http://www.knoxviews.com/node/2660

Bob Corker was running ads against Harold Ford claiming that Ford was in favor of freely distributing abortifacient drugs to children in public schools. This was after the infamous “Harold-Ford-You-Big-Mandingo-You” ad sponsored by the RNC.

Anyway, the “librul” NPR had the local politics editor from the Nashville paper on to provide commentary to a national audience. The exchange at the end of the interview:

STAMBERG: I understand that the second ad implies that Harold Ford supports the notion of morning after pills for school children.

STAMBERG: Jennifer Peebles, political editor of The Tennessean in Nashville. Thanks a lot.

Because, y’know, reporters can’t look it up (for “congressional votes,” the Great Gazoogle yields the following for the dum-dum contingent: thomas.loc.gov) that a Republican lied in a political ad. It’s beyond truthiness and into factiness; something may not be “factual” in an objective sense, but that doesn’t stop it from sounding “fact-y” enough to broadcast far-&-wide.

(For the record, Ford didn’t say we should force-feed RU486 to pre-teen girls in South Memphis Jr. High. But what if…?!?! Can we take that CHANCE???)

Anyone with any smarts understands that these stories may only be “urban legends” but the reality that many Iraqi’s are repeating them means that they should be shared in the media.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the wingnut replacement for what used to be called journalism: we say shit, you say shit. Whichever sticks, wins. Truth is for suckers.

The dialogue in the “disfigured woman” story was what set off my alarms. It didn’t sound real. It seemed constructed, rather than recorded. Even when the “recording” is from memory, it has that natural ring, whereas something made up (or deliberately elaborated) is too perfect or too stilted or too apt…SOMETHING gives it away. Beauchamp’s mess hall story had a lot of that “not quite right” feeling.

Plus, the entire scenario didn’t pass my sniff test. While any of us can imagine immature, burnt-out guys snickering, whispering and muttering those hideous things under their breath to each other about a scarred female (because of the psychic discomfort she caused them), when Beauchamp claimed that the shit was screamed out loud for all, including the mockee, to hear, I said, “Nah.”

Combined with the bad “sound” of the characters, I assumed it was an exaggeration and recasting of an ugly sotto voce giggle fest amongst the boyz.

But maybe it was completely made up. In that case, Beauchamp might have a future in fiction if he can get some intensive coaching on writing more believable dialogue.

Now, there’s every possibility he made it up. I don’t have any way of knowing.

But if I was going to assume he made it up? I’d have to assume he was toning it down.

I mean, c’mon. After you’ve bayoneted someone, after you’ve shot up a hooch and found nothing but dead children in there, after you’ve posed for pics with a dead NVA soldier with his intestines hanging out in the dirt and a smoking cigarette in his mouth, with his stiff arm around your shoulders, laughing and fucking around. Oh, and after that? You reach in and take his belt buckle out from under the guts?

Either Iraq is the most PC war in the history of history, or Beauchamp was undertelling the story…

mikey

Um let’s see….Judy Miller? Ledeen?
Everybody else is just personally/professionally embarassed compared to these two.

Then you’ll stop laughing at him! He’ll show you! He’ll show EVERYBODY!

Nah. Honestly?

When you first rotate in, you don’t “goof around”. You try to get somebody to tell you what to do. But nobody wants to talk to you, ’cause statistically, you’re gonna get fucked up. You have to keep your head down, watch the guys with time in the zone, watch the sergeants, and make it thru 90 days on your own. After that, the odds start to switch. You’ve accidently survived, and in doing so you’ve learned HOW to survive.

But here’s the problem. Now you’ve learned how to survive. You’ve learned to hate. You’ve learned to hurt people without a thought. You’ve learned to ignore the cries of wives and children. You’ve learned to step over the bodies and the body parts.

Oh, you can laugh. But it’s a bitter, cheerless, souless laughter. Celebrating the death and damage of anyone who isn’t you. You don’t think about the women and children, you toss in the grenade and when you go in you only try to keep the nastiest shit off your gear.

You put crazy rounds downrange in response to a single burst of AK or RPG round. You call in the gunships – those dudes are hot to go. They roll in and tear up the place. And again, as long as you don’t take fire and don’t get guts on your uni, fine, no problem. But your soul aches. You don’t know how to to honor the pain, so you stuff it down, and laugh at the pain and waste.

That’s something that will come out when you get back to the 24 hour px.

It’s NEVER fun. Your laugh is bitter, full of hate, amused only by the suffering of others, contrasted by the lack of suffering of your guys. Goofing IS shooting a dog, breaking a tv, stealing a necklace. Getting a blowjob from a young, hungry indig, sobbing in fear and humiliation, but desperate for a couple bucks. And you just get harder, and angrier.

Or you die….

mikey

Ahh, don’t change your (correct) view on account of a bunch of Malkin-style chickenhawks, clucking from the bleacher seats. Next thing you know, they’ll convince you that polite peoples breathe only through their mouths.

When I first read his stories, I had a sudden enlightening moment of recognition — for the first time I actually glimpsed the occupying soldiers as the kids that they are. Goofing around in their off hours, bored and stressed at the same time, they seemed not too dissimilar from (for example) engineering students with a heavy course load.

But Beauchamp’s been discredited now. Now I have to go back to thinking of American soldiers as emotionless killing machines who spend all their non-combat time praying to God and the Great Decider. That is, I have to once again view them as war criminals, thoroughly complicit in this immense crime against humanity, rather than simply as ordinary people duped into volunteering for this stupid war.

Rightwingers did not suggest Beauchamp be criminally prosecuted, as a member of the left wing, I, along with many others on both sides asked that Foer be fired, and agreed that Beauchamps punishment was the purview of the Military. A few nuts on both sides suggested he be killed, or we be killed for going after TNR, but they suggest that about you as well, doesn’t mean we listen to them.

You’re a member of the left wing? You’ve got to be fucking kidding. You’re not even in the directory. And don’t give me that; “I just took the oath yesterday and my paperwork must not have hit the system yet” bullshit because I have real time access to the system. Please produce your credentials. And what’s this other bullshit about people on both sides suggesting Beauchamp or “we” be killed for going after TNR? Who said anything like that who’s not a wingnut like you? Links, patties, names, nicknames, date, double date, times, posts, websites, blogs.

On the other hand, why should I trust the word of a bunch of evil mooslims? I’m going to use pepper instead of salt, vinegar instead of wine, and porkfat instead of water when I bake my child. I bet it will come out way better than any stupid terrorists’ recipe.

Just askin’.

Especially if brine the baby well before baking…

mikey