Rush Errors? Help me Rebuff!

I got a list of supposedly incorrect Rush statements from a well-meaning Liberal friend, and wanted to get some input. I am not the kind of Conservative that would say "Rush is always right", but I would think that this problem has come up before. Can anyone read the following, and provide verification that they are wrong, or right for that matter? Or link a webpage debunking this? I am sure that anybody would make ten errors in a 20 year career, but my friend has latched onto this like it is the Holy Grail...

Rush: Do you know we have more acreage of forest land in the United States today than at the time the Constitution was written?"

Truth: Before European settlement, the U.S. Forest Service estimates that there were about 1 billion acres of forestland in what are now the 50 states. Toady there are 737 million acres of forestland in the 50 states.

Rush: Styrofoam and plastic milk jugs are biodegradable! Do you know what isn't biodegradable? Paper! He later claimed he had not made this statement. When a letter writer challenged him, he said, "I never said that Styrofoam is biodegradable." When this same writer called his show, he said "Well it doesn't happen in a lifetime, Mike, that's the trouble with you enviro-Nazis, you want everything to happen in your lifetime! You can't live for 2000 years to see if it might degrade. We don't know. Nobody does. It hasn't been tested.

Truth: The biodegradability of polystyrene (Styrofoam) has been tested. It's a virtually indestructible non-biodegradable plastic (according to Chemical Marketing Reporter.

Rush: Banks take the risks in issuing student loans and they are entitled to the profits.

Truth: Banks take no risks in issuing student loans, which are federally guaranteed.

Rush: On reports that Bill Clinton's budget deficit might drop to $180 billion. "$180 billion is still billions more than any of the evil deficits that Reagan ever ran up."

Truth: There you go again, Rush. Reagan's budget deficits from 1983 through 1986 all exceeded $180 billion dollars, with the 1986 deficit over $220 billion. (adjusting for inflation to 1994 dollars when Rush made this statement, all 8 of Reagan's budgets exceeded $180 billion.

Rush: Stop and think about this a minute. Bill Clinton is the first president in modern history to have both houses of Congress. We've got every branch of government controlled by the democrats."

Truth: Clinton was the fourth president since 1960 whose party had a majority in both houses of Congress. Seven of the eleven presidents prior to this Bush had party majorities in both houses of Congress for at least some part of their terms in office.

Rush: "The worst part of all this is the lie that condoms really protect against AIDS. The condom failure rate can be as high as 20%.

Truth: According to DR. Joseph Kelaghan, who evaluates contraceptives for the National Institutes of Health, this isn't true. "There is substantive evidence that condoms prevent transmission if used consistently and properly. He pointed to a two-year study of couple where one partner was positive and one was negative. Of the 123 couples who used condoms regularly, there was not one single new infection. Rushisms?

Rush: "I, for one, remember the long gas lines on the 1970s…Those gas lines were a direct result of the foreign oil powers playing tough with us because they didn't fear Jimmy Carter."

Truth: This one's almost too easy. The worst gas lines were in late 1973 and early 1974, during the administration of Richard Nixon.

Rush: On the gulf war: "Everybody in the world was aligned with the United States except who? The United States Congress."

Truth: Both houses of Congress votes to authorize the United States to use force against Iraq.

Rush: "all of these rich guys-like the Kennedy family and Perot-pretending to live just like we do and pretending to understand our trials and tribulations and pretending to represent us, and they get away with this." (11/18/93)

Pay up.
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Let's see. Hundreds of hours filled by Rushisms and these are the only goofs you can find. I should have such a record. Hell, Timmy Russert made more mistakes in the last MTP. Clinton told more deliberate lies in each press conference!

Rush ain't perfect but he is way ahead of whoever is in second place.

Before European settlement, the U.S. Forest Service estimates that there were about 1 billion acres of forestland in what are now the 50 states. Toady there are 737 million acres of forestland in the 50 states.

Rush said at the time of the Constitution signing, not before European settlement. That's about 150 years difference. If someone tries to look up the answer then they should keep the time difference in mind.

Truth: This one's almost too easy. The worst gas lines were in late 1973 and early 1974, during the administration of Richard Nixon.

Hey I remember the Carter gas lines. There were no significate shortage in my memory during the Nixon administration.

The only time I ever sat in gas lines wasin either 1978 or 1979 which was after I moved to California. There were never any gas lines before that.

Do you know we have more acreage of forest land in the United States today than at the time the Constitution was written?"

I believe what Rush has actually said was Do you know we have more TREES in the United States today than at the time the Constitution was written?"

Look, these people are full of WILLFUL IGNORANCE. They refuse to acknowledge truth, even when it strikes them in the face. Don't waste your time with those so closely associated with the Devil.

I'll take this one: Truth: "There you go again, Rush. Reagan's budget deficits from 1983 through 1986 all exceeded $180 billion dollars, with the 1986 deficit over $220 billion. (adjusting for inflation to 1994 dollars when Rush made this statement, all 8 of Reagan's budgets exceeded $180 billion." This is false. Seven of 8 of Reagan's proposed budgets were far below what Congress eventually approved. Federal spending would have been 25% less during his presidency had Congress passed his proposed budgets.

Also, the comparison is between estimated acreage vs. actual acreage. If one were estimating the acreage we have today, one might round it up to about 1 billion acres.

I did read that there is more forested area in New England today because the farms are fewer there today. Food production moved to the Midwest with the opening of the frontier, and gradually many of the New England farms were converted to housing developments (with lots of trees) or state parks, hence more trees than in a cleared pasture or field.

Here's another allegation you list: Rush: "I, for one, remember the long gas lines on the 1970s…Those gas lines were a direct result of the foreign oil powers playing tough with us because they didn't fear Jimmy Carter." Truth: This one's almost too easy. The worst gas lines were in late 1973 and early 1974, during the administration of Richard Nixon. Actually, Rush was right. The worse gas lines were during the Carter administration, when OPEC was at its strongest.

This sounds like material from the FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting -- a left-wing media "watchdog" group which, like most partisan "watchdog" groups, is blind in one eye) book. I've read it. It's about 1/3rd resonable (Rush does tend to oversimply and I think he probably does make real mistakes from time to time), 1/3rd exaggerations, and 1/3rd statements taken out of context or problematic only if you have a liberal bias. Maybe Rush makes mistakes. It happens. As FAIR about the feminists who made up statistics about men beating up women on Superbowl Sunday for some evidence that the pot is calling the kettle black.

They aren't talking about trees; they're talking about forests. Still it's kind of funny. Europeans have just about no wilderness left, yet they are the ones who take us to task the most for nixing Kyoto.

There's no contradiction there. The people in question (well really, Kennedy a bit more than Perot, I think) are politicians constantly demonizing the wealthy, despite being in their class. Rush has no problem with wealth, either his or anyone else's (so long as it was not gained through immoral means).

A better example would be Michael Moore, who has made a living out of waging war with the rich but has no problem with joining them (more info).

Ann Landers or Dear Abby is supposed to have told this:
When a coroner does an autopsy on an AIDS body, they wear full body suits that look like bio-chemists, including face plates, double gloves, latex covering below body suit....

If you want to trust a thin condom to protect you, go for it.

Don't let yourself get caught up in this sort of debate. They have a *stacked deck* and they are not interested in any form of fairness.

Any response you come up with will be disregarded, out of hand.

My best advice to you, when they come up with this sort of stuff .. is to tell them .. "Hey, Rush makes mistakes. He is human. And I am honest enough to admit when someone I admire makes a mistake. Unlike the Clintonoids who insisted that everything Clinton did was just hunky dorey. How would you like it if I came up with a list of Clinton's intentional lies and mis-speaks and asked you to defend them?"

Rush: Do you know we have more acreage of forest land in the United States today than at the time the Constitution was written?"
hahahahah....the United States is a lot bigger now isn't it. You absolutely can't argue with Rush on this point. Jeez these liberals are stupid!

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Pay up.Ammo costs.

Pay up.
Ammo costs.