The Jesse MacBeth story
I stayed away from this one on purpose - I was Air Force, and didn't have the requisite Army know-how to spot all the discrepancies that the milblogging community did.
But it did seem fishy to me from the start. I watched only part of the video, but I saw enough to know that for someone to believe his story, they'd also have to believe that the largest war-crimes coverup in history was ongoing in Iraq. A few hundred thousand GIs, hundreds of imbedded media types, not to mention large numbers of Iraqi citizens all keeping quiet in the same environment that brought us over-hyped stories of Abu-Graib and white phosphorus from a media bloodthirsty for anything negative. No. No way that institutional slaughter of women and children would go unreported for this long.
Anyway, it now looks like Mr. MacBeth has some 'splaining to do. The best roundup, if you haven't visited yet, is from AllahPundit.
But what about the fallout from this sorry episode? Unfortunately, there are probably a few on the left who will believe MacBeth no matter what. And many that no longer do will now claim it's a plot by the right to discredit the anti-war movement.
Sigh.
The good news out of this is that MacBeth's dishonesty was outed in lightning fashion by blogs. Thirty years ago, Jesse's film would have become the predominant account, and the debunking would have been the urban legend - exactly opposite of what we saw this week.
I see it as a victory for truth.
