Meaning no disrespect to Pvt. Lynch, who deserves every care her country can offer, why was the Post so eager to paint her as a Rambo-style hero? And why did it take weeks for the Post to acknowledge that the original story was false?
Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness (www.cmrlink.org) says she's seen it all before. "Remember Capt. Linda Bray? She was the military police officer in Panama who took enemy fire and handled herself with coolness under fire. Later, we found out that she had been sent to secure a Panamanian dog kennel. Still, that was enough for the feminists to declare that the argument over women in combat should be over."
Then there was Kara Hultgren, the Navy pilot who was killed trying to land on an aircraft carrier. Donnelly recalls how the Navy spun the story to suggest that it was mechanical error in order to conceal its double standard on male versus female aviators. But the Navy's own internal investigation revealed that Hultgren had been responsible for the accident, and more damning for the Navy, that she had been certified to fly though she'd twice before made the same mistake that ultimately killed her.
The Post's own ombudsman, Michael Getler (and the Post deserves praise for maintaining an ombudsman -- The New York Times doesn't deign to), asked, "What were the motivations (and even the identities) of the leakers and sustainers of this myth, and why didn't reporters dig deeper into it more quickly?" Yet he answered his own question: "This was the single most memorable story of the war, and it had a unique propaganda value. It was false, but it didn't get knocked down until it didn't matter quite so much."
Just so. Every American knows the name of Jessica Lynch, which suits those who like the image of the fighting Amazon. Very few know that Lynch's story is mostly myth, and that suits them, too.