Topic: NewsBusters
Noel Sheppard, in defending Rush Limbaugh against a claim that he once portrayed Chelsea Clinton as the "White House dog," used a June 12 NewsBusters post to repeat another blog post that purports to depict the incident as a mistake and a misunderstanding and insisting that Limbaugh profusely apologized at the time.
What's lacking, though, is any actual evidence to support the claim.
The blog Sheppard cited is called Lying Liar, which ought to be a warning sign (it largely centers on attacking Al Franken). It is anonymously written. The post Sheppard cited provides no outside links to back up the claims it makes.
Indeed, actual physical evidence to support Sheppard's version of events is sorely lacking -- even NewsBusters' parent organization, the Media Research Center, has never ventured to defend Limbaugh in such a way. The only direct reference to the incident that we could find in the MRC archive came in a 2003 CyberAlert; that reference came in the course of quoting someone else, and no effort is made to highlight or correct the claim. That indicates to us that it believes the claim is true.
Limbaugh presumably has access to copies of the original broadcasts of his '90s TV show, on which the incident reportedly took place. All he has to do is post the video of the incident and the subsequent purported apologies, and that would clear his name.
Will Sheppard demand that Limbaugh do that?
