Morford: The Big Lie Of Jessica Lynch (the worst book you'll read this year)

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | Friday, September 5, 2003 | Mark Morford (On the side of the Iraqis)

[presidio9]

Hey, remember that dramatic CNN footage of that big statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled by U.S. forces in that Baghdad square a few months back, during the "war"? Remember how powerfully symbolic it was supposed to be?

Remember, later, seeing the wide-angle shot on the Internet, the one of all the U.S. tanks surrounding the square and the whole bogus setup of how they staged the event, complete with a big crane and some strong cable and strategically positioned "citizens" cheering their "liberation" as the statue fell, as just off camera, a handful of genuine Iraqis loitered nearby, looking confused and bored?

[theDentist]

Wow. Someone woke up on the wrong side of Jm J Bullock this morning.

[finnman69]

These are the things that make you realize, goddammit, here I am working every day and struggling to make ends meet in a BushCo-gutted economy and all I really needed to do all along to make a million bucks is stage some sort of bogus wartime heroics and sell it to a war-numbed American populace for $24.95 in hardback, and, boom, Range Rover City.

Maybe Morford should move to a more affordable city.

[Dog Gone]

He actually gets paid to write this way?

[dead]

He must have his hands on a pair of hairy crystal balls, enabling him to read a book that hasn't been written yet.

[WVNan]

Poor little Markie. He has no problem believing every evil spoken against his country but G-d forbid that he should believe anything good about it. I believe that George Washington said, "I cannot tell a lie". So what? It makes me proud to be American. I am glad that Rick Bragg is doing the book. He is a really good writer (All Over But the Shoutin'). I will buy it.

[presidio9]

What's that? The in-side?

[Jaded]

and the dramatic and violent "rescue" was really just inane and silly and entirely faked and yet America bought it, hook, line and Rumsfeld, because it was on TV. ...

Because Jessica's story, much like WMDs and Saddam's nukes and biotoxins and Orange Alerts and our imminently prosperous economy and Jenna Bush's ostensible prowess with a beer bong, does not rely on truths. We do not rely on first-hand reports. We do not rely on anything so piffling and small and dangerous as honesty. ...

In short, Jessica's myth helps numb the idea that we have removed a pip-squeak, nonthreatening tyrant from power and left behind a reeking miasma of violence and bloodshed and thousands of dead citizens, more rabid anti-U.S. sentiment and mistrust and global instability than Saddam (or Osama) could've ever dreamed. ...

This is just so, so, so Clintonesque. These people are fire-breathing idiots. The truth stares them in the face and they call it a lie.

[Leroy S. Mort]

This columnist just got back from the Burning Man and the drugs obviously haven't worn off...Pissy little thing, isn't he?

[budanski]

"Remember, later, seeing the wide-angle shot on the Internet, the one of all the U.S. tanks surrounding the square and the whole bogus setup of how they staged the event, complete with a big crane and some strong cable and strategically positioned "citizens" cheering their "liberation" as the statue fell, as just off camera, a handful of genuine Iraqis loitered nearby, looking confused and bored?"

Funny how the U.S. was able to pull this off with all the embeds in proximity.

[meg70]

lol, Jim J. Bullock is a Rhodes Scholar compared to Little Miss Morford..

I think the San Francisco b*tch may be jealous

[housethatruthbuilt]

Usually I find his articles amuzing because of his stupidity, clear drug abuse, and pillow biting self loathing.

This one crossed a line. He completely trivializes the effort of the soldiers that performed the operation and the one's that died during the ambush, if not everyone over there. He does this from the "safety" of a bath house and an irresponsible newspaper.

Normally I would say ignore him. I think this time we need to write and tell his editor to actually read this guys work before printing (if not more).

[skeeter]

Mark, you left out the part of the story where Jessica 'fought like a tiger', which was made up by your feminist friends.

[meg70]

Jim says, I dont want to have anything to do with this guy!

[dighton]

... all I really needed to do all along to make a million bucks is stage some sort of bogus wartime heroics ...

(Multiple expletives) for this (expletive) little (expletive) who, sitting on his smelly (expletive), dares to insult those who served and risked everything.

[Thommas]

Like, Wow! Mr. Morford needs a chill pill. How entirely apt that the pathetic Lynch story becomes this Marxist Journalist's backdrop for a screed against the Bush administration. Everything that has been vetted about precious Jessica (no disrespect for her being a soldier) on the screens of FR, has become an issue of anti-conservatism for this hack.

By dragging the names of Hannity, Limbaugh, et. al., into his "conspiracy," you would think they were all pushing this Lynch story down the American pie-hole. Yet... I recall these conservative pundits doing their level best to CORRECT the notion that Jessica was the heroic victim brazenly touted at the onset of the incident. Fox news early on began to correct the record on the facts of the matter when they became known.

Nope. This is not just a hit piece on the atrocious fluff piece that will be Jessica's story. This is just another excuse to get the communist, liberal message out that Bush is bad and alternative clintonista marxism is what we really want.

[theFIRMbss]

>And we can just imagine how the Pentagon brass doubtlessly winked at Jessie ...

Hmmm... Was this writer
equally put off by Bill's
managing the press

by launching missles?
And is he still pissed about
that "aspirin factory?"

[afz400]

While I'm not exactly thrilled about Jessica Lynch, it's interesting that liberals like Mark Morford never once had a bad word to say about Clinton's lies about the war in Kosovo or Jesse Jackson's bogus "rescue" of the POWs there.

[randog]

What--no crude sexual references in a Morford column?

Probably because it involves a woman--Morford wouldn't know anything about that.

[Semaphore Heathcliffe]

...and at least partially articulate.

what a snotty thing to say.