Lynch interview gets cut off on the money question

[TheWebHead]

Iraqi War poster girl Jessica Lynch abruptly ended her chin-wag with WRKO's Blute and Scotto yesterday when the duo asked her to comment on the barrage of backlash she's battled since becoming a media darling.

``First of all, it wasn't me seeking the book deal or money or anything like that,'' said the former POW supply clerk who called in with her biographer, ex-New York Times scribe Rick Bragg.

More:
http://thetrack.bostonherald.com/moreTrack/insideTrack.bg?articleid=161

FYI Blute and Scotto are Boston area hosts on the Fox News Radio/ABC Radio conservative affiliate station:
http://www.wrko.com/showdj.asp?DJID=13214

[saigon68]

1. A million bucks is a lot of Ben Franklins

That should make the cold go away.

This is the worst thing ever to happen to the rest of the soldiers.

[Cocoa]

2. what a nasty column

starts out with "When the going got tough, the tough hung up." Talking about a woman that was the sole survivor of her unit.

Then there's this:

"So, Jessica, will you share some of your new-found wealth with Piestewa's family or other relatives who lost loved ones in the ambush, he inquired."

The answer is yes, by the way. Jessica is setting up a foundation in Piestwew's name, for children whose parents died in the war.

The people who wrote this suck.

[Dhalgren]

9. Not commenting on your statement,

just saying that Lynch isn't the "sole survivor" of her unit.

[R Hickey]

3. I think people should quit picking on her

She's been through a lot of hard times, and I wish people would leave her alone. The money question sounded like a right-wing attack, and I'm glad she and her biographer ended the interview.

I have a feeling that since the right-wing can't use her, they will now try to destroy her.

[qanda]

4. I don't want the poor child to be picked on

But she is the one who has herself out there. She could have said no to the movie and book deals and no one would be mentioning her name right now.

[Hobarticus]

6. Don't think she has much choice

I think she's being told what to do, by her publishers and such.

[gbwarming]

7. She said no the the movie and they made it without her.

The fact is that the Administration put her out there. They did it while she was MIA and a POW, and while in Landstuhl hospital and Walter Reed. They did it with 2 videographers and a still photographer on the rescue team and wild tales of rambo and amnesia and gunshot wounds.

[Hobarticus]

8. Agreed.

She's a soldier, and did as she was told.

But at some point, enough has to be enough, and it appears this is what we're seeing now.

[underpants]

10. I don't think NBC even asked her

They had that puppy cranking while she was being put in the helicopter. If I remeber correctly they never really asked her because a) she might publicly say no b) they didn't have to pay her.

Bragg strikes as slime by the way.

[Hobarticus]

14. True dat...

Remarkable how a soldier girl has no say in an account of her life, but at the same time Reagan has the RNC protecting his sanitized "legacy" from even passing scrutiny in a TV movie, AND a major network giving in.

Strange days, my friends...

[gbwarming]

19. They actually were negotiating and she pulled out.

Seems pretty clear in hindsight that she (or her agents) knew somthing about the script and didn't agree with it.

http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2003/08/08/f261.raw.html
Lynch won't co-operate on movie, wants book first
Friday, August 8, 2003 Back The Halifax Herald Limited
By Bill Carter / The New York Times

U.S. army Pte. Jessica Lynch has pulled out of a proposed deal with NBC to co-operate with a television movie about her ordeal as a prisoner of war in Iraq.
...
The network had committed itself to making the film with or without Lynch's aid, relying on a version of the events given by an Iraqi lawyer who has said he helped set up her rescue. Only this week NBC received word from Lynch's representatives that she might be willing to sell her account for use in its movie.

Associates of the Lynch family said a number of factors went into the decision to break off the talks.

One factor, they said, was that they received new details about the movie that led them to believe it would not, perhaps, be the best venue in which to tell Lynch's story.

[american_mutt]

11. not true at all

the movie was NOT based on her book, she was NOT consulted and had NO say about it. And people tossing money at you has a way of changing things. She took a lot of hits for telling the truth, and I would tell her 'fellow' soldiers to STFU and take care not to shoot any more kids or weddings.

[underpants]

12. Right it was based on the lawyer's story

al-Rahief

Welcome to DU :hi:

[joeunderdog]

20. It was based on the lawyer's embellished account. THAT'S why he wanted

to meet with her the week before the movie was run--to ask her to keep the real story quiet. THAT'S why Lynch refused. Not because she was ungrateful like so many people suggested (even here.) She wasn't going to play ball.

I don't blame her for taking $1m for telling HER story. I'd blame her for taking $1m to tell THEIR story. It's not her fault that her story isn't that Hollywood.

[trapper914]

24. What story?

I thought she had amnesia?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

26. She remembers what happened to her in the hospital...

...in that the Iraqi doctors and nurses took good care of her, and that despite the slimeball Iraqi lawyer's claims to the contrary, NOBODY slapped her around. By the way, that creep got $500,000 for the movie deal, and is now working as a consultant for Livingstone, the GOP congressman that had to resign because of a sex scandal.

Additionally, the Iraqi doctors are pretty pissed about the claim that got slipped into the book that Lynch was assaulted. Her uniform had not been torn or ripped, all of the buttons were still in place, and her zipper, in their words, was still up when she arrived at the hospital. No such thing happened. Period. Rick Bragg, the author of Lynch's so-called "authorized biography", claims that her medical records indicate that an assault took place, but I'm personally extremely skeptical about that claim. IMHO, it was just another clumsy attempt to get more Americans pissed off at the Iraqis. Sorry, not going to buy it.

Amnesia? She probably passed out from her injuries shortly after she discovered that her weapon was jammed following the wreck of her vehicle. She also apparently remembers some of what happened in the early stages of the very short and one-sided firefight. But from that time until she became more lucid in the hospital a couple of hours later, she has no recollection.

[Hobarticus]

5. Hear, hear...

This brave young woman is refusing to be a mouthpiece, so any dipshit with a microphone and a lean to the right is going to torpedo her.

If these guys had half the grapes that Jessica has, they'd put themselves or their own kids where their mouths are, in the frontlines in Iraq.

[Nlighten1]

13. They should have asked about Haliburton's blood money.

Not Jessica's.

[qanda]

15. You all are sounding a bit schizophrenic

These are some of the same questions we were asking not even two weeks ago.

If Jessica Lynch is going to put herself out there (a $1 million book deal is not chump change) then she should be prepared to answer the hard questions. What's wrong with asking if she plans to share the money with the children of dead soldiers? Since she has a fund already set up to do so then she could have said what her plans are.

Jessica got a chance that many she served with failed to receive and honestly it kind of pisses me off that her "story" went to the highest bidder while the remainder of them got pretty much nothing.

Edit: spelling

[Eric J in MN]

29. as others have posted, she needs to share that money with

As others have posted, she needs to share that money with Rick Bragg, her co-author.

Most people killed during wartime or peacetime aren't famous.

How many people who died in other wars can you name?

[DS1]

16. The inside track is written by two nasty

bitches ladies who have nothing better to do than dig dirt on people or make it up if none can be found. That's why that fucking assclown Greg Hill on AAF is always reading them, he needs to be shipped off to Iraq with those two.

[louis-t]

17. I think Jessica took the money because....

...she knows what Bush is doing to her VA benefits!

[madrchsod]

18. what a bunch of

fu*king scumbags. her body is broken in pieces and she`ll never be the same,she will be in constant pain for the rest of her life. and for what? these scumbags ,who in their little world, will never have to face what she did and will for the rest of her life, so georgie bush can rule the world? these people are scum

[Mountainman]

22. scum is too nice a word for them

I keep trying to think of a word to describe the right wing media that is lying and using propaganda to keep Bush in office and I can't come up with a bad enough word. Scum seems a little tame to me.

[Say_What]

21. Lori Piestewa, First Native American to die in Iraq

From the Kayenta, AZ news

Memorial fund created for Piestewa children

Navajo Times staff report

Friends and family of Lori Piestewa have established a memorial fund for her 4-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter, who are being cared for by their grandparents in Tuba City.

Those wishing to contribute to the fund, which will be used to raise the children and for their future educational needs, can send checks to"Lori Piestewa's Memorial Fund" at any Wells Fargo bank. The account has been set up under the auspices of the Hopi Nation.

Addresses for Wells Fargo can be found at http://www.wellsfargo.com. Click on the "Locations" link at http://www.wellsfargo.com/help/find_us.jhtml




more...

[Entente]

23. I love how Jessica

does not seem to take a lot of b/s and has great sense of boundaries. Very confident young woman!

[burrowowl]

25. I think Bragg

the writer got half of the million.
I think Jessica will do the right thing with the money.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

27. Based on Lynch's response, I'd like to know who signed the book deal....

...because we know the movie is based on the slimeball Iraqi lawyer's flight of fantasy, and she gets nothing from that.

What's the deal on the book? If it's an "authorized biography", who the heck had it "authorized"??? That would also explain some of the differences between Bragg's so-called writings and what Lynch remembers/doesn't remember.

[Eric J in MN]

28. how low can the women who write that article be?

Who ridicules a severely injured vetaran, besides the two women who wrote that article?

Because she's getting half-a-million for her book, that makes it ok?

I'm sure she'd rather be healthy than have that money.

And it's the nation's responsibility to compensate the other survivors of the ambush and the families of the dead, not Jessica Lynch's.