RWer admits he was wrong!!!!

[chiburb]

(Mods: please allow this cross-post with E&A for a wider audience...)

Lengthy admission of being duped by Bushco... very David Brock-like.

Snip:

More importantly, though, half the things I wrote back then were devoid of actual substance. I didn't have ideas. I had suggestions. I had templates. I applied them to whatever topic was hot, and voila! I had an article. Which is a fine way to make a deadline, sure, but it's really not so fulfilling. Take, for example, this gem from my February 25, 2003, article, "Time, Like France, Is Not On Our Side": "You know, it's not that I've ever taken things for granted, but my deep appreciation for American life only really settled in on September 11th. The feeling has yet to let me go."

Well, that's great and all, but what the hell was I saying? It didn't mean anything. Watch me change the words: "You know, it's not that I've ever taken the Canadian porn industry for granted, but my deep appreciation for it only really settled in when I witnessed Taliban porn firsthand. The feeling has yet to let me go." And you see, much like Mad Libs, a few changed words didn't change the substance one lick.

And I'll tell you the thing that gets me now is I really, truly believed at the time that that was one of my finest articles ever. At the time, it probably was. But I wrote a lot of stuff like that during the build-up to the Second Gulf War. I was still in a woe-is-me, post-9/11 rut back then, and I went along with the war without thinking critically or questioning a damn thing. This bothers me now because, regardless of whether I support my having supported it, I would've done well to have followed less blindly -- as a writer, as an American, as a man.

In that very same article on February 25, I wrote: "I don't want this war… anymore than the next guy." That sounded nice when I wrote it, but it wasn't exactly true. I mean, of course I wanted the war more than the next guy. I was rooting for it with thousand-word diatribes each and every Tuesday. The least I could've done is not lied about it. But, indeed, I was the one I was lying to. It was one of those you're-only-fooling-yourself moments, and I fell for it.
End snip.

http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/m-n/morris/2004/morris012704.htm

original DU thread here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=31815#31861

[liberalhistorian]

1. That's always

great to see something like that! Now, if only we could get a lot more repukes to see the light!

[RandomKoolzip]

2. Someone ought to e-mail this article to Dennis MIller.

Good points about thinking uncritically about our country after 9/11. NEVER think uncritically.

[chiburb]

3. My email to the author...

Just read your Jan 27 piece and want to compliment you on publicly "seeing the light". It takes a REAL man to admit when he's wrong, and it's rarely seen in this day of blustery, faux machismo.

I don't expect you to come over to the side of light and bright, though you're certainly welcome to the Big Tent!

Thank you,

[MissMarple]

4. Men's News Daily is certainly an...uh... interesting place.

And they actually published the article.

[info being]

5. Having been a conservative a few years back...

the part about "I was the one I was lying to" is really true. For the most part, your average Conservative isn't being intentionally deceptive...its just that they've been so deceived by those in power that they actually believe it.

[Rabbit of Caerbannog]

6. Uh - ok...

I guess for a hyper-conservative rag the article is pretty unique. No doubt the author is now off their payroll, or will be soon. I commend him on most of his points up until the end where he states: "As part of this, I'm going to get off my lazy rear end and learn how to use a gun already. I've been meaning to do so for ages. I plan on doing so soon.". Maybe this last statement is intended to prove he is worthy of wearing the "REAL MAN" label. "LOUD, PROUD & UNBOWED" indeed.

I'd like to see what he and his gun can do against the next passenger jet hurtling towards him, or to prevent someone from some foreign (on not) government from slipping a large bomb in via a shipping container...

I think I'd rather trust my luck to a new administration that isn't hell bent on pissing off every other country on the planet while at the same time subverting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights under the guise of protecting us.