Posted 9:31 AM by Scoobie Davis

Limbaugh's Lies about Clark
Pimpled-ass draft-dodger Rush Limbaugh is smearing Wesley Clark and denigrating his service in the military with the help of FrontPage Magazine, which is run by an admitted violator of the Espionage Act.
On Tuesday , I mentioned that Sean Hannity was spreading rumors about Wesley Clark (scroll down to read them). Counterspin Central listed some possible points of sliming that the GOP and Bush campaign will take against Wesley Clark.
The following were touched upon by Rush Limbaugh in just the first ten minutes of his radio show yesterday:
1) He's an unstable hothead who "almost started World War III." (Really? This analysis at Antidotal puts the lie to this talking point.)
2) He was involved in the Waco disaster. (See below.)
3) He's just a front for Hillary and Bill Clinton; Limbaugh referred to Clark as "Hillary's sock puppet." (See below.)
The hapless radio jock also claimed that Clark "had to beg Bill Clinton for his fourth star. Military people think that he didn't earn it -- that he hasn't deserved it -- that Clinton gave it to him anyway."

In accusing Clark of begging for instead of earning his fourth star, Limbaugh is accusing Clark of violating Article 133 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice: Conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman.
Generally, if one makes such a serious charge, one backs it up with evidence. To no surprise to anyone familiar with Limbaugh's style, Limbaugh provided no evidence to back up his charge.
Anyone familiar with Clark's biography or personality knows that this is an outrageous slander.

Then, Rush again raised the 9/11 phone call smear raised by George Will and the Weekly Standard that Ben Fritz so thoroughly debunked at Spinsanity.org. Rush called it "curious psychologically."
I call it typical Limbaugh filth.
Limbaugh then elaborated on his Waco claim, trying to blame the entire Waco debacle on Clark. Unfortunately for Limbaugh, ClarkSphere.com has debunked that lie.

Then Limbaugh hit that third point:
"I’ll tell you the most popular theory out there, and Clark is already being asked about it, he’s already saying 'no.' The big theory is that Wesley Clark is out there as Hillary’s sock puppet and that he’s going to end up being her vice presidential candidate -- that all this is to condition the American people to him -- to make the American people aware of him to get a big military guy, not a Vietnam veteran as the French looking, although Clark is. He is a Vietnam vet but he has more recent experience" (emphasis added).

"Most popular theory"?
According to whom?
The idea that Clark is anyone's puppet is outrageous and insulting.
To nobody's surprise, Limbaugh has a vicious image of Clark with a Four-star hat as a sock puppet on his web site.
This is a talking point used by John LeBoutillier of NewsMax (a print magazine and Web site run by ultra-right-wing billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife monkey-boy and Vince Foster conspiracy theorist Christopher Ruddy) on Al Rantel's radio show on KABC Tuesday.

Limbaugh appears to have received much of his disinformation regarding Wesley Clark from an article by Lowell Ponte in FrontPage magazine. Limbaugh even mentioned Ponte on his show and cited Ponte's article on his web site; Limbaugh's words are almost taken word-for-word from Ponte's column.

What I find amazing is that Ponte writes for a magazine and Web site run by David Horowitz. Horowitz is an admitted violator of the Espionage Act. He's also a recipient of Scaife's largesse. Horowitz is also cozy with racist ideas. Back in July 2002 I reported on Horowitz' praise for a virulent white supremacist Jared Taylor (Horowitz even published an article by Taylor).

Ponte's FrontPage article is dripping with paranoid and vicious innuendo. Ponte suggests (of course, without a shred of evidence) that Clark is under the control of the Clintons because they are blackmailing him. Ponte writes:

The Clintons, as their use of private detectives and secret police attests, like to use people they can blackmail, people over whom they hold some dark secret as a threat.... Perhaps General Wesley Clark was more intimately and directly involved in the deaths at Waco than anybody has reported. Perhaps he has some other secret shame or disgrace. For whatever reason, the Clintons seem confident that they have him under their complete control.

This is illustrative of what the late historian Richard Hofstadter called the paranoid style.
It is vile, and it would be a terrible shame if the American people were to sit back and allow a racist traitor like David Horowitz -- and a notorious, dishonest propagandist like Rush Limbaugh -- to smear a true patriot like Wesley Clark.