littleboxes
Does The Audi Need an Oil Change?
I'm sure that some of our readers remember Pat Tillman. He's the former NFL football player who left his job (as an NFL player) to join the army. He served at least two tours of duty in Afgahnistan before he was killed in the line of duty. Upon his death he was immediately hailed as a hero and images of him and tales of his heroic death were everywhere.
As everyone found out much later, Tillman's death was the result of friendly fire. The story initially told by the army was one of a man leading his troops into battle against Taliban forces and being killed while saving one his men.
We believe that dying because of friendly fire should not diminish Tillman's sacrifice or make him any less of a hero. However, apparently, the Army disagrees. They lied about his death and Tillman's family is pissed.
"Pat had high ideals about the country; that's why he did what he did," Mary Tillman said in her first lengthy interview since her son's death. "The military let him down. The administration let him down. It was a sign of disrespect. The fact that he was the ultimate team player and he watched his own men kill him is absolutely heartbreaking and tragic. The fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting."
link to article
Editor's Note: The book of choice right now in the littleboxes office is Spanking the Donkey by Matt Taibbi. After reading his work we've become even more painfully aware of our incessant use of the passive voice in our cliche-ridden prose. We'd like to apologize to our readers for our overall lack of writing ability. We hope you continue to enjoy reading things written at a fifth grade (is that too high?) level. Thank you for your time.
As everyone found out much later, Tillman's death was the result of friendly fire. The story initially told by the army was one of a man leading his troops into battle against Taliban forces and being killed while saving one his men.
We believe that dying because of friendly fire should not diminish Tillman's sacrifice or make him any less of a hero. However, apparently, the Army disagrees. They lied about his death and Tillman's family is pissed.
"Pat had high ideals about the country; that's why he did what he did," Mary Tillman said in her first lengthy interview since her son's death. "The military let him down. The administration let him down. It was a sign of disrespect. The fact that he was the ultimate team player and he watched his own men kill him is absolutely heartbreaking and tragic. The fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting."
link to article
Editor's Note: The book of choice right now in the littleboxes office is Spanking the Donkey by Matt Taibbi. After reading his work we've become even more painfully aware of our incessant use of the passive voice in our cliche-ridden prose. We'd like to apologize to our readers for our overall lack of writing ability. We hope you continue to enjoy reading things written at a fifth grade (is that too high?) level. Thank you for your time.
posted by littleboxes at 11:05 AM
5 Comments:
Eighth grade writing level, at least. ;) Nice post.
Having been a GSI for several college-level writing courses (though in the economics department), I must say that the writing at littleboxes surpasses that of many, relatively intelligent college students. Don't let the extreme outliers like Taibbi warp your view of what's acceptable. Keep rockin'...
Remember how the military was less than truthful on the Jessica Lynch ordeal in Iraq? They just had to make up this story about a highly dramatic rescue that never happened. After the Lynch and Tillman fabrications, how can any of us believe any press releases from the Pentagon. Now they are saying they have rounded up hundreds of insurgents in Iraq in their latest offensive. I'm sure if they have arrested hundreds the majority are probably innocents. It was an ill conceived poorly carried out invasion. The military knows this better than anyone and they also know it's a losing battle. The question is how long will it take for the politicians and military to finally admit it and at what further cost to human life? On that point alone it smacks of the Vietnam war.
Unknown - I am wondering if your trust in the MSM was equally shaken after Rathergate, the Al-Qaqaa gaffe, and NEWSWEEK's fiasco. Not that I think consistency is that important anyways, but I wus jus' wonderin.
We hear at littleboxes still fit slightly confused about Rathergate and indeed about Newsweek. It seems that the adminstration is often able destroy an entire story by condemning an individual component of that story that has some facts wrong.
We guess the Newsweek thing is a clear example. If the question is did guards flush a Koran down the toilet, it seems the answer is likely no. However, the larger point of the miliary "offensively" handling Korans is true and the military admits that it is true (in internal reports, but not, at least initially, publicly). Then the question becomes, would Jack Bauer mishandle a Koran to get useful information? The answer is clearly Yes. However, the question assumes that the information is useful and that messing with the holy book will actually get someone to talk.
Rathergate: Again the whole point of the story is did GW get special treatment to get in and stay in the national guard. Was the memo CBS has the actual memo? Looks like the answer to that one is a big NO. Are the liberals correct in thinking that maybe Karl Rove planted the memo? Seems a little bit hysteric, but if he's really as smart and cunning as they say, why the hell wouldn't he do that? It's a fucking great idea. We celebrate it (in a highly cynical way).
It just seems clear to us that Bush got special treatment to get into the National guard. So what? Where does that leave us?
but MSM messes up all the time. Most of the time they get everything wrong. Their biases almost always show but the public rarely notices because the often share the same biases.
OK...we're laying the crack pipe down right now.
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