I’m going to give you the quote, then I’m going to let you guess what the smear is. Ready?

VoteVets.org has — they describe themselves as an organization comprised of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns who oppose current policy in Iraq. They’ve put together a TV ad that takes aim at me. This ad’s going to run on Fox News, on CNN, it’s going to run on WMAL radio in Washington, $60,000 ad buy that’s going to run, I think, on our local West Palm Beach station down here. And there’s a man identified as Brian McCoff — McGough — it’s M-C-G-O-U-G-H, I’m not sure how he pronounces it, McGo, McGuff — I haven’t watched the ad.

He discusses his service in Iraq, the wounds he suffered there, and he says to me in this ad, “Until you have the guts to call me a ‘phony soldier’ to my face, stop telling lies about my service.” You know, this is such a blatant use of a valiant combat veteran, lying to him about what I said, then strapping those lies to his belt, sending him out via the media in a TV ad to walk into as many people as he can walk into.

This man will always be a hero to this country with everyone. Whoever pumped him full of these lies about what I said and embarrassed him with this ad has betrayed him. They’re not hurting me, they’re betraying this soldier. Now, unless he actually believes what he’s saying, in which case it’s just so unfortunate and sad when the truth of what I said is right out there to be learned.

Think hard, and try to block out that part where he calls McGough a hero. Okay? Now — click!

Update: Both Reid and Mrs. Silky, who always seems to be tasked with the bad cop role, are calling for more pressure on Clear Channel and its advertisers. I don’t think this is about Limbaugh at all for the Democrats; maybe it is for Media Matters, but if the party wants to deal with Rush they’ll likely be in a position to do so in 2009 vis-a-vis the Fairness Doctrine. What this is really about is earning points for defending the troops ahead of trying to pull the rug out from under them when the big push for withdrawal finally comes.