JK Note: Gabriel Gonzalez is a resident of Paris, France. He's got another Guest Blog spot coming, thanks to some very smart comments he left in our Comments sections. There are important parts of this article's thesis that I don't agree with, but it's worth running as a discussion-generator and the last paragraph alone justifies its inclusion.
The Jessica Lynch Story Part III – Empire Strikes Back
Gabriel Gonzalez
Sequels are rarely as good as the original movie, and sequels to sequels are of course even worse. After the often obscure director has his or her first box office hit, too many people get involved in the follow-up and what was at first refreshing and innovative tends to get repackaged for mass marketing...
Proof of this as applied to the media is the endless series of remakes of the Jessica Lynch story, starting with the Guardian's Columbinesque version of "facts" printed in mid-May. More recently, we have seen last week's fairly dry and wishy-washy Chicago Tribune article The Truth About Pvt. Lynch following closely on the heels of the Washington Post's own rehashing last Tuesday. And then there is last Friday's opinion piece by Nicholas D. Christophe, "Saving Private Ryan", in which he purports to stand up for Private Lynch and speak out against her alleged exploitation by the government:
"[I]t was unnecessary for officials to try to turn her into a Hollywood caricature. As a citizen, I deeply resent my government trying to spin me like a Ping-Pong ball."Christophe states further:
"My guess is that 'Saving Private Lynch' was a complex tale vastly oversimplified by officials, partly because of genuine ambiguities and partly because they wanted a good story to build political support for the war — a repetition of the exaggerations over W.M.D. We weren't quite lied to, but facts were subordinated to politics, and truth was treated as an endlessly stretchable fabric."The hypocrisy of Christophe's using Lynch as his own "Ping-Pong ball" to get in a few swipes at the Bush administration on the "exaggerations over W.M.D." is not only glaring, it borders on the obscene. Christophe is not "saving Jessica Lynch", she was saving him, together with hundreds of thousands of other U.S. troops who were fighting for all of us as well.
Frankly, none of the sequels to "Jessica Lynch I" have been nearly as compelling as the original, and what box office success they have had owes more to careful audience targeting than truly inspired reporting or analysis in the ratings war surrounding the "Bush-lied-to-us" theme.
What all of this hardcore truth-seeking lacks when compared to the original is that it overlooks an important fact about "heroes" like Jessica Lynch and her rescuers: They are supposed to have mythological status. They are symbols. Jessica Lynch is our Athena or Joan of Arc, and that symbolism is more important than the grubby little details of camera angles or the exact wording of a CentCom briefing. Even better, Private Lynch is the perfect modern heroine: She is a woman. She represents our strength and courage, as well as our vulnerability. She is our sister, our daughter, and with a couple more years, she could be a mother. She also represents our need for encouragement, a timely morale booster when it looked like the chips were down. Her rescue is our salvation. It was not the administration who needed to elevate her to semi-saintly status, we ourselves did.
I much preferred the original version, guns ablazing and all, and think it comes much closer to any notion of "truth" that has any real meaning. I hope it comes out on DVD, and I'll gladly skip the sequels.
Jessica Lynch is not some missing bit of WMD. We did not fight for Private Lynch. She fought for us.
JK UPDATE: Other good links/articles on the Lynch story can be found via Power Line and Omnibus Bill (who just shreds Tom Spencer at History New Net).
Gabriel:
Great Fisking of Christophe. It has gotten so that every comment from the usual suspects on the Left, no matter the title of the essay, will contain some variation of "Bush lied"
"...partly because they wanted a good story to build political support for the war"
At that point, public support for the war was already solid and increasing. Why spread a BS story, knowing the truth will come out?
Thanks for your insight into this, and other subjects.
The Baby Boomer left and their minions have two basic options in their playbook: Vietnam and Watergate. Re. Iraq, Vietnam didn't work; there was no quagmire. So now they are left with Watergate: "What did the President know and when did he know it". That wil be the refrain until we come up with Saddam and/or the weapons of mass destruction. The liberation of the children's prison or the mass graves simply don't count. Then as we take on the next target (North Korea, Syria or Iran) it will be back to the Vietnam motif: "I see a quagmire in our future; there's got to be a quagmire out there somewhere".
Great Post! Thank you for doing this.
Flit neatly encapsualtes my issues with this. We have enough real heroes and achievements to go around without having to make them up.
As an explanation of why the initial descriptions were so glowing and why subsequent information has largley met disinterest, Gabriel's piece works. The point about the Left's motivation is a good one, too, and this blog has dealt with why we simply don't buy the "it was all staged" line.
Wish the post has stopped there, or just jumped to the final paragraph rather than going into the "mythology is good" digression. Good? Not when real soldiers are involved. Such projects begin with the intent of reinforcing heroism - and always, always end up merely cheapening it.
Not now. Not when we need it more than ever.
I thought journalism was supposed to be about getting the story. Story as in factual occurrences, with allowances for mistakes of omission or comission, as the reporter stumbles about in the fog of the here-and-now.
Not story as in Spin, or Myth, or 4-Act-Play.
Not story as in "Bush Lied, so they must've staged a rescue." Equally not as in "Lynch is our Joan of Arc."
As a reader, I understand that reporters will get things wrong. This message that mistakes are okay? That facts don't matter, are unknowable, that the story is the story?
Er--remember Jayson Blair?
A fair point. And not an unexpected one. We're maybe debating about terms. Perhaps "glorification" would be closer to my intended meaning than "mythologizing", and "celebration" might be more neutral. What I really wanted to bring out (and perhaps didn't quite get across) was the solidarity of citizens with their defenders. War - ie, fighting for something - is not a clinical, sterile enterprise, but also entails an emotional investment that I would hope has not become off limits (and need not, in my view, be either "authoritarian" or "fascist"). My sense was that this facet of the story had become lost in the search for "facts".
So let me summarize - you like being lied to, particularly if the story resonates?
lets not forget the covering up of the fact that she is gay. trust me, I know. I had inside info. look for yourself. a. her female friend from bootcamp is flown all the way overseas to be with her? b. gag order on family? c. amnesia? more like "house arrest" of Both girls. Upon her return to "media" coverage, d. a fiance? listen to her talk at her welcome home event. everything she states is slightly covered with regional accent slang EXCEPT when she talked about him. sounded like she read that pre-written by N.E. upper ed. level wht male 100 times because they told her to get it right.
nice job Bush. destroy not only an American hero, but moreover your shame over her compel you to take away all her given liberties, and make her dishonest. I don't follow and get too involved in politics (just a geologist who's life really isn't re-directed by whoever sits at 1600, but i do care very much when our leader segregates the conservative/deservative from the "rest"...
Not sure if this will go through or not. Just watched the testimony from Jessica Lynch. She still softened the real story incredibly. My heart goes out to that little girl and the other members of her team who were killed.
Reason: I was there. I helped take one of the Iraqi's who tortured, mutilated, and killed the Hopi girl to a POW Camp outside Tallil. I helped pull the other service members from the Septic system from behind the hospital where they had been dumped to die. And finally led a team to arrest the administrator of the hospital and sent him to a POW camp for not cooperating with the coalition.
I know Jessica's story in detail because I was there and the courage she continues to show this day inspires me, breaks my heart, shows her incredible courage, and commitment to this country.
I continued to work in An Nasariyah for almost six months before returning to the U.S..
Lincoln had many sayings: one of which was integrity is like a balloon. It does not matter if you pop it with a pin or bust it with a cigar. Once it's gone, it's gone forever and you can never get it back.
its been a long time hope all is well cleo
AMERICA'S HERO
I'M A SOLDIER TOO.
WAS THE WORDS,
THAT CAME OUT OF HER MOUTH,
THE LITTLE GIRL,
WITH EYES OF HEAVENLY BLUE
JUST A KID HERSELF,
DOING A JOB OF A MAN,
RISE UP AMERICA,
AND GIVE THIS GIRL A HAND.
HER BROKEN BONES WILL HEAL,
BUT HER BROKEN HEART WILL REMAIN,
HER BEST FRIEND DIED BY HER SIDE,
IN HER HEART SHE WILL ALWAYS HAVE PAIN,
SHE DIDNT CLAIM TO BE A HERO,
BUT TO ME SHE WILL ALWAYS BE ,
SHE WAS DOING THE JOB OF A MAN,
AND THAT'S A HERO TO ME.
IT'S TIME TO LET HER LIVE HER LIFE,
AND ENJOY HER WEDDING DAY,
BUT DON'T FORGET TO SALUTE THE FLAG,
AND REMEMBER JESSICA LYNCH ON VETERANS DAY.
CLEO FLENER