Limbaugh: "[W]e haven't seen any smears of George Soros"

Written by Andrew Seifter

Published

On the August 6 edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show, radio host Rush Limbaugh attacked those who have “smear[ed]” the Republican funding behind the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Limbaugh claimed, "[W]e haven't seen any smears of George Soros ... [or] those receiving George Soros's money."

Smears against financier, philanthropist, and political activist George Soros and MoveOn.org, to which Soros has donated $2.6 million, have run rampant throughout the conservative media as part of an attempt to discredit Senator John Kerry, as Media Matters for America has documented on the following occasions:

  • Referencing the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, Limbaugh himself said, "[D]on't be surprised if George Soros puts up a few hundred million dollars for a torture institute at the new torture university to teach people how it's really done, to show how Bush and Rumsfeld are inept." (5/18/04)

  • Washington Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley called Soros, a Hungarian-born Jew who survived the Nazi occupation of communist Budapest, "a Jew who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust." (6/3/04)

  • Radio host Michael Savage, in reference to Hitler's minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, labeled Soros "Billionaire George Goebbels Soros" and called Soros "a money changer in the temple of truth." Savage also said MoveOn.org was a group of "rat-bastard Communists." (6/4/04)

  • Scarborough Country host Joe Scarborough described Soros as "a wacky billionaire ... who is throwing some money around." (6/14/04)

  • Right-wing pundit Ann Coulter erroneously claimed that Soros “blam[es] anti-Semitism on the Jews.” (6/14/04)

  • Richard Poe, contributing editor for the right-wing NewsMax Magazine, labeled Soros a "madman." (5/19/04)

  • Numerous right-wing media outlets echoed the Republican National Committee in attacking Soros by distorting comments he made about the terrorist attacks of September 11 and the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. (6/3/04)

  • U.S. News & World Report senior writer and FOX News Channel political contributor Michael Barone erroneously claimed that the “MoveOn.org folks were cheering when they heard of [former President Ronald] Reagan's death.” (6/8/04)

  • Several conservative commentators falsely accused MoveOn.org of comparing President George W. Bush to Hitler; Limbaugh said, “MoveOn.org, this is the wacko bunch that is doing ads equating Bush with Hitler.” (5/28/04)

  • FOX News Channel host and radio host Bill O'Reilly doctored a 1995 quotation by Soros to make it seem as if Soros wished his own father dead. (6/1/04)