as facts. The self-proclaimed "truth detector" seems particularly enraged that documentation of his routine falsehoods has gained extensive media coverage. Yet he has turned down invitations to defend himself on neutral turf. When National Public Radio invited him to rebut a FAIR representative on Weekend Edition July 9, he declined. He rejected an offer to appear the same weekend on CNN's Reliable Sources, then on his own show assailed the CNN program for bias against him. Perhaps Limbaugh's response is understandable. After all, how could he defend past assertions that range from the asinine to the ridiculous? As a sampling of Limbaugh-isms indicates, a historian he's not: -- Limbaugh wrote in one of his books, "Those gas lines were a direct result of the foreign oil powers playing tough with us because they didn't fear Jimmy Carter." In fact, the first and most serious gas lines were in the Nixon administration. -- On a recent TV show, Limbaugh said that Lawrence Walsh's Iran-contra investigation produced "not one indictment." Walsh won 14 indictments, most of which led to convictions or guilty pleas. -- "Any time the illegitimacy rate in black America is raised, Reverend Jackson and other black 'leaders' immediately change the subject," wrote Limbaugh. Jesse Jackson has been talking about and against "children having children" for years, as have many other black leaders. -- "The videotape of the Rodney King beating played absolutely no role in the conviction of two of the four officers," Limbaugh asserted on his radio show. The day after the federal court verdict, the Los Angeles Times ran the accurate headline: "Jury foreman says video was crucial in convictions." -- "Women were doing quite well in this country before feminism came along," declared Limbaugh. Before feminism came along, women couldn't even vote. In talk-show annals, the summer of 1994 may be remembered as the season when high-flying Rush Limbaugh fell to Earth. That thud we're hearing now is a result of the combined weight of too many half-truths and distortions passed off on an unwitting audience as matters of fact. Maybe, as Mark Twain put it long ago, a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on. But the truth has a way of catching up, sooner or later. And that, as Rush might say, is the way things ought to be. HEADLINE: Let's Give Limbaugh Some Help (6/29/94) By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon (Creators Syndicate) This column is offered as a public service to someone in desperate need of help. Our aim is to rescue Rush Limbaugh, a man whose words are venerated by millions of followers listening to him on more than 600 radio and 200 TV stations. Mr. Limbaugh needs help. No one else in the history of American broadcasting has been handed such awesome political power. Day after day, his monologues go unchallenged by opposing views, facts or figures. Listen to how he cried out for help on his radio show last Aug. 30: I do not make things up for the advancement of my cause. And if I find that I have been mistaken or am in error, then I proclaim it at the beginning of a program or as loudly as I can." Given his huge following, Mr. Limbaugh has a responsibility to correct the record. And since he makes so many errors (indeed, he demonstrates a compulsion toward disinformation) and corrects so few, we've volunteered to give him the help he's been seeking. Begin by retracting some wild comments that even you must know _ in your private moments, away from an audience _ are not true: . That most Canadian physicians" come to the United States when they are in need of surgery. . That nicotine's addictiveness has not been proven." . That an NBC News president aired faked footage with the express hope of destroying General Motors." . That women were doing quite well in this country before feminism came along." (Remember, Rush, that before feminism" women couldn't even vote.) Then begin correcting your false claims with true figures; we've included some to help you get started. . The poorest people in America are better off than the mainstream families of Europe." True figures: The average yearly income of the poorest 20 percent of Americans is $ 5,226, while the average income in Germany, France, Britain and Italy is $ 19,708. . Not one indictment" resulted from Lawrence Walsh's Iran-contra investigation, you said. In fact, there were 14 indictments, most of which resulted in convictions or guilty pleas. Next, correct the following distortions by clarifying who your sources are. . When you repeatedly claim that volcanic eruptions do more harm to the ozone layer than human-produced chemicals, tell the public that your source on the volcano theory is a magazine produced by the Lyndon LaRouchite network. Atmospheric scientists long ago rejected that theory. . When you declared the Clintons send their daughter to a school that required students to write a paper on why they feel guilty being white," you went on to add: My source for this story is CBS News. I am not making it up!" You should inform your audience that CBS has no evidence of the story, nor does the school. Now, admit that sometimes you get so emotional about advancing your cause that you can't keep yourself from overstatement. . On your March 10 radio show, you spoke in urgent tones of news" that a Wall Street newsletter claimed Vince Foster was murdered in an apartment owned by Hillary Clinton." The newsletter mentioned neither murder nor Hillary Clinton's apartment; on a later Ted Koppel ABC special, you dissembled: Never have I suggested that this was murder." Agree to seek further guidance for your problem. Study the new report, Rush Limbaugh's Reign of Error," which compiles dozens of falsehoods on topics from Whitewater to AIDS to taxes. On the day of the release of this compilation _ which was published by our associates in the media watch group FAIR _ the Associated Press reported that Mr. Limbaugh did not deny saying or writing the statements attributed to him, nor did he defend their accuracy." Finally, fill up the next few weeks of broadcasts correcting the record. That way, during those weeks, you won't have time to make any new errors. Now, dear reader: You're probably wondering what you can do to aid this man in need. You might send this column to your local Limbaugh TV or radio outlet _ and suggest to station managers that they can help Mr. Limbaugh help himself by implementing that old broadcasting concept of balance and debate. If Mr. Limbaugh faced genuine debates, an opposing voice would be present to correct the record as soon as Mr. Limbaugh opened his mouth _ or closed it, if such were possible _ and there would be no need for voluminous special reports listing his falsehoods. Fat Cats Well-Hidden in 'Middle-Class' DLC (6/15/94) By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon Few political groups have won such consistently favorable media treatment in recent years as the Democratic Leadership Council. Founded in 1985 by Bill Clinton, Al Gore and other Southern Democrats as a pressure group within the national Democratic Party, the DLC pledged to move the party away from "special interests" and toward "the middle class." Since then, the DLC has gained enormous power and prestige. But few journalists have bothered to report that the DLC is itself rife with "special interests." Now, leaked DLC documents provide new evidence of corporate ties that bind the Clinton presidency and the Democratic Leadership Council. A memo from the DLC's development director, dated March 7, clearly was not intended to see the light of day. It identifies specific DLC politicians - including the president and vice president of the United States - who would "be most successful in soliciting the contribution" from particular fat cats for the DLC's political policy arm. The memo suggests that Clinton approach poultry tycoon Donald Tyson, of Tyson Foods, for a hefty contribution. In addition, it urges that Clinton target multibillionaire businessman Warren Buffett. The memo also sets out a plan for Vice President Gore to seek funds for DLC operations from Disney cable executive John Cooke. Conveniently, Gore heads the Clinton administration's policy team on the information superhighway - with huge implications for Disney's cable investments. A newsletter called Counterpunch (published by the D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies) obtained the DLC memo - later described by a DLC spokesperson as "an internal fund-raising document." One key question remains about the memo: Did Clinton or Gore know about the behind-the-scenes fund-raising roles spelled out in the memo? In the very first words of its May 30 news report on the existence of the DLC memo, the Washington Post cleared the nation's top two officials of any complicity: "President Clinton and Vice President Gore don't know it yet, but the Democratic Leadership Council ... has listed them on internal memos as 'solicitors' to court wealthy people for a new DLC fund-raising drive." There's one problem with that statement. The Post reporter who wrote it, Charles Babcock, didn't know if it was true. And he still doesn't. "I probably should have said may not know it," Babcock told us in a June 13 interview. The first 10 words of his article, he said, were based on a "hunch." Like the Washington Post, we were unable to get the White House to comment on when Clinton and Gore knew about the DLC memo. In any case, the scenario sketched out in the memo signifies a new low in the DLC's tawdry activities. And that's low, indeed. Year after year, DLC national meetings have been dominated by corporate lobbyists, many of them Republicans. At the DLC annual conference in March 1989, nearly 100 lobbyists subsidized the event by paying between $2,500 and $25,000 each. (In a moment of candor, DLC president Al From acknowledged: "There's no question you can define 'special interest' as our sponsors.') The DLC's main thrust inside the Democratic Party has been to deride loyal activist constituencies - such as labor, racial minorities and feminists - as pushy special interests. But the negative "special interests" tag is rarely affixed to the DLC and its big-money backers, including the top echelons of Arco, Prudential-Bache, Dow Chemical, Boeing, Georgia Pacific, the Tobacco Institute and Martin Marietta. The corporate heavies behind the Democratic Leadership Council wouldn't know a middle-class person if their limousines ran over one. Yet that hasn't stopped the DLC - and Clinton, who was hoisted to the national political stage by the DLC - from swearing dedication to "the middle class" almost daily. President Clinton rang the trusty bell in a speech to the DLC six months ago: "We must be the party of the values and the interests of the middle class." In late 1992, President-elect Clinton appeared at a DLC banquet in his honor, helping to raise $3 million for the group in a single night; as usual, middle class folks and "values" were hard to find at the DLC event - which cost $15,000 per plate. The DLC has big backers in the media as well. Journalists constantly quote DLC luminaries about matters involving the Democratic Party, and hail DLCers as bold "New Democrats." The sleaze that flows between high-rolling corporations and high-placed politicians is bipartisan, and deserves much more media scrutiny than it gets - especially when perpetuated by political groups claiming to speak on behalf of "the middle class."