Heaneyland!

Mea sorta culpa

So there's this author, okay? Micah Ian Wright. No, I hadn't heard of him either. But apparently he put out a book of anti-war posters last year that sold reasonably well, and he described himself in the book as a former Army Ranger. Okay. After being tipped by some actual Army Rangers (and perhaps by my use of the word "actual" you can sense where this is going) as to doubts about whether this fellow had actually served, the Washington Post did some checking and found out he hadn't. The author, when confronted and asked to provide proof of his service, confessed.

"I feel awful about it. It was a lie that just grew and grew and grew," Wright, 34, told us Friday. He said mounting combat deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, including that of Ranger Pat Tillman, compound his sense of remorse: "I plan to make a public apology on my Web site."

So I checked his website to see if his apology had been posted yet. It had. Oddly, for someone who claims remorse, he spins his apology as if the decision to confess had been his all along:

So why come clean now, you ask? Why shouldn't I continue on, seeing how far I can push it? Well, frankly, I'm sick of it. I'm sick of lying to my friends, to employers, to my fans, to myself. I'm not a Ranger. I've lied to so many people about this that it's made me physically ill. I haven’t been able to sleep and I’ve just about given myself an ulcer. It's all become too much. I'm stopping the lies.

Also, if he told the Washington Post on Friday, April 30, that he was planning on posting an apology to his website, implying that he hadn't posted it yet...why is his apology dated April 25? Has this guy learned nothing about getting his story straight?

(Via Tom Tomorrow.)

Posted by Francis at 12:22 AM