11/05/24
October 07, 2005
Pat Tillman, Our Hero. : "I don't believe it," seethed Ann Coulter. Her contempt was directed at a September 25 San Francisco Chronicle story reporting that former NFL star and Army Ranger war hero Pat Tillman, who was killed in Afghanistan last year, believed the US war on Iraq was "f***ing illegal" and counted Noam Chomsky among his favorite authors. It must have been quite a moment for Coulter, who upon Tillman's death described him in her inimitably creepy fashion as "an American original--virtuous, pure and masculine like only an American male can be." She tried to discredit the story as San Francisco agitprop, but this approach ran into a slight problem: The article's source was Pat Tillman's mother, Mary.
posted by the red terror to culture at 09:01 AM - 48 comments
Completely fucking despicable, and I'm not even talking about Ann Coulter (okay, I'm talking about Ann Coulter too). At what point do the American people realize what a bunch of lying jerks they've voted into office -- twice -- and set fire to the White House to roust these bastards? /oh, and when exactly will Coulter enlist for her turn in Iraq?
posted by wfrazerjr at 10:06 AM on October 07, 2005
How dare the families of these dead people refuse to let them be misrepresented to further someone's agenda? Talk about cheeky. Maybe now Coulter will blow that final gasket, after which there will be merciful silence.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 11:30 AM on October 07, 2005
"Damnit, I'm using your boy as a symbol here. This isn't a good time." I wonder how people get around when their balls are clearly too large to allow for walking.
posted by yerfatma at 11:38 AM on October 07, 2005
I never voted for that idiot and people like coulter make me ashamed to be an american. what exactly has ann coulter or the neo-conserative movement done for america lately. maybe a move to canada is not out of the question rush is my favorite band, cerebus my favorite comic book and i think hockey is the greatest invention since the wheel. i hear 'couver is nice this time of year.
posted by HATER 187 at 11:51 AM on October 07, 2005
interesting--doesnt have alot to do with sports-this is a discussion for another day and another web site!
posted by daddisamm at 12:07 PM on October 07, 2005
interesting, seeing as i'm in iraq right now. i wonder how many sites will discuss my views if i should get wacked. i'm new to the site. thanks for keeping me in the loop guys
posted by yankee0758 at 12:25 PM on October 07, 2005
thank you yankee
posted by HATER 187 at 12:26 PM on October 07, 2005
hater -- did you say cerebus? i've met sim a number of times, lives a couple miles from me... in fact i took a snapshot of sim in his office holding up a newspaper the morning they captured saddam. sim was a happy camper that day. sim is gung-ho for the war. or at least was. probably still is. can't say i agree with his position on the war 'cos i'm the sort who believes the logical consequence of shoving your fist into a hornets nest is to get a swarm of hornets attacking and stinging you. but he's a far more pleasant guy to converse with than you might think from reading those handgrenade essays at the back of his comic book. (sim is also a leafs fan.)
posted by the red terror at 12:42 PM on October 07, 2005
Weedy -- whose word do I believe? 1. Coulter's fantasies vs. the word of Tillman's mother + Tillman's army buddy + Noam Chomsky. I'll pick the latter group. Not merely because of their proximity to Tillman, but also looking at Ann Coulter's track record of making shit up and her modus operandi to smear anyone who doesn't bow to Lord Bush is a traitor. 2. The feds stonewalled Tillman's family. The Pentagon let the truth drag for months while they exploited his memory. 3. Jessica Lynch. They made up baloney about her too, but she lived to tell the truth and say, well, sorry, I'd love to be your hero, but the Pentagon is trying to sell you snake oil. What impresses me most about Tillman is not that he gave up football and volunteered for service, not that he refused to become a poster-boy for the war machine, nor even that he was reading Noam Chomsky. What impresses me most is that this story humanizes Tillman -- and by extension, other servicemen -- as a free-thinker and not some sort of robotic GI Joe stormtrooper. It's a tragedy that we'll never be able to hear what he really thinks from his own lips, because if he'd returned from his tour and completed his service, you can bet the networks would have been falling over themselves to book him as a guest. Of course, other servicemen could tell similar stories, but networks aren't interested in no-names, they'd rather book bimbo chickenhawks like Ann Coulter than actually hear what real grunts in the field have to say. Pat Tillman would've been a big exception.
posted by the red terror at 01:05 PM on October 07, 2005
Tillman was a pretty interesting guy. Definitely not your typical musclebound jock. Ann Coulter? Meh, she's a waste of skin and bones.
posted by fenriq at 01:05 PM on October 07, 2005
Hey Red, I, like you, am vehemently anit-war and anti neo-con, but lately have found myself being completely disgusted by the state of the American media to a degree I previously thought unattainable. Whether or not you believe Tillman's Mom, Dad and Milkman is irrelevant. With this article you have to first believe the San Francisco Gate is giving you the straight goods; a paper that hasn't exactly been bi-partisan for a helluva long time. The language the writer uses, makes it clear to me that the goal of the article is as much defimation of the right as possible - so how much of this (especially this very difficult to confirm second hand account of one of Tillman's buddies saying "Oh yeah, Pat Tillman hates Bush - he said so.") is for their agenda, and not for Tillman's legacy and the (unknown) truth. Who's to say this isn't an attempt at spin? In any event, knowledge and democracy suffer. P.S. I can't help but think that something terrible lurks in Ann Coulter's past that would explain both her incredible education and total harpee-esque belief system. Either that or she's just playing the whole country for fools and book sales.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 01:20 PM on October 07, 2005
interesting--doesnt have alot to do with sports-this is a discussion for another day and another web site! Never stopped it before, 150 comments here we come.
posted by YukonGold at 01:24 PM on October 07, 2005
i met sim a number of times at s.p.a.c.e. in coloumbus and everytime we talked hockey or politics and disagreed vehemently on both subjects. he is pretty funny guy and a great artist
posted by HATER 187 at 01:34 PM on October 07, 2005
What impresses me most is that this story humanizes Tillman -- and by extension, other servicemen -- as a free-thinker ... And by extension, other athletes, too? Maybe they don't all fit their stereotypes, either.
posted by Amateur at 01:43 PM on October 07, 2005
Umm, did yankee0758 just say that he was posting from Iraq? I want to know more.
posted by Amateur at 01:44 PM on October 07, 2005
yes, i am posting from iraq, i've been reading comments on this site for about a week, i never thought i'd post, but this topic has been bothering me since sgt tillmans death.maybe if every soldiers death were discussed to this degree.....we could all come home
posted by yankee0758 at 01:56 PM on October 07, 2005
>>>Either that or she's just playing the whole country for fools and book sales. DING DING DING! We have a winner :)
posted by JohnSFO at 02:02 PM on October 07, 2005
1 - yankee, we all owe you and your brethren a moment of thought and best wishes each night 2 - I'm in complete agreement with Weedy. Even those that are totally against the war and the management (or lack thereof) by this administration of all things important, have to recognize the double-standard portrayed by parts of the media. The Tillman family's story (and other military families' stories) deserves to be told. But it would be best served if told objectively. It's reasonable and positive for intelligent people to disagree on important issues. Then again, Ann Coulter and her ilk are neither reasonable nor positive, which hurts the "intelligent" and "important" parts of my comment.
posted by littleLebowski at 02:28 PM on October 07, 2005
Hey Yankee, maybe if you're nice, I'll tell you where we hid our stash of JP4 hooch back in the first dance. It's aged nearly 15 years now, should just about taste like turpentine. Mmmmm, turpentine. Good luck and Godspeed; kick ass and stay alive, not necessarily in that order.
posted by The_Black_Hand at 02:28 PM on October 07, 2005
Wow, if that hooch is anything like the stuff we made, back in the day, in the Navy. Made made those Cruises go like a dream! Good luck and God's speed to you as well, Yankee!
posted by daddisamm at 02:44 PM on October 07, 2005
I am surprised to learn that someone presumably critical of The War On Terror joined up. That's a special kind of human right there. If only more people's definitions of virtue and purity entailed more Chomksian thinking. No one likes to acknowledge the money trail, and it isn't always the root cause, but we are humans, money does talk, and being guided by higher principles, rather than a bottom line, tends to yield more virtuous and pure results.
posted by garfield at 02:52 PM on October 07, 2005
daddisamm, now I know the true source of your typos. You done burned out your cerebral cortex on that homemade "flight deck punch!"
posted by The_Black_Hand at 03:01 PM on October 07, 2005
interesting--doesnt have alot to do with sports-this is a discussion for another day and another web site! That's an understandable point. But as the original poster of this thread, it's obviously one I don't entirely agree with. (It's also one of the reasons why I love this website -- it's not the usual same re-fried superficial garbage we get on Sports Center.) When the POTUS uses a ceremonial first pitch at a Yankee playoff game to buff up his image as a jock and manipulate fans in the stadium and the millions watching on their TVs, whether we like it or not, it's related to sports. When NFL Today harpees on CBS wear little lapel flags as part of their uniform *click* or a pious Howie Long uses a pre-game show to sermonize about "real heroes," again, it's related to sports. Pat Tillman was an NFL player. That single fact alone elevated his presence above 200,000 other enlistees. You won't read much about it in the box-scores, but sports are often used to sell war. It intrigues me to consider what Tillman might have thought about Chomsky. Chomsky has written for decades about spectator sports and it's debilitating influence on the public, about how sports turns us into blinkered tribes that rally uncritically around something as deadly as war. Now, I happen to disagree with a lot of what Chomsky says regarding sports, but every time Joe Six-Pack says "I don't wanna hear it; it's not relevant to sports," it kinda makes me think maybe Chomsky's onto something. Politics is about making choices. If you were to live in Glasgow, your choice to support Rangers or Celtic could be construed as a political choice. Some might think it not a choice at all but rather a religious duty, and you might take a punch in the head for your trouble. When it comes to choices -- Tillman chose to serve. The NFL chose to use Tillman as their own poster-boy. The Pentagon chose to exploit Tillman's sacrifice. And national sports media chose to run with the myth. It was all used to sell a war. As the pro-wrestling parlance puts it, the public were "marks," and Tillman's enlistment was used to "put one over" the public. We never got to hear from the real Tillman, so the Pentagon and White House and yes, even the NFL Today, gave us a phony sell-job. I don't want to know about the fake Tillman the Pentagon says he was; I prefer to hear about the real Tillman as his family and friends knew him. And as someone who has never played in the NFL or served in the armed forces, I'd be fascinated to know what Tillman thought about Chomsky and his views of spectator sports.
posted by the red terror at 03:19 PM on October 07, 2005
maybe if every soldiers death were discussed to this degree.....we could all come home Damn it, Yankee, you got me all choked up here. I'm not a fan or the war in Iraq, but I'm a pretty big fan of our soldiers and I hope you can all be home soon, too. And thank you.
posted by Joey Michaels at 03:30 PM on October 07, 2005
well said, red terror.
posted by garfield at 03:44 PM on October 07, 2005
red terror: thanks for the Chomsky link....I think he simplifies a bit (as you point out), but there certainly seems to be something there worth examing now, doesn't there?
posted by smithers at 03:51 PM on October 07, 2005
Semper Fi to all the men & women honorably serving our country Yankee. As far as the thread not directly on sports, eh. I just enjoy this little community. A.T.B. to all.
posted by RedStrike at 03:55 PM on October 07, 2005
daddisamm, now I know the true source of your typos. You done burned out your cerebral cortex on that homemade "flight deck punch!" Nah--I was on the Nimitz, so I blame it on radiation from the nuclear reactors I appreciate everybody's opinions on this topic. I may not agree with all of them I do accept a person's right to speak their mind...
posted by daddisamm at 04:00 PM on October 07, 2005
Chomsky link....I think he simplifies a bit (as you point out), but there certainly seems to be something there worth examing now, doesn't there? I never gave it too much credit. But back in '90 or '91 (sorry, gettin' old here) I was regularly attending Buffalo Bills games -- the Bills were building a (small) dynasty and GHWB was drawing a line in the sand getting ready for war. I used to love the Rich Stadium tailgate parties, but as the season progressed and war-fever ramped up, it began to get a bit scary. Frenzied belligerent Bills supporters wearing combat fatigues, Bills helmets, stars & stripes flags as capes, and burning Iraqi flags and effigies of Saddam Hussein with crowds of hundreds banging the drums and whooping. It was highly ritualized (and similar to what I saw years afterward on TV when civilains were jumping around celebrating on the streets of Palestine after 9/11) and some of the things Chomsky had written and spoke about sports -- namely the jingoism and manipulation of a mass public at a sports arena -- well, let's just say the fog lifted a little. Again, as a huge sports fan my entire life, I have long resisted Chomsky's views about sports and fans, but what I saw made me re-think somewhat.
posted by the red terror at 04:40 PM on October 07, 2005
I am surprised to learn that someone presumably critical of The War On Terror joined up. That's a special kind of human right there Person presumably responsible for attacks on Sept 11: Mr O. bin Ladin of Al Qaeda Current Residence: Afghanistan Military Operation: legal, backed by UN and a number of allies (incl NATO) Was there involvement by Iraq in Sept 11 attacks?: No Number of Al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq prior to US-led (illegal) invasion: Zero Number now: Your guess is as good as mine They haven't got bin Ladin yet, and people are dying in Iraq for something that had nothing to do with the War on Terror. Now do you see why Tilman might have been a little put out? And by the way, when George W. visited my country, to thank us for our participation in the Coalition of the Willing, he laid a wreath on the tomb of the unknown soldier, mentioning one of our soldiers who had died in Afghanistan. Only our evil government 'forgot' to invite his widow to the ceremony, because she had been critical of her treatment.
posted by owlhouse at 06:21 PM on October 07, 2005
Yankee, I hope you get home soon. I have never been a fan of Chomsky, but I am not going to another baseball game til they stop with the "God Bless America" and other scary Nuremberg crap. Luckily, baseball bores me anyway these days.
posted by drjimmy11 at 07:06 PM on October 07, 2005
God's speed Yankee on making it home. Got family overthere myself and want to see and end to this thing as soon as possible. My solution arm the kurds and shites to the teeth and let the sunnies reap the whirlwind.(just an opinion) As for the criminals.. opps i mean administration, i know it'll never happen, but i would seriously love to see there a#%#! thrown into prison.
posted by fade2244 at 07:09 PM on October 07, 2005
To sorta take off on what owlhouse said: IIRC, Tillman joined up post-9/11, either after the action started in Afghanistan or when such could have been reasonably anticipated. He believed that that action was directly targeted at the organization responsible for 9/11. I don't believe that he joined up for Iraq. daddisamm, when were you on the Nimitz? I have a good friend who served there (which, I know, is kinda like saying, "Oh, you're from Boston? Do you know my friend Mike from Boston?"). drjimmy11, agreed wholehyeartedly on the God Bless America. Jingoism aside, the 7th inning stretch song is supposed to be "Take Me Out To The Ballgame", goddammit. My semi-local team, the North Adams Steeplecats, play "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" during the stretch and everybody sings. For that reason and others, it's my all-time favorite ballpark.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 07:40 PM on October 07, 2005
Can anyone speak for a dead man? Even his Mother? When I joined the military my Mother was the first one to dis-own me. I remind everyone it is a volunteer service. For those of you not on the Nimitz, To be an Airborne Ranger, means you had to volunteer 3 times. 1 To join the service, 2, to go thru jump school, 3, to go to Ranger School. This man gave up the oportunity to make MILLIONS of dollars, not once, but three times. He is absolutely and All-American Hero.
posted by volfire at 08:54 PM on October 07, 2005
Can anyone speak for a dead man? Even his Mother? She's probably a better source than Ann Coulter. He is absolutely and All-American Hero. What does that have to do with his opinion of the war in Iraq?
posted by lil_brown_bat at 09:13 PM on October 07, 2005
Can you ask him his opinion? It's called heresay in legal terms. And Ann Coulter is trash.
posted by volfire at 09:23 PM on October 07, 2005
did his own guys drop him? was this Casualties of War?
posted by Two Buck Chuck at 09:54 PM on October 07, 2005
Are you guy's for real? Please stop voting.
posted by volfire at 10:11 PM on October 07, 2005
And LLB, If you did not believe in something, or the possibility of where you were sent, why volunteer three times?
posted by volfire at 10:17 PM on October 07, 2005
Just to back up LBB - Yes, Pat Tilman did join up as a direct result of 9/11. From reading this recent article and previous ones, it seems he may have been pissed off that the pursuit of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan ended up becoming secondary to the whole Iraq adventure. Just look at the comparison of resources/troops etc involved in both campaigns. And from recent information now coming to light it seems that US bungling over the Tora Bora offensive a couple of years back may have let bin Ladin slip away.
posted by owlhouse at 12:50 AM on October 08, 2005
daddisamm, when were you on the Nimitz? I have a good friend who served there (which, I know, is kinda like saying, "Oh, you're from Boston? Do you know my friend Mike from Boston?"). lbb- I was on the Nimitz during the late 70's- its was 77 and 78 mainly. I was attached to a Squadran of planes stationed at Cecil Field, Florida. When we deployed we went with the Nimitz. I know it was a long time ago, which means that I am getting older......
posted by daddisamm at 01:39 AM on October 08, 2005
Ann Coulter is trash but on a Yager night I'd bang her till she was calling FDR the greatest president ever. she'd probablly love JFK when i was done too. posted by fade2244 at 9:36 PM CST on October 7 Wow Fade2244, are you trying to be funny? Your attempts at humor are not only vulgar-they aint funny. Besides all of that, they have nothing to do with the topic.
posted by daddisamm at 01:44 AM on October 08, 2005
People serve in the military for a variety of reasons. Its really shouldnt make a difference as to what they are as long as they dont hinder the person's ability to perform his/her duties. The problem here, is that too many people are trying to use Tillman's death for thier purposes. And if you look deep enough, you will find that they come from BOTH side of the political spectrum. I get really tired of the name calling that goes on everyday within the world of political commentary. To stay alive in this world, you must develop an audience. It gets to the point whre the "truth" gets "burried" under all of the garbage. The news isnt reported anymore, its "spun" into whatever a person wants it to be! The biggest casualty of war is the Truth ( I am not just talking about Bush here either-but thats a whole other discussion). I have said enough. I hope to get involved in a discussion about who sucks more the Yankees or the Red Sox! ;-),
posted by daddisamm at 02:02 AM on October 08, 2005
lbb- I was on the Nimitz during the late 70's- its was 77 and 78 mainly. I was attached to a Squadran of planes stationed at Cecil Field, Florida. When we deployed we went with the Nimitz. I know it was a long time ago, which means that I am getting older...... Hmm, I think my bud was a few years after that, but there might have been some overlap. Electronics guy, he was. Said the boat had quite the turn of speed...
posted by lil_brown_bat at 06:52 AM on October 08, 2005
seeing as i'm in iraq right now. i wonder how many sites will discuss my views if i should get wacked. Welcome to SportsFilter, Yankee. I think you're our first soldier/member, and I'm curious about how much you're able to follow sports while serving over there. We could organize a care package drive if there's anything you and your fellow soldiers need.
posted by rcade at 08:51 AM on October 08, 2005
Great Idea Rcade
posted by daddisamm at 10:16 AM on October 08, 2005
I thought you all might enjoy reading a response I got via email to my comments above. I won't post the whole thing here, but the email and my thoughts are posted on my blog, From Hoosier to Hoser. Fun stuff!
posted by wfrazerjr at 10:52 AM on October 08, 2005
Oh kee-rist - I don't know what to believe anymore. But it sure do angry up the ol' blood - don't it? Only, what two - three more years? Then who?