Iowa Senator Tom Harkin says he’s -not- calling for the removal of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh from American Forces Radio. Harkin, a democrat, says he just wants a better political balance on the taxpayer-funded network, beamed to U.S. military installations globally. Limbaugh calls Harkin’s amendment to a defense spending bill an attempt at censorship, but Harkin says that’s not the case. Harkin says “Mr. Limbaugh either does not know the facts of what happened and what I said or he is lying, one of the two, and they’re both inexcusable for someone who is a national radio personality.” Harkin says Limbaugh is entitled to his opinions and viewpoints. Harkin says “I am not calling for American Forces Radio to pull Rush Limbaugh’s commentaries from their talk radio service.” He says he’s just asking for “political programming that is fair and balanced.” Harkin disputes Limbaugh’s claim that he’s trying to get him taken off the air to silence his conservative commentary. Harkin says Limbaugh is “playing the old trick…yelling ‘censorship’…to get his ratings back up.” On his program’s website “www.rushlimbaugh.com”, Limbaugh has posted excerpts from his Thursday broadcast in which he responds to Harkin and the amendment. Limbaugh says the radio network U.S. soldiers around the world hear is -already- balanced with all sorts of talk shows which he calls liberal. “The Armed Forces Radio Network provides not only N-P-R programs like Morning Edition and All Things Considered, but NPR commentary as well. American military men and women abroad have access, for example, to the talk show of liberal host Diane Rehm. I didn’t even know she was still alive.””Armed Forces Radio provides 12-hundred different programs to military radio stations around the world. I am one hour of the 12-hundred and the media has now decided to align itself with this appendage of the Democratic Party in the form of an amendment to the defense appropriations bill offered by a United States senator to have that hour of my program removed from Armed Forces Radio.””This is censorship. This isn’t what happened with all this indecency garbage out there and fines and this sort of stuff. This is the United States government, or a United States senator, doing so.”
