D'oh!

A terrible, stupid American once wrote:

American hero Pat Tillman won a Silver Star this year. But unlike Kerry, he did not write his own recommendation or live to throw his medals over the White House fence in an anti-war rally.
 
Tillman was an American original: virtuous, pure and masculine like only an American male can be. The stunningly handsome athlete walked away from a three-year, $3.6 million NFL contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the U.S. military and fight in Afghanistan, where he was killed in April.
 
He wanted no publicity and granted no interviews about his decision to leave pro football in the prime of his career and join the Army Rangers. (Most perplexing to Democrats, he didn't even take a home movie camera to a war zone in order to create fake footage for future political campaigns in which he would constantly palaver about his military service and drag around his "Band of Brothers" for the media.)
 
Tillman gave only an indirect explanation for his decision on the day after 9-11, when he said: "My great grandfather was at Pearl Harbor, and a lot of my family has gone and fought in wars, and I really haven't done a damn thing as far as laying myself on the line like that." He said he wanted to "pay something back" to America.
 
He died bringing freedom and democracy to 28 million Afghans – pretty much confirming Michael Moore's view of America as an imperialist cowboy predator. There is not another country in the world – certainly not in continental Europe – that could have produced a Pat Tillman.

Reading that, I feel kind of dirty and weird, tonight, which is unusual for me on a Monday.  Usually, I feel dirty and weird on Friday or Saturday night. While making coconut rum drinks.  Playing filthy Liz Phair songs, and stripping down to my Speedo and breaking out the ornamental headgear.

And that's just when I'm alone.  I don't even want to talk about what goes on when I have company.

But tonight, I feel dirty because I agree with Man Coulter.  Pat Tillman was virtuous and pure, and a great American.  He really was one of the greatest Americans this country could have produced.

Mary Tillman said a friend of Pat’s even arranged a private meeting with [Noam] Chomsky, the antiwar author, to take place after his return from Afghanistan — a meeting prevented by his death. She said that although he supported the Afghan war, believing it justified by the Sept. 11 attacks, “Pat was very critical of the whole Iraq war.”

Baer, who served with Tillman for more than a year in Iraq and Afghanistan, told one anecdote that took place during the March 2003 invasion as the Rangers moved up through southern Iraq.

“I can see it like a movie screen,” Baer said. “We were outside of (a city in southern Iraq) watching as bombs were dropping on the town. We were at an old air base, me, Kevin and Pat, we weren’t in the fight right then. We were talking. And Pat said, ‘You know, this war is so f— illegal.’ And we all said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s who he was. He totally was against Bush.”

Another soldier in the platoon, who asked not to be identified, said Pat urged him to vote for Bush’s Democratic opponent in the 2004 election, Sen. John Kerry.

A great American.

Comments

[Margaret]

I like him more than I ever would have thought possible. But the spin on this must be fierce, because it has never come out in the mainstream media.

[=AnnA=]

Screw your football and feel-good story! The Padres won the division!!

[ricky]

Anna! Welcome back! You have been missed.

But you might want to read that one again.

Pat Tillman gave up his NFL career and millions of dollars to enlist in the Army Rangers to go kill bin Laden.

And he was killed in Afghanistan. By friendly fire. And the military covered up the details of his death. And Bush and right wing nuts, like Coulter, and Malkin, and Noonan all used and politicized his death and claimed Pat Tillman as one of their own--a tragic symbol of everything that's great and virtuous about conservatives and everything that's wrong about liberals.

And after they used him and dishonored him by lying about him, we find out Pat Tillman thought Iraq was an illegal war and that he opposed Bush and tried to convince his fellow soldiers to vote for Kerry.

Even worse, and more disgusting, is that those same right wing nuts who wept bitter tears over Tillman's death would certainly hate his guts upon finding out he wasn't a Republican.

I'm sure Michelle Malkin would like to know whether Tillman, like Kerry, actually shot himself.

[=AnnA=]

I MUST have been missed if my sarcasm is (as usual) that misunderstood. We'll work on it.

But seriously, screw your football.

[ricky]

Ohhhhhh...sorry. Thought you might just have looked at the picture and read the last line, and skipped all the blah, blah, blah stuff in the middle.

That's what I usually do, when reading blogs after midnight.

[=AnnA=]

It wasn't after midnight.

I live in a magical "time zone" where I'm able to travel into the future..but only to leave comments in other people's blogs. I guess with a power that amazing, They've got to limit it somehow. It's rather frustrating at times.

[fcuukekaker]

"He died bringing freedom and democracy to 28 million Afghans"

Millions of laugh.
"Freedom and democracy"... in Afghanistan ?
Obviously some people don't know what's going on outside their country.
And that's sad.
But keep on dreaming and believe everything you watch on tv.