Wednesday, April 25, 2007

My Morning Wooten

Yesterday, Jessica Lynch and the family of Pat Tillman testified before congress on how they believe the military intentionally misled the public on both tragic stories. For a long time, I myself wondered why these exaggerations mattered. Then someone, I do not recall who, crystallized the matter for me. He said, "Sometimes the only comfort for the family is the cold, hard truth". As we all know now, when this administration's war effort is involved ,the truth has been not been a requirement but rather a tool to further its misguided agenda. The tool is not even set aside for grieving families or traumatized soldiers who simply want to be left alone.

Then, there are those who "support the troops" but only as long as they are seen in the light of the "good" war effort.
This is not a liberal or conservative issue, but the anti-war Democrats in Congress are attempting to make political hay with suggestions that the brass lied about the valor under fire of Jessica Lynch in Iraq and the death of Pat Tillman in Afghanistan.

I would write on but simply reading Jim's article this morning roils my stomach. What about supporting the families (the Tillmans), Jim? What about supporting the troops (Lynch), Jim? Are the also part of the anti-war crowd? Does it matter that the Tillmans have been asking hard questions about their son's death for three years? What about Jessica Lynch? Does it matter that since she arrived home all she wanted to do was receive treatment and return to her life instead of being paraded like a prize pony.

No, in the mind of those who still ignore the cascade of deception and failure that led us to this point, the only viewpoint is a partisan Congress intent on destroying the President. All else is irrelevant, including the actual events of the previous three years.

But should we be surprised? Ignoring history to further agenda has become standard practice in some parts.

3 comments:

Grayson: Atlanta, GA said...

Hello??? Did David Halberstam, RIP, not teach journalists a g-damn thing with his entire astonishing life as a brilliant exposer of gross military propaganda?

Grift hon. Don't you know better than to go looking for righteousness in all the wrong places... Jim Wooten is no David Halberstam. Hell, he's not even a real journalist. He's just a run of the mill lip-flapper, with a career headed only straight to the PP toilet.

possum said...

Wooten has decided to stay at the paper. Damn! Griftdrift, I'm going to leave it up to you to read Lyin' Jim. I ain't got the stomach for it.

Garrett said...

Yeah, come on, GMAFB. Trying to get to the truth about these events isn't "making political hay". It's just trying to do some small service to these families who have made a sacrifice that's hard to comprehend.