i got no idea where any shame attaches to liberals here.

america--all of america--was hungry for heroes in this war until the defense department poisoned that well.  you do recall jessica lynch?  the little female gi who fought bravely until she was captured and taken prisoner of war?  the one who was miraculously rescued in a brilliantly coordinated strike involving seal team and army rangers who managed to capture the whole thing on video with the aid of night-vision technology? 

the entire country was amazed and enthralled to learn how a sympathetic iraqi lawyer had risked his life to get word to the military.  we marvelled as we watched the rescuers hit the iraqi terrorist headquarters with incredibly precise teamwork, ignoring what sounded like return fire from ms lynch's captors.   the brave woman was freed and hustled aboard the rescue chopper by her comrades in arms who selflessly protected her until they were outta harms way.

sadly, it was all a show and a scam.  an illusion that shoulda generated much more outrage than it did--if we werent already so conditioned to to expect bullshit from the administration--cuz the facts were so ridiculously out of synch with reality.  jessica lynch had not been shot or stabbed; she was being cared for by the only specialist in the hideout...i mean hospital from which she was extracted.  furthermore, that doctor had tried to deliver her to us custody two days before the raid.  when he drove her--in an ambulance--to a checkpoint, the american soldiers had fired on him.  fortunately he was able to save her life and his own by gettin the hell outta there. 

british media would later discover that the american military had been in contact with locals who informed them the hospital was no longer under the control of any iraqi fighters.  while i hate to think there was also some whitewash involved in this, the army kept lynch incommunicado for quite some time after she was returned to the states and she claims to have no memory of anything that happened after she was captured and taken to the hospital.

you may believe this was just a snafu.  i would have myself it i hadnt run across two reports by the british press.

after hearing the rescue video was been substantially edited prior to its release to the american media, jonathon kampfer of the guardian asked pentagon spokesman bryan whitman, to release the full tape of the rescue to clear up any discrepancies. whitman declined 

the guardian also reported the following:

Back in 2001, the man behind Black Hawk Down, Jerry Bruckheimer, had visited the Pentagon to pitch an idea. Bruckheimer and fellow producer Bertram van Munster, who masterminded the reality show Cops, suggested Profiles from the Front Line, a primetime television series following US forces in Afghanistan. They were after human stories told through the eyes of the soldiers. Van Munster's aim was to get close and personal. He said: "You can only get accepted by these people through chemistry. You have to have a bond with somebody. Only then will they let you in. What these guys are doing out there, these men and women, is just extraordinary. If you're a cheerleader of our point of view - that we deserve peace and that we deal with human dignity - then these guys are really going out on a limb and risking their own lives."

It was perfect reality TV, made with the active cooperation of Donald Rumsfeld and aired just before the Iraqi war. The Pentagon liked what it saw. "What Profiles does is given another in depth look at what forces are doing from the ground," says Whitman. "It provides a very human look at challenges that are presented when you are dealing in these very difficult situations." That approached was taken on and developed on the field of battle in Iraq.

i know the two guys who created cops (i worked with both of them shortly before they got their break).  rather than being the show's mastermind, van munster worked for them as a field producer until it was discovered he was trying to hijack their show by peddling a knockoff to abc.  i have no reason to think he suddenly developed a set of ethics between then and 2001. 

if anyone has anything to be ashamed about here it would be rumsfeld's defense department who made such a mockery of heroism...and the people who spent most of this year ridiculing a navy lt who had his crew charge an enemy ambush formation and killed the man who was about to fire a rocket at his crew.