Terror Dreams

I've been leafing through Susan Faludi's new book on the country's post-9/11 turn to a protective masculinity fantasy, but haven't gotten quite far enough to offer any systematic thoughts. There's a chapter on the presidential candidates and guns which is interesting, but makes too much out of what was really a very small part of the campaign. The chapter on the myths surrounding Jessica Lynch's "rescue," however, is great, if only because it reminds us what a cynical heap of lies we were fed. Faludi recounts the bizarre spectacle of the soldiers storming the hospital where Lynch was being treated, kicking in doors that the staff had given them keys too, ripping open Lynch's sand-filled, anti-bedsore mattress to take sand samples, and triumphantly carrying away the "rescued" Lynch, who was wearing a dress one of the Iraqi nurse's brought from home. All this two days after the hospital's employees had tried to bring Lynch to an American base, but had their ambulance shot at for the trouble.

Here, by the way, is Rebecca Traister's review of Faludi's book.