I just received an email containing a letter that Pat Boone allegedly wrote to NewsMax.com. Here are some excerpts:
You can see the rest here.
Apparently the letter is legit. Snopes doesn’t have anything on it, but TruthOrFiction.com claims that they asked Boone directly about the letter and he confirms that he wrote it.
Can I nominate Pat Boone to be shipped to Abu Ghraib for some ‘interrogating?’
Pat Boone can bite my ass. Doesn’t he know that Jesus is listening?
Golly. . .and Pat Boone has always been such a font of absolute wisdom in the past. Whenever I was confused about world events, I would consult Pat and he would point me in the right direction.
Seriously, though, if I had bothered to think about his opinion I would have assumed that it was as the OP presents it. His take on events means nothing.
Now, Katie Couric on the other hand. . .
Well yeah, but the trouble with her these days is you can’t tell why she’s raising her eyebrows at any given point in time…
It’s true. I saw Boone on Bill O’Reilly bitching about this a couple of days ago. What a cock.
Who the fuck is Pat Boone?
Pat Boone: former singing idol and squeaky-clean teen role model and occasional movie and TV performer, now… well, sort of the poster boy for “white bread stick up his ass guy.”
And I should care about Pat Boone’s opinion more than I do the little old lady’s who lives down the block and lets her dachshund crap on my yard… why?
This letter was originally written by an angry Little Richard. Pat Boone excised all references to “good booty”, “long legged women”, and "ballin’ before submitting it to NewsMax as his onw work.
I take this no more seriously than I do rants from Janeanne Garofalo, Tim Robbins, or Ted Nugent. Not only is his opinion not worth any more than anyone else’s, he’s wrong.
I’m waiting for Barbra Streisand to weigh in before I make a decision.
I’m honestly getting scared about how much I agree with **Lib ** since the name change.
He’s an entertainer and should carry the same clout as Babs. Why the hell are their opinions so much more important to you than people that actually make policy? You like or dislike what they do in Hollywood? Well, shit, let’s forget they have no access to what’s happening in the real world and run our lives by what they think. Fuck, that’s like basing foreign policy on my opinion. :rolleyes:
He has a good point, though. Ones echoed strongly by Jonah Goldberg, and you can’t just dismiss him as an entertainer.
Media outlets have a lot of images that they don’t show to readers and viewers. They don’t show the graphic details of a partial birth abortion, for example. And those images would certainly enliven that debate.
They didn’t show the Nicholas Berg execution video, either, which was a consequence of the display of the Abu Ghraib photos.
So a plausible case could have been made for editorial suppression of the images from Abu Ghraib, especially since the matter was being taken up by the military already. If the matter wasn’t being handled by the military, that would have been a different matter.
We’re at war here, and “60 Minutes” should have loyalties in many directions. I’d hope they could persue their stories and maintain their journalistic integtrity without putting our troops at risk.
I love how people complain about celebrities spouting their opinions and using any medium they can to air them, but have no problems spouting their own using any medium they can to air them.
Foreign Policy IS (or at least should be) based on our opinions, thats what a democracy is all about. Because you are in a republic, thats why you vote for people to represent your opinions.
As for pat Boone, he’s probably pissed off that he’s stopped getting royalties from the Army who were using his version of “Enter Sandman” as torture.
It’s a pretty blurry line between freedom of the press and not putting troops at risk. I fail to see how showing images from Abu Ghraib puts troops at risk. Perhaps you can enlighten me?
There is also a difference between images used to illustrate a point and images used for shock value. We know how Nick Berg was killed. There is little, if any, reason to show that video over the mass media except to inflame the American public. Should Sixty Minutes have shown that video, you’d hear complaints from viewers asking why it was necessary to show it.
That said, I think images from Abu Ghraib and similar incidents are important. The American people have the right to know what our troops are doing, particularly when their actions have such dire consequences. It’s not the American press that put troops at risk by showing those photos; it was the American soldiers who felt free to abuse prisoners in their custody, then take photos of their handiwork. News outlets simply brought this to the attention of the American people.
In any event, Ashcroft is trying to weasel out by explaining that the Commander-in-Chief has the right to ignore treaties to which the U.S. is a signatory, in clear violation of international law. How are his actions (and those of other senior Bush administration officials) not putting our troops at risk? Now that it’s known that America tortures prisoners, do you think we’ll see a lot of Iraqi cooperation? Of course not. They’ll continue to take potshots at coalition troops. More Americans will die.
Sometimes, I think “putting troops at risk” is simply code for “la la la I don’t want to hear this la la la”.
Robin
Sometimes?
What can I say? I’m an optimist. 
Robin
My understanding is that the military had asked CBS to delay releasing the pictures while they did damage control, and CBS complied until it became apparent that the pictures were going to be released over the Internet anyway. Can someone confirm that?
Well, MsRobyn, you’re caught in a logical bind. You’re saying that the Nick Berg video shouldn’t be released because the only purpose it would serve would be to:
Which is pretty much the point I made regarding the Abu Ghraib photos. Except that the public who might be inflamed in this case is in the Arab world, and include people who might shoot at our servicemembers.
Strikes close to home, since I’m a veteran. And I know you’re married to one as well.
Funny that you don’t make the people who committed the abuse at AG responsible for putting their fellow service members at risk. Or Bush for sending service etc.