Interesting and thorough Veteran's Day piece by Anne Morse up over at the Weekly Standard on the phenomenon of people pretending to be war heroes. She notes that they almost always are given away by the magnitude of their lies; they're rarely content just to have been involved in a firefight or seeing a little action, but typically fabricate an improbably romanticized history as a Ranger or SEAL or death-dealing CIA operative (e.g., ahem, a CIA gunrunner behind the lines in Cambodia).

She finishes up talking about the execrable Jimmy Massey, the Marine Sergeant who spread slanderous lies about the awful things our servicemen had done to Iraqi civilians. It's good to keep wailing on Massey, but Morse forgot someone important. Someone the Left wants you to forget. Do y'all remember Micah Wright?

Micah Wright pretended to be a Ranger in Panama and built pretty much his whole career around that big fat stinkin' lie. And apparently he was one of those "you can't have an opinion if you haven't served, man!" types, who parlayed his attitude into a book deal and a lot of anti-war publicity. I first heard about this amazing, bald-faced lying liar over a year ago on what was then a pretty new blog--a fresh faced, take-on-all-comers tyro named Ace of Spades. Now little ol' Ace is all grown up and has his own radio show and everything--but you'll want to check out these cute snapshots from when he was just knee-high to a bloghopper and hadn't yet mastered singular pronouns.

And then you'll really want to skip over to Michele of ASV for her gleefully thorough dismantling of every last scrap of this wretched fake's dignity.

The unmasking of Micah Wright, who was emerging unquestioned into the mainstream as an anti-war voice, remains an unsung triumph of the blogosphere. If you are browsing on Veteran's Day, check out those links and give thanks that bloggers are out there relentlessly fact-checking the MSM's take on the war--and thereby honoring our fighting men.

UPDATE: While Michelle and Jim Treacher deserve credit for fact-checking Wright, keeping the pressure on him, and goading him into demonstrable lies, Washington Post reporter Richard Leiby is the one who got suspicious and filed FOIA requests for Wright's service record--and published an expose on May 2, 2004.

Another good account, by a victim of Wright's self-righteousness-ray, is here. Kevin Parrotts' summary of the event includes this important point about why remembering Wright's deception is important:

As a matter of fact, I think Micah Wright will end up getting more work and making more money off his lies than before they were discovered.

And that's the second reason I almost didn't write this. I have the feeling Micah Wright already knows what I just stated, and is eating up every minute of what's been going on. Micah wins.

Oh, sure, his new book of remixed WWII posters has been cancelled (for now), but no one I've read on the Net seems to have picked up on the hidden message in this sentence from the Seven Stories website:

The author's introduction will be removed from any future printings of YOU BACK THE ATTACK.
and again, from the Washington Post article which exposed him:

It also will remove from future printings of the first book his detailed and wholly fictional account of parachuting into Panama under fire during Operation Just Cause.
Instead of leaving in the lie, and providing some extra editorial commentary to place the incident in proper context, they're going to make it disappear. Just like it never happened at all.

And as for the "cancellation", I'll bet you'll see If You're Not A Terrorist...Then Stop Asking Questions! in print before the end of the year. They're going to wait for things to cool off a bit - then the presses will roll, Amazon will relist, and the Ranger scandal will never be mentioned again. Like it never happened at all.

DC comics will delay publication of his Vigilante series for a few months, because in a few months all of this will have blown over and no one will remember it. There are a lot of people working behind the scenes in different ways to make sure no one remembers it, I'm guessing.

Everyone loves and rewards a liar, it seems. Jayson Blair got a book contract; Stephen Glass got a book contract and ended up being played by Young Darth Vader on the silver screen. What will Micah get?

Posted by: seedubya at 03:45 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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