Sunday, November 9, 2003
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Private Jessica says President is misusing her 'heroism'
Why do I do it to myself? Why oh why do I see these Guardian headlines and bother clicking through to read the story? Wow, thought I...Jessica Lynch really said that? Holy shmoly. Well, not exactly, it turns out. At least, there's no such actual quote (and of course, need I point out the scare quotes around 'Heroism'? Like Jessica held up her fingers and made that little "quotation" gesture..."Gosh, the President is sure misusing my [quote gesture]heroism[close quote gesture]...yeah, right) The closest it comes to Lynch actually saying anything close to what the headlines describes is simply a contextless quote at the end that sounds like one of those "Gosh, golly, why are they making a big deal out of little old me" things.
The AP is circulating a slightly sensational-sounding sneak of and upcoming TV interview, which at first blush makes it sound serious - but a second reading makes sound like it could be simple modesty and embarrassment at all the attention. Good for her, but it'll be sad if her words are used to make it tougher for the people still there. I seriously doubt she'd mean to do that, and that's why it sounds to me like her words are being sensationalized.
And of course, in the Guardian story, it's all here. Racism because Jessica is getting more attention than a Black female POW - never mind the hook the media has around Lynch's rescue, and let's face it, she's cute - it must be racism. Disparagement of the President for not trumpeting sufficient bad news - now there's a surprise. Disparaging Lynch's actions surrounding the circumstances of her capture, questioning her sexual assault, disparaging the Iraqi lawyer who helped her...and it's all done in such a way as to superimpose the media's choices over the President, as if he runs the networks.
It must really eat these Guardian reporters up inside that Americans should possibly have someone to feel good about.
While Johnson is living on $500 a month, Lynch stands to make millions from her book, I Am a Soldier, Too. She has been romanced as the media target of the moment, photographed by Annie Liebowitz for Vanity Fair, and stands to make millions more from a movie deal.
'There is a double standard,' said Johnson's father, Claude. 'I don't know for sure that it was the Pentagon. All I know for sure is the media paid a lot of attention to Jessica.'
And America is deter mined that Lynch will be a heroine, despite the fact that she never fired a shot, and instead got down on her knees to pray as her unit was surrounded by enemy forces. As she pointed out herself, it was her dead colleague Lori Piestewa, a Native American mother of two, who went down fighting.
Lynch says the circumstances of her rescue was dramatised and manipulated by the Pentagon. She was not rescued in a 'blaze of gunfire' as reported by Defence Department officials last April, but picked up from compliant Iraq doctors who had saved her life...
