(This one is a subject with which I have become, to a degree, personally involved in. So I ask you to please bear with me if the discussion gets too obscure.)
Once upon a time, there was a man who lived in LA named Micah Wright. Micah was a veteran of the US Army Rangers, a writer of animated television shows and a freelance comic book writer. He happened to chance upon a (now-defunct) forum where comic writers and fans gathered, and he stayed there. When bad times came to the USA, Micah was right in the middle of the maelstrom. As a fairly liberal guy possessed with a sense of humor, he put up modified WPA posters festooned with funny, punchy anti-war and anti-Bush slogans. When he was called on this - like just about everybody who didn't fall at the president's feet was - Micah justified his actions by saying as he was A Veteran and had Been In The Shit, anybody who hadn't was unworthy of criticising him.
Time passed. The forum where Micah got his thing started closed and Micah started his own forum. He continued to post new and better remixed posters, eventually even getting a book of them published. He gathered fans and press attention.
Then, just about 48 hours ago as I write this, it all came crashing down when Micah admitted to his forum that he really wasn't a Ranger. Never had been, in fact. Pandemonium naturally ensued. Fans and enemies have descended on his forum demanding an explanation. It's widely expected that any career Micah Wright had in the field of comic books will likely be over before Memorial Day, if that. His second book of anti-war posters has been cancelled, and the forward where Micah talks about his "experiences" in the invasion of Panama will be removed from future printings of his first book.
Now, I was one of Micah Wright's fans; I inhabited his forum, posted occasionally and bought his books. At one point in the not-that-distant past I met him and went out for drinks when he stopped in Denver as part of his book tour. Until Saturday afternoon, it never occured to me that he had been feeding me, and everybody else, a line. First, I was stunned. Then, I was pissed.
Listen: If you're like me (and you probably are if you're reading this), a proud smart liberal, so very sure of your skills as a skeptical thinker, smugly complacent about the muppets you meet every day who swallowed Bush's bullshit while you stand above it... when somebody like that realized that not only have they been had, but they went for the okeydoke with a smile and a nod just like the muppets they scorn, it's not unlike getting kicked in the balls by Bruce Lee.
Not a fun experience.
The big problem I have, though, isn't with my personal difficulties with Micah's lying. It's with what might happen because of it. If he'd just fucked himself, then it's just another tragic story of Tinseltown or whatever. But he used his Ranger stories to sell and promote his books, one of which at least has become something of a minor hit with the anti-war left. That this hasn't been spreading through the blogosphere like wildfire (supposedly it hit Insty, but I haven't seen it there) is something of a minor miracle.
But if it hits, it will hit big. And it won't be limited to just this one guy. They'll point out that Micah Wright is a lying bastard. Fine. Then it'll be pointed out that Howard Zinn and Kurt Vonnegut wrote prefaces for his book, which means that they're either stupid or liars too. It's guilt by association, it's got holes you could drive a semi through, but it'll be used against people who don't deserve it, and it'll become the "facts" of the case in the hearts and minds of all the people who don't read NFZ.
Will I forgive Micah Wright for his trangressions? I think so. Probably. Eventually. After all, the damage done to me personally was negligable. In the long run, I want to see what kind of damage he's managed to do before I extend a hand of forgiveness. If I see Bill O'Reilly's splotchy face smugly hurr-hurring over this lying liberal and using him to slam whoever the day's target of opportunity is, the it'll be a long time before I extend that hand.
Posted by the Fourth Man at May 3, 2004 04:54 PM
This is why it's always important to know exactly who and what you're dealing with as a public face to whatever movement it is. Once they're out there, you can't take it back and disassociate from them if they screw up.
-- Primis.
People lie. Most people. Left or Right. This particular lie may or may not have helped his sales. The real draw was his posters; his talent.
Of course some folks will be outraged, especially if they see an opening to make a partisan attack. You, Zinn and others are not mind readers nor private eyes. Lots of people get fooled by a good story; the fault belongs to the storyteller, not the audience.
Consider the results of his lie vs. the lies of Ahmad Chalabi. Wright's lies killed no one; no one was harmed in the spinning of his tale.
That you aired the story reflects on your desire to spread the truth, even if it risks partisan hoohaw. What more should anyone be required to do?
I think you acted with integrity. Wright did not. It only hurts him. Anyone projecting his flaw on others is simply too partisan to think clearly or act fairly.
Posted by: Kevin Hayden at May 3, 2004 11:11 PMYou, Zinn and others are not mind readers nor private eyes.
No, we're not. But do you really, honestly think that matters to the people making the partisan attacks?
And to say that no one was harmed by Wright's lies may be overstating the case. Certainly nobody was killed by them, but a number of professionals whom Wright has worked with or has upcoming work with may find themselves getting hit because of that association.
Posted by: the Fourth Man at May 4, 2004 05:02 AM