Wingnuts vs. Jill Carroll

Gene Lyons gapes in stunned awe at the reaction of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders to reporter and former hostage Jill Carroll:

Carroll’s surprise release through the auspices of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni organization, brought joy to her family and colleagues, as well as to millions who had followed the saga vicariously on TV. It seemed a rare bit of good news from a chaotic Iraq. Alas, no news can be good enough for the increasingly deranged commentators on the Republican right who took it upon themselves to attack Carroll’s motives and besmirch her character because her initial statements upon release struck them as insufficiently patriotic. (my emphasis)

In the comments to a previous post on the Carroll story, Jenn said she hadn't "come across any conservative blogs that are slandering her". I suppose "slander" is a concept that invites comma-dancing. But Lyons summarizes some of the sleaze from blogs and the larger wingnutosphere that was slung her way. And he writes:

Now you'd think any fool who'd seen the earlier tapes of Carroll crying amid masked gunmen would have enough sense to await her return to the U. S. before assuming she’d gone over to the enemy. ...

Things got even worse on the rightwing Web site Little Green Footballs, where one patriot opined that Carroll was "probably coming home with a suitcase full of cash (her kickback ) and a dose of the clap." Needless to say, once back in the U. S. A., Carroll made it clear that everything she'd said in Baghdad had been coerced. Her editor said that none of her colleagues knew her private views about the war. A U. S. Marine public affairs officer commented that "her professionalism and objectivity were unparalleled within the media community." He praised her courage, which few of us, and none of her detractors, I daresay, could match. So why publicize such vile nonsense ? Two reasons: to demonstrate the bravado, racism and misogyny increasingly characteristic of many determined to defend this misbegotten Iraqi catastrophe to the bitter end, and to emphasize that no matter what you hear from the White House, things in Baghdad are actually far more chaotic and dangerous than even the bravest reporters, increasingly unable to venture outside walled compounds without heavily armed military escorts, can possibly convey. (my emphasis)

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