15lbs Of Stupid In A 5lb Bag

So. Micah Wright is a great big fraud. Gee, that's a shock.

Look, politically, I'm pretty well in direct alignment with Micah. I hate everything the current administration stands for. (That's assuming they stand for anything.) But Wright's story has stunk from the moment he started telling it, and as his career progressed further and further into blowhard-dom, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. And when it dropped on Micah, it managed to do so in front of the national media, obliterating his credibility on an enormous scale. Thanks Micah...that's all the liberal side needed. Didn't you have an intern who could blow you?

Let me backtrack a bit. I don't want it to sound like I'm not taking Wright's unbelievably stupid actions seriously. Far from it. In fact, like some who've made this connection, I might be bothered more than most.

Micah had claimed to be an Army Ranger, an elite soldier sent to the worst spots for the toughest combat. Now, the national consciousness has gotten a big dose of the Army Rangers recently thanks to the death of the most famous soldier in the United States Forces, Ranger Pat Tillman. Tillman, a man who turned his back on millions of dollars in salary in the NFL to join the Rangers and fight for a cause he believed was right and just. So to have Wright claiming affiliation with a soldier, a man, like Tillman... it's stomach turning. Disgusting. Because Micah isn't fit to shine Pat Tillman's silver star.

I'd like to believe that there is a part of Wright who has watched and read the coverage of Tillman's death over the last week and began feeling a deep sense of guilt and unworthiness that he was claiming to be a man of that quality. But inside, no matter what he says, I just tend to doubt it. Scoundrels rarely confess unless cornered and caught, and the media was onto him. So I'm sure he felt like it benefitted him to announce the truth himself before being pantsed on a national stage. It gave him the chance to spin.

Whatever.

You have to wonder what becomes of Wright at this point. It's wrong to wish someone ill in their career or root for their failure, and I won't do it. But I do believe that Wright becomes essentially unemployable in the comics industry, as well as other writing industries, for quite some time. It's going to take a long time for the bad taste left by his actions to leave the mouths of readers and publishers alike. How can you possibly promote any project he works on? How do you sell the work of a man who could perpetrate this lie to a wary public? I'm not sure Karl Rove could sell Micah to the reading public right now.

So, another setback for the liberal cause, and another potential resource to battle the Bush campaign falls by the wayside. A career lies in wreck and ruin. And still, real soldiers, resumes unfaked, continue to fight, to fall, in battles overseas. So maybe the real lesson remains that people like Micah Wright are exposed and fall by the wayside because they're unimportant, working with great difficulty to get those clumps on clay of their feet. And the truth won't always set you free. Instead, it may be the bullet with your name on it.

Marc@MarcMason.com