Media Lynch Mob

Ray Robison:

Jessica Lynch was on Capitol Hill to talk about her experience in Iraq as a POW and subsequently as a media darling. This article from the Charleston Daily Mail typifies the coverage given to this topic by the media for years now. It portrays Lynch as a victim of military propaganda that pushed her forward as a hero.

The recent hearing was to cover Lynch's 2003 kidnapping and rescue in Iraq, which the Department of Defense painted as a story of heroism, despite a differing account from Lynch.

There are two facts that get left out of this type of reporting:

a) Jessica Lynch is a hero just by serving her country whether she fired a shot or was knocked out immediately during the ambush that injured her severely and

b) the story of her shoot-out with Iraqi forces was not a product of the US military but of the US media.

The US media created this recounting of her exploits from vague, unofficial statements by "undisclosed officials" and having been revealed as rumor mongers started looking for someone to blame. Who else would they pin it on but the US military?

We all know it is hard to prove a negative, in this case that the US military did not create the shoot-out scenario reported by the media. So we have to instead ask questions. If the US military did so, who specifically did it? Do we have a name in all this media hype about the misleading Pentagon reporting? Where was the claim first made? Who was the source?

This USA Today article from July of 2003 is a hint. It states:

Lynch had been mythicized during the war. An initial report in The Washington Post said Lynch had killed several Iraqis. Later, government officials said she had killed no one.

The fact is it wasn't "later" that the government warned against this fight-to-the-death story line, it was at the time of the initial reporting by the media. And as the USA Today article has correctly identified, The Washington Post did run the story first...

...

He goes on to quote the Washington Post story at length including this, "... Pentagon officials said they had heard 'rumors' of Lynch's heroics but had no confirmation."

I thinking the timing of this lynching was to coincide with Gen. Petraeus's appearance before Congress to explain the current situation in Iraq. It was deliberately timed to challenge the credibility of the military while Democrats were trying to legislate defeat in Iraq.

Jeff Goldstein has more on Waxman's cynical ploy.