Posted on 11/14/2003 10:34:54 AM PST by presidio9
It was an easy story to write: Wholesome 19-year-old from rural West Virginia dreams of becoming a kindergarten teacher but, in a brutal early twist of the Iraq war, becomes the Barbie doll symbol of the new American veteran.
U.S. Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, now 20, was frail, heroic, patriotic, blonde. She was a victim rescued on dramatic video, so print, broadcast and online journalists ate up her capture and rescue like hyenas.
In the process, they skipped a story that wasn't as easy to write: a married, African-American mother of a toddler, an immigrant from Panama living in Texas, who was wounded in the same March 23 battle in Nasiriya. Army Spc. Shoshana Johnson, 30, was a colleague in peril, but one who didn't arrive deliberately on your screen in a contrived package.
This speaks to the tendency of journalists to report quickly at the expense of reporting deeply.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
Michael
JE$$ICA LYNCH – CASHING IN ON FAME WHILE OUR SOLDIERS STILL DIE IN IRAQ MILLION $$$ BOOK DEAL – “VANITY FAIR” MAGAZINE PIX – MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE – DIANE SAWYER TELEVISION INTERVIEW – IS A PHOTO SPREAD IN “PLAYBOY” NEXT? – FORMER PFC SNUBS IRAQI WHO HELPED SAVE HER, KNOCKS PENTAGON FOR FILMING HER “RESCUE” NO COMMENT ON “NUDE PHOTOS” ALLEGEDLY TAKEN AT FORT BLISS
The saga of “America’s sweetheart,” Jessica Lynch, the fresh-faced, female soldier with blond hair and blue eyes that Pentagon “spin doctors” hoped would spur female recruiting in the U.S. military, has suddenly gone sour.
The former Private First Class, whose innocent, teen-aged face adorned the covers of national news magazines after her dramatic “rescue” from Iraqi captors, is no longer just a country girl from the hills of West Virginia.
She has become a cash commodity for those who see “big bucks” in marketing this “heroine” for all she’s worth. And at last estimate – that’s plenty!
RAKING IN THE “BIG BUCKS”
Lynch has already landed a million dollar book deal, made a nice piece of change on a photo essay in VANITY FAIR magazine, signed on for a Diane Sawyer television interview, and been the adoring subject of an NBC “made-for-TV” movie. What’s next? A photo spread in PLAYBOY?
Darva Conger, [remember her?], the finicky blond who dumped her hubby right after an “on-air” TV show “marriage,” got close to half a million bucks, we are told, for posing in the buff for the famous men’s magazine. And it wasn’t her slender figure that earned her a high modeling fee from PLAYBOY. It was the “notoriety” of her fame. Jessica could easily command as high a price, if not more.
There’s been “no comment” from the Lynch camp regarding press reports of “nude photos” taken of Jessica back at Fort Bliss before she shipped out to Iraq. The embarrassing pix were allegedly offered to the GLOBE tabloid, who wisely turned them down. Not for the $200,000 asking price, but because even a supermarket newspaper would suffer from public wrath if they risked running such unflattering photos of a “media darling.”
THE ALL TOO CONVENIENT “MEMORY LOSS”
Something has smelled about the too-perfect story of “heroine” Jessica Lynch from the very beginning. The Pentagon deserves its share of the blame for leaking a totally false story to the Washington POST about the female PFC “firing her weapon” until she “ran out of bullets,” leaving the ground covered with dead Iraqi soldiers until she finally was overwhelmed with bullet wounds in the legs and bayonet wounds to the torso.
Just the right “Amazon image” to bolster feminist demands for women in combat. A regular female “Audie Murphy.” But it wasn’t true.
Worse, the actual heroics are shared by several “male” soldiers, including (see our earlier story) SGT. Donald Walters who actually did empty his rifle into the onrushing enemy. He was killed in action, shot repeatedly and stabbed with a bayonet. Neither he nor his family gets a million dollars, much less a full-time public relations spokesperson to “shoo away” pesky reporters with questions about what really happened that day a U.S. Army convoy took a fateful wrong turn on the road to Nasiriyah.
Few people believe the convenient “memory loss” story Jessica’s Army doctors floated after she was transported to a military hospital in Germany for medical treatment. Lynch is sticking to the official line, but its wearing a bit thin.
THE “SEX ASSAULT” ANGLE
Rick Bragg, the former New York TIMES reporter who resigned in the wake of an “ethics” scandal at the venerable “newspaper of record,” claims that Jessica’s medical records indicate she may have been the victim of sodomy after her capture. Never mind the difficulty in that happening with a female prisoner with multiple broken bones, or the vehement testimony by Iraqi doctors that they examined the young private and saw no sign of any sexual assault.
The public pretty much knows the Pentagon’s story. And since Jessica is still holding to the “amnesia” angle, she can’t discuss anything on a first-person basis anyway. So it’s up to Bragg to “spice up” the account of the young soldier’s ordeal by leaking to the New York DAILY NEWS (who printed an advance peek at the book: “I am a Soldier, Too”) the juicy “details” of Jessica’s supposed assault.
Whoever has been advising Jessica on what to do and say has fumbled the ball. First, as we reported earlier, Jessica’s recent photo-op “media event” at a local VFW post where she accepted fawning praise and a bouquet of red roses from well-meaning old soldiers flopped when an Associated Press reporter attempted to ask Jessica a couple of questions.
“No way,” said the private’s public relations person. “She is under contract to ABC and won’t be giving any interviews until later.”
SNUBBING THE MAN WHO HELPED SAVE HER
To compound the crass commercialism of her situation, Jessica openly snubbed Iraqi lawyer Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief when he came to Palestine, West Virginia October 29 to meet the hamlet’s most famous daughter.
Townspeople threw a big dinner in his honor and showered him with gifts and heartfelt thanks, but new media star Jessica Lynch was “too busy with other commitments” to meet with her benefactor that day. That was the word from her “spokesperson.”
Could it be that jealousy raised its ugly head, as the Iraqi refugee has already come out with his own book – “Because Each Life Is Precious” before Lynch could rush her tome to the bookstores? Some “free publicity” for her savior might cut into sales, and that would not please Knopf publishers, who are, pardon the pun, “banking on” a big sale to recoup Jessica’s sizeable advance payment.
Better to fatuously claim she doesn’t “remember” the Iraqi gentleman at all, implying he is fake, instead of her. Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief’s dangerous trek to American lines with news of Jessica’s whereabouts counts for little when measured against the almighty “bottom line.” Money must be made from the American public, and the more the better.
COURTING THE HOWARD DEAN CROWD
The latest gimmick to increase public interest in Jessica is to have her slam the Pentagon and President George Bush’s handling of the war.
“They used me to symbolize all this stuff,” Lynch whined. “It’s wrong. I don’t know why they (the military) filmed it (the rescue).” Of course not.
That might play good with the Howard Dean crowd, but appearing to be too calculating and ungrateful to the troops who allegedly risked their lives to bring her back safely, won’t go over well with middle America.
About the only thing Jessica can do now to try and salvage some of the enormous public adulation she’s squandered in the past few weeks, is to share some of her considerable loot with the families of those who died that day in the Iraqi ambush.
But that’s about as likely as seeing pigs fly through the air.
As time goes on, the American people will get over its infatuation with the seemingly sweet, wide-eyed country girl who so captivated everyone’s imagination in the first moments of her ordeal. But for now, there’s still “money to be made.” And you can be sure, PFC Lynch’s handlers won’t miss an opportunity to “cash in” while the getting is good.
B U L L E T I N
LARRY FLYNT “FLIP-FLOPS” NOW SAYS WON’T PUBLISH NUDE PIX OF JE$$ICA LYNCH – BOUGHT UP PHOTOS TO PREVENT OTHERS FROM USING THEM – LYNCH TOO VALUABLE AS ANTI-BUSH TOOL – SO-CALLED “HEROINE” MAY CAMPAIGN FOR DEMS
Porn publisher Larry Flynt pulled a fast-one Tuesday – Veterans Day across America – when he did a “flip-flop” on his promise to publish nude photos of a 19 year-old PFC JE$$ICA Lynch in an upcoming issue of HUSTLER magazine.
Flynt had announced just the day before, that he was going to run the sensational pix on the pages of his raunchy publication. He said he wanted to show his readers that Lynch “. . . was not a Joan of Arc.”
But 24 hours later, the porn king claimed he’d changed his mind because “she’s a good kid” who has become “a pawn for the government.”
MORE USEFUL BASHING BUSH
Political observers told MilitaryCorruption.com that Flynt realizes Lynch is a far more valuable commodity criticizing the war in Iraq and President George Bush, than as a nude pin-up in his skin magazine. Anyway, he can always “change his mind” again later on.
We who work at this web site are no fans of the Bush Administration. In fact, the Republicans have been more hostile and indifferent to veterans – trying to block reform of the Concurrent Receipt Law for example – than even Bill “I loathe the military” Clinton ever thought of being!
In regard to the war in Iraq, we feel the arrogant and duplicitous Donald Rumsfeld should be fired. While we support the ouster of the brutal dictator Saddam Hussein and back all our troops in harm’s way, we will not pull punches in criticizing a failed foreign policy that could leave us “quagmired” in Vietnam, oops, we mean Iraq, for many years to come.
A “FREE PASS” ON THE NUDE PIX
But Flynt is giving “baby-faced” JE$$ICA a free pass on the nude pix. After all, the Army went overboard creating her image as a “heroine,” presented her with the Bronze Star, and used her for their propaganda ends. In turn, she has reaped a huge financial bonanza that other members of her Army unit, who aren’t blond, blue-eyed and pretty, will never see.
So why shouldn’t the American people know if the former PFC cavorted naked with male soldiers in a barracks at Fort Bliss? That’s still a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), isn’t it? Not that we want the Army to bring her back on duty and punish her. That would be ridiculous. But JE$$ICA’s “innocent virgin” image is false. If she’s going to enjoy the benefits of being a “media darling,” and play the role, she should take responsibility for her past mistakes as well.
As for Flynt, if JE$$ICA is not sufficiently critical of his nemesis George Bush, the pornmiester can always use the threat of publishing the photos after all, to get his way. A well-placed liberal told us not to be surprised if Lynch “ends up campaigning for one of the Democrat candidates for President in 2004, especially if the public has further soured on the slow pace of the war in Iraq.”
THE SANCTIMONIOUS SMUT PEDDLER
Leave it to Larry to wrap himself in a cloak of self-righteousness as he wipes the slime off his paws.
“My first intention was to publish them [the nude photos], but I don’t think it would be the best, most positive move I could make,” Flynt sanctimoniously told The Associated Press.
The porn publisher didn’t disclose what he’d paid for the pix but said he’d locked the photos in a vault for safekeeping.
LYNCH CAMP DOES DAMAGE CONTROL
“It’s incredulous that anyone would think it appropriate in any way to attempt to publish unauthorized photos of Jessica – photos taken before she was deployed to Iraq and before her capture and rescue,” Lynch lawyer Stephen Goodwin said in a prepared statement.
As for JE$$ICA, she had no comment on the nude pix.
Initial reports from selected bookstores across the United States on November 11, show very slow sales for “I AM A SOLDIER, TOO: THE STORY OF PFC JESSICA LYNCH.”
This girl was 19 years old and headed off to war in a foreign land. If everybody held my behavior as a 19 year-old college student against me I wouldn't have much to say for myself. The fact that you are so judgemental suggests to me that you were a model of wholesomeness.
Add that to her sudden decision that she will indeed meet with the Iraqi lawyer. Grannie says she didn't want to meet with him earlier because she was afraid it would bring back bad memories...........GIVE ME A BREAK.....it's the bad publicity that is causing her turnaround on the Iraqi.
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