A recent controversy that has been in the news since late September that was first brought up by anchorman Charles Gibson during ABC World News focused on what he called at the time “phony heroes.”

During the piece aired by the usually liberal slanted ABC News, reporter Bryan Ross focused on two men who had falsely claimed to have served in wartime in an effort to receive free veterans’ hospital and other benefits. Next, reporter Ross stated, “Authorities say that this disturbing case involves a man, 23-year-old Jesse Macbeth.”

Ross continued with the story saying, “In a YouTube video seen around the world, Macbeth became a rallying point for anti-war groups.”

Further, Ross explained that Macbeth was claiming that he had received the Purple Heart in Baghdad and how he, as a member of the U.S. Army Rangers along with his comrades, had killed innocent civilians while at prayer in a Baghdad mosque.

It was later discovered that Macbeth’s story was a complete pack of lies.

The truth is that Macbeth was in the Army for just six weeks, being discharged before he completed basic training, and was never in Iraq.

After being exposed as a phony, Macbeth admitted to lying about his service record and the atrocities, and he apologized for defaming America’s real heroes.

The above commentary was just the beginning, because after conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh made the “Phony Soldier” story part of his Sept. 25 commentary, the Liberals in Congress and the media went into a feeding frenzy, accusing Limbaugh of denigrating any American soldier who is opposed to the war.

Limbaugh, who I believe is meticulous in his

research covering any explosive issue, had already dug up a press release from a U.S. Attorney in Washington State, dated Sept. 21, 2007, who had successfully prosecuted eight of what he called “fake soldiers” who had defrauded the Veterans Administration system.

As written by columnist Byron York in National Review Online, after relating the Macbeth story during his show, Rush Limbaugh added his own words about the hard Left saying, “They have to lie about such atrocities because of the way they see the U.S. military. In other words, for the anti-war left, the greatest inconvenience they face is the truth.”

What happened, and is still ongoing, was a firestorm of repudiation aimed at Limbaugh by the liberals in Congress and fueled by the liberal web sites, Media Matters and MoveOn.org., headed by David Brock and George Soros.

Both Brock and Soros are Bush/conservative haters and provide big-time funding to support their liberal agendas.

The liberals have been after the likes of Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and other talk radio conservatives for a long time, because this is the one media segment that they don’t control.

Congressman Henry Waxman, the radical leftist who heads the committee on oversight and government reform has one single agenda – to investigate Bush and the Republicans for political reasons only, and now Rush Limbaugh and conservative Talk Radio commentators have become serious targets too.

The “phony soldier” issue is just that, phony, and is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to retaliate against the conservatives for blasting George Soros, the New York Times and the other liberals who supported the recent, outrageous Times ad, “General Betray Us.”

As columnist Michael Reagan pointed out in his Oct. 8, 2007, column published in The Selma Times-Journal, “Few Americans have been more supportive of the U.S. military than Rush Limbaugh.”

Further, in my opinion, Reagan had it exactly right with this remark regarding talk radio “Like all Marxists, the liberals won’t stop trying to lie their way into power. As a result, they won’t stop trying to destroy the new media.”

Byrd Looper is a regular columnist for The Times-Journal.