The Blue Voice

Monday, April 03, 2006

Jill Carroll to rightwing airheads: go [Cheney] yourselves, you cretins (though she was more polite about it)

Rightwingers were falling all over themselves last week to try to "Dixie Chick" Jill Carroll and make her into another "Jane Fonda" rightwing bogeyman. Actually, bogeywoman: they specifically need a woman in that role. Carroll herself isn't playing along:

In her first hours of freedom, Carroll and the Monitor were forced to counter allegations by conservative bloggers that she had betrayed a sympathy for her kidnappers.

The charge was given currency by the New York Times, which suggested Carroll had come to identify with her abductors' aims.

In a statement posted on the Monitor website on Saturday, Carroll dismissed any suggestion she shared the aims of her kidnappers: "Let me be clear: I abhor all who kidnap and murder civilians, and my captors are clearly guilty of both crimes." She also pleaded to be seen as a journalist and not a hostage, suggesting she wanted to return to work once she recovers from the kidnapping.

The charges against Carroll arose from a video she made in captivity that surfaced soon after her release, in which she was critical of the US military presence in Iraq. The video was recorded last Wednesday after Carroll had been held for more than 80 days in a small room with boarded-up windows. Her statement said the video had been made under duress. "I was living in a threatening environment, under their control and wanted to go home alive," she said. (my emphasis)

Tell me again how it is that the New York Times is part of the Liberal Press Conspiracy?

See also the Christian Science Monitor's account:

After landing at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, she spent a rainy Saturday napping, talking with her family by phone, and catching up on the news. She learned of the controversy surrounding the release of a videotape, made by her captors, of Carroll criticizing President Bush and US policies in Iraq. She spent part of the afternoon drafting a response.

"During my last night in captivity, my captors forced me to participate in a propaganda video. They told me they would let me go if I cooperated. I was living in a threatening environment, under their control, and wanted to go home alive. I agreed," she said in a statement issued Saturday.

"Things that I was forced to say while captive are now being taken by some as an accurate reflection of my personal views. They are not. The people who kidnapped me and murdered Allan Enwiya are criminals, at best. They robbed Allan of his life and devastated his family. They put me, my family and my friends - and all those around the world, who have prayed so fervently for my release - through a horrific experience. I was, and remain, deeply angry with the people who did this."

Carroll had been their captive for three months and even the smallest details of her life - what she ate and when, what she wore, when she could speak - were at her captors' whim. Before making the last video, she was told that they had already killed another American hostage. ...

In fact, Carroll did what many hostage experts and past captives would have urged her to do: Give the men who held the power of life and death over her what they wanted. (my emphasis)

But the 101st Fighting Keyboarders got another chance to show their patriotism by trashing someone else's.

[Update 04/03/06: Jane Hamsher comes up with a wonderful turn of phrase. She writes, "After the 'Jill Carroll as traitor' meme passed around the bigotsphere like a social disease ..."]

posted at 1:14:00 PM by Bruce Miller

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