A graf from TPM:

It didn’t take too long for Rush Limbaugh and his allies to come up with a defense for the “phony soldiers” flap. While the transcript makes it rather clear that Limbaugh was referring to troops who oppose the president’s Iraq policy, Limbaugh, the Weekly Standard, and others, have argued that the far-right blowhard was being literal. In other words, when Limbaugh trashed “phony soldiers,” he was referring to actual frauds — those who claimed to serve but didn’t.

Yes, of course. Very believable. And hey, I heard that MoveOn.org has a defense as well: they actually did not know how to spell General Petraeus’ name, and put up the “General Petraeus or General Betray-us” ad in order to get clarification. Just a big misunderstanding.

Apparently Limbaugh is latching on to this bizarre weasel, and has claimed that John Murtha is one of those “phony soldiers.” At the very least, this shows us the difference between Limbaugh and MoveOn.org: only one of them is a gutless wonder who makes lame excuses to try to make it seem that he didn’t say what he obviously meant to say.