On August 26, nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh again wrongly claimed that the Army is surpassing its yearly recruiting goals. Limbaugh previously made this claim based on inaccurate military recruitment numbers from an August 23 New York Post op-ed. Limbaugh presumably referred to this same op-ed on his August 26 broadcast, asking his listeners: “Did you hear the story earlier this week?” -- even though the New York Post issued a correction to the op-ed days earlier.

On the August 26 broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show, Limbaugh attacked The Washington Post for “lying through their teeth” in reporting on August 26 that the Army will fail to meet its recruitment goal for fiscal 2005, which ends September 30. On the August 24 broadcast of his show, Limbaugh had referred to New York Post columnist Ralph Peters's August 23 op-ed, saying, “Recruitment levels are way above what expectations are in every branch, including the reserves. This is a big myth that the media has put out there that people aren't signing up.” Limbaugh apparently referred to the op-ed's erroneous statistics again on August 26, stating, “Recruitment goals in all branches of the service are in excess of projections.”

But as Media Matters for America noted, Peters used inaccurate first-time recruitment numbers to erroneously claim that “the U.S. Army is exceeding its re-enlistment and first-time enlistment goals.” After widespread recognition of his error, Peters drafted a correction that was printed in the August 24 edition of the Post and appears at the bottom of the online version of the op-ed. In his correction, Peters acknowledged his “substantial error” and wrote: “The new-enlistment rates I cited were wrong. The Army is still falling short on new enlistments.”

From the August 26 broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: Washington Post again. Boy, they're loaded for bear, lying through their teeth today. Did you hear the story earlier this week? Recruitment goals in all branches of the service are in excess of projections, including the reserves. Have you heard this? The media's been lying about this for as long as they can. They've been trying to say that recruitment levels are down. They are in excess of projection. They are over 100 percent of what they need. Headline, Washington Post today: “Army Likely to Meet August's, But Not Year's, Recruiting Goal: Expanding Force in Coming Months Expected to be Difficult. The Army's expected to meet or exceed its monthly recruiting goal for August but is likely to miss its annual goal for the fiscal year that ends next month amid one of the most difficult recruiting environments since it became all-volunteer, the Army's chief of staff said yesterday.” How do they get -- how do they create this? How do they create this? They ignore the re-enlistments. The recruitment and the re-enlistments combine to put them above recruitment levels. The Washington Post ignores the re-enlistments. They totally -- they don't ignore it, but they bury it way back in the story. The story is written by Josh White. “By the end of July, the Army was on pace to miss its annual goal by more than 10 percent. It raised the target in fiscal 2005 as part of a long-term effort to expand the force by 30,000 troops to a total of 512,000.” Washington Post once again craps all over the United States military.