Dear Jessica Lynch,
You are my hero today. You told a congressional hearing that you're not a hero, that the real ones were your fellow soldiers who died the day you were attacked, along with your brother, who still serves.
But you also limped into that hearing room and then, calmly and simply and so convincingly, spoke your truth.
"The bottom line," you said, "Is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don't need to be told elaborate lies."
You said the word.
Lies.
So many lies have been told by the Bush administration, and yet so few people have been willing to stand before those in power and call them what they are: Lies. But you did, and it had been so long since we heard such truths spoken on a national stage, that the sound was absolutely extraordinary.
I think about you, as scared as you must have been after being attacked and gravely wounded, after being in Iraqi hands for 9 days, being sexually assaulted and watching your friends die, being brought home, the center of an elaborate lie foisted on the American people in order to convince them the war was right.
I can imagine some pretty high-powered military people must have fought hard to convince you of the need to go along with their lies. A lot of people probably would have too scared to speak up against those so powerful.
But you did. You told them you did not fight back. That you didn't have a chance because your gun jammed. That your fellow soldiers did and that you were proud of them. You told them the Iraqis did what they could to take care of you in their hospital, even trying to give you back to the Americans, who obviously had different things in mind for you.
You said that every chance you've gotten, you spoke the truth about those difficult days in Iraq.
I think you must have been waiting a long time for anyone in your government to ask, Why? Why did Bush & Co. do this? I think you must have wondered, Doesn't anyone in America care that lies are being told?
And finally, after so long, someone does, and now we all got to hear, and you said the word, Lies, and you are my hero.
Dear Harry Reid,
You are my hero. You stood up and said the truth, that the Iraq war is lost. You set off a firestorm, and Republicans everywhere are having fits, trying to think of names vile enough to call you. Claiming you have no patriotism and are emboldening terrorist and should be charged with treason.
As if... what is it? Three-quarters of the country now? Doesn't believe the war is lost? As if we don't have an administration standing absolutely still, deer-in-the-headlights, incapable of doing anything except spouting delusions about turning corners and bringing Democracy and fighting them there, so we don't have to fight them here. All the while more and more and more of our soldiers die.
You knew that, and you knew what would come your way, but you stood up and said it anyway. The war is lost. And for that, you are my hero.
Dear George McGovern,
Anyone who can do what you did today is my hero. To look into a camera and say to Dick Cheney, You never served, you bastard, you coward. You talk and talk and talk about how glorious the fight is now, but you never set foot on a battlefield when it was your time to fight. You hid behind deferment after deferment and so did you little kid playing cowboy in the Oval Office.
You never served, but I did and I know what I'm talking about, and you're an idiot, Dick. A coward and an idiot.
Thank you, George. It was glorious. I wish I could have seen Little Dick's face when someone played him your quote. He probably ate someone a live, he was so pissed, and I am so grateful.
Sincerely,
Teresa Hill
(All these items brought to you from the glorious front page of DailyKos today. An extraordinary day of truths. May it be the first of many.)