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Lynching Private Lynch

November 17, 2003 ~ 5:38 p.m.

All right, I�m getting a little goddamn sick and tired of Jessica Lynch. Who else?

We all thought it was a heartening story: A female U.S. soldier was in the process of being tortured by her captors when a brave Iraqi broke the news to U.S. forces who were able to rescue her. The whole nation breathed a sigh of relief on behalf of the Lynch family. And it was also great to laud the Iraqi citizen who spared her from torture if not from death�and it was entirely fitting that the U.S. granted him residency rights for saving one of their own.

But then, the media does what it always does: It turns a feel-good story into a mine field of celebrity-laden crap.

First a book deal; then a contest with Elizabeth Smart (another person I�m sick of) for TV movie bragging rights; and as if this wasn�t enough, Larry Flynt said he had nude pictures of Lynch, but his latest line is that he�s preventing them from being published. Right. And I�m buying a cat tomorrow to keep a caring eye on our domestic rats.

Although I am hardly a proponent of nursing racial grievances, former POW Shoshana Johnson can hardly be blamed for her incendiary comment over the Lynch story, �You�ve got some very interesting cultural, almost racial overtones here.� Who can blame Johnson for feeling ignored because she�s not as �all-American,� being black, as the petite, white Lynch is? The only thing I�d advise Johnson is that she should know better than to crave the spotlight cast on Lynch.

I can guarantee you that within two years, Jessica Lynch will be a faded memory in the minds of most people. Fame that comes easily will go just as easily. It�s not that Lynch didn�t earn her role in the spotlight. But that was months ago. She had her fame, and so did the Iraqi lawyer who came to her rescue.

But, for fuck�s sake, enough is enough already. Then again, with the celebrity-driven American media, in its pandering to the brain drain we call the entertainment industry, nothing is ever enough.

� M.E.M.

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