Via Real Clear Politics, the story of a Marine veteran who lied about committing and witnessing war crimes in Operation Iraqi Freedom:
For more than a year, former Marine Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey has been telling anybody who will listen about the atrocities that he and other Marines committed in Iraq.
In scores of newspaper, magazine and broadcast stories, at a Canadian immigration hearing and in numerous speeches across the country, Massey has told how he and other Marines recklessly, sometimes intentionally, killed dozens of innocent Iraqi civilians.
The story explains how none of this can be verified by reporters or other Marines present at these alleged crimes; and explains Massey's changing stories about what he did and saw. It boggles my mind that a Marine could betray the Corps, his country, and the Iraqi people who would suffer if his lies lead us to abandon Iraq.
But as hard as it is for me to grasp how one man could betray all that he swore to defend, what I really cannot grasp is the ability of thousands of reporters to assume his charges are real and for millions of the Left to embrace the charges and give Massey undeserved credibility:
The response of Harris's colleagues who were duped by Massey? Mostly, a collective shrug. I e-mailed a reporter from The Washington Post asking if he would follow up. No response. A USA Today reporter told me he had no plans to do so. And I spoke with David Holwerk, editorial page editor of the Sacramento Bee, which ran a lengthy freelance interview of Massey by an anti-war activist. "I don't know what we're planning to do," Holwerk said.
Harris noted in a television interview that Massey continues to sell books and DVDs that smear our troops. "[I]t's been profitable for Jimmy Massey to keep telling this lie," he said.
Apparently, despite the newspaper industry's plunging circulation figures and credibility, Massey's media enablers believe the same thing.
The willingness of our Left to believe the worst about America and their abandonment of concern for foreigners who needed and still need our help to escape the legacy of a brutal dictatorship is just astounding. The Left may--when pressed--admit Saddam was bad. But they reserve their true hatred for the man who led a Coalition to remove Saddam.
As the Left cries foul about pre-war intelligence and so-called lies that led us to war, perhaps the Left can explain how they rely on such faulty sources of information as Massey to support their preconceived ideas of what happened in Iraq.
But don't dare call them unpatriotic.
