Uppity-Negro.com

Right. Commentary. I should comment on this.

Today's topic, Chicago Tribune | No TV, book deals for this stoic hero, which may also require registration. Deal with it.

Jessica Lynch is the celebrity soldier of the Iraq war. Pfc. Patrick Miller, a member of the same company captured with her, is one of its unsung heroes.

When their convoy mistakenly drove into Nasiriyah and they were ambushed by Iraqi fighters, Miller single-handedly attacked an Iraqi mortar pit, according to his comrades.

The 23-year-old Army welder from Kansas was the sole member of the unit, the 507th Maintenance Company, to receive the Silver Star for valor. Lynch and other members of the 507th received Bronze Stars, a notch below the Silver Star.

Lynch has a $1 million book deal and will be the subject of a made-for-TV movie. Miller earns $25,000.

"His actions may have saved my life," said Army Spec. Shoshana Johnson, who also was captured in that March firefight, in which 11 Americans died and six were taken prisoner.

And up until that point, I thought they'd forgotten Shoshana Johnson.

The really funny bit is, when I saw the headline in the print edition of the paper this morning, I though the article was about her. I was initially disappointed that it wasn't, actually.

Eh, Vegas gave her the key to the city. Maybe that should be enough.

Moving beyond the knee-jerk racial conspiracy theory, the article is worth mentioning for rather completely debunking the Jessica Lynch Mythology. It doesn't attack the woman herself, and I hope I don't come off as doing that.

Point being, the article which does this is on the front page, above the fold, in the Chicago Tribune.

If I remember my Chomsky a'right, when the flit hits the shan stories that might normally not run manage to get past the ideological filters of the media. And although the Jessica Lynch Mythology has been debunked before, don't think it's been done so prominently in a major newspaper.

And you have to appreciate that they did so in a positive way, describing the actions of the guy who really did do the stuff attributed to Lynch.

Because it's also a not-so-veiled attack on the Pentagon propaganda system.

Between this, renewed interest in the lies leading up to the invasion of Iraq and the Valerie Plame affair, I might have to start following the news more closely again.

It looks like things are about to get interesting.