More lies

Stack dead actors, stacked to the rafters
Line up the bastards all I want is the truth
Hey, hey now, can you fake it,
Can you make it look like we want
Hey hey now, can you take it
And we cry when they all die blonde
-Foo Fighters

Okay, this was news to me. I just read a WP article about Pat Tillman and learned he was killed by friendly fire. Apparently this came out about five weeks after Tillman's death, but I missed it then. Was it even a story? Now I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn that "his superiors exaggerated his actions and invented details as they burnished his legend in public, at the same time suppressing details that might tarnish Tillman's commanders."

Last night we watched an episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit about psychics who talked to the dead. At Penn Jillette delivers a monologue condemning the psychics as the worst kind of con artists exploiting the dead and the grief of their loved ones. This is the same thing. Like the psychics, Tillman's commanders callously used his memory to their own benefit, at the expense of his friends and family. They exploited Jessica Lynch the same way, distorting her story to serve their ends.

Aren't these people heroic enough already? Do we always need to make them larger than life? Are they that afraid of the truth?