Oh what fun

For reasons unfathomable to me, the Washington Post hired worthless hack Rammesh Ponuru to moderate their conservative discussion forum. In that forum, Ponnuru, as a matter of course with conservative mouthpieces, has chosen to defend Rush Limbaugh’s “phony soldier” remark (transcript here). In return for protecting the drug-addled, porcine talk show host, Ponnuru’s ass was flamed to a well-done crisp. Here is a sampling, typos and all:

Look, he said it. Spinning it as to what he meant, didn't mean, wanted to mean, maybe meant, etc., is nice of you committed rightists, but he said it. And Rush complaining about things being taken out of context is like Ronald McDonald dissing hamburgers. Maybe instead of shoring up the sand under Rush's wide behind you guys ought to get a less embarrassing mouthpiece.

[Snip]

I heard him say it for God's sake. He called the vets who spoke out against the war "phony soldiers". The audio is available. This reminds me of Bush saying no one warned him about Katrina - then a tape surfaces of someone telling him exactly that - and the press just lets it go. George Orwell would not have believed how on target he was.

[Snip]

Ramesh may be the kind of self-deluded ideologue who can't even see the issue objectively - or he may be one of the operatives who know their own hypocrisy but don't care because the end justifies the means. You see, despite all the rebuttals that may appear on this page, the home page still carries the smear of Media Matters and Harry Reid.That is Ponnuru's real objective - attack the messenger. I could understand the National Review giving him the space for his partisanship. But the Washington Post only demeans itself by treating a smear as a genuine point for discussion and allowing it's author to adopt the mantle of moderator. (Has anyone seen a sign that he is "moderating" this discussion? No.) What a load.

[Sip]

You give no proof. The transcript would be proof. I heard the discussion and Rush clearly meant "phony soldiers" to mean soldiers who disagree with the war. He also called Murtha a "phony soldier". Murtha is not a man who has lied about his military bona fides so your explanation just went the window.

And so on.