Kinsley Repeats a Lie to Save the Truth
Apparenly, Michael Kinsley likes the Iraq/Vietnam parallels so much he is willing to recycle lies about Vietnam to make his point. In this scathing op-ed on the war in Iraq, Kinsley writes by analogy:
An American general in Vietnam famously said, “We had to destroy the village to save it.”
Um, no. Peter Arnett, a now-infamous journalist in Vietnam, infamously made the quote up, in reference to the non-village of Ben Tre a non-village that was destroyed by the other “we,” the Viet Cong. That “we” had no intention of “saving” anything, of course, and the soldier most likely quoted by Arnett remembers saying “it was a shame the town was destroyed.” Kinsley probably knows the quote is bogus; if he doesn’t, he certainly should. Nevertheless, he also knows that the average Dog Trainer reader can be trusted not to know any better, so he probably figured what the hell.
In my opinion, knowingly running an apocryphal, long-discredited quote without acknowledging the likelihood that it is false is serious journalistic misconduct. It would be worthy of a complaint to the newspaper’s Reader’s Representative, if only the L.A. Times had one.
Thanks to Sr. Xrlq for the tip.
November 22nd, 2004 at 7:55 pm
In lighter Kinsley news, either he or someone who looks just like him and wears his glasses shops at Target.
November 23rd, 2004 at 4:08 pm
If it is not a real quote, that’s a shame.
It doesn’t make it any less awesome a turn of phrase, though. Oh, the ambiguities contained in that statement!
November 23rd, 2004 at 9:44 pm
Submitted for Your Approval
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November 27th, 2004 at 7:05 am
YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE
PATTERICO to learn something new every day — where’s something important I didn’t know about Vietnam. I didn know that Michael Kinsley was rather more found of his political…