On war photo, Palin again speaks out of righteous ignorance

September 7, 8:16 PMSpiritual Life ExaminerRabbi Ben Kamin

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The self-appointed leader of the lowly opposition, a person whose greatest single summer feat was to walk away from the job the people of Alaska elected her to do, a twitchy woman who challenged President Obama to an arm wrestling match earlier year, has now gathered her credentials to speak on the moral complexities of war, media, responsibility, and family grief.

Sarah Palin called the Associated Press's decision to release a battlefield photo of a dying Marine over the family's objection "an evil thing to do."  Lacking a podium, a network, or a job, she again relied on her Facebook page to make this sermonic declaration.  Palin, who widely distributed photographs of herself hunched above a bloody moose she had just slaughtered during her 2008 vice-presidential campaign, called the photograph “a sacred image.” (The only implied comparison here has to do with the ex-gov's under-enlightened photographic sensitivity).

Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard died in Afghanistan (a war that former governor Palin endorses).   In fairness, she was not the only person who had concerns with the image transmitted of the young man’s dying moments.  However, very few individuals chose such words and syntax and were so blatantly opportunistic (that is, wanted to act like presidential material, no matter how disingenuous or at whose expense) that it came out so hollow and didn’t even maintain a consistent grammatical person:

The release of the photo was "a despicable and heartless act by the AP," said Palin. "The family said they didn't want the photo published. AP, you did it anyway, and you know it was an evil thing to do.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the Bernard family.”  That’s funny.  Wonder how many Facebook friends clicked the thumbs-up,  “I like this!”

Here’s what's not funny:  The American media, like the American people, and the United States military, are flawed.  But all three have historically changed the world for the better.  The media (including 69 journalists and photographers who were killed in World War II) finally broke the public’s nascent awareness of the reality and horrors of the war by finally releasing the painful photos of dead GIs, from the Pacific to Normandy and back.  We were shocked, and galvanized, and worked harder to save democracy.

There are no words sufficient to offer the family of Corporal Bernard.  But the American public needs data, even on this sweet and languid Labor Day:  The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are the killing fields of young men and women, and for what?

My Examiner colleague, Laura Harrison McBride, posted some comments on the CNN web site which aptly summarize this dreadful American dilemma:

Graphic photos of Vietnam, the useless war of the previous generation, went a long way toward galvanizing public sentiment against that war. It is painful to think there are those who have no understanding that today's Middle East wars are so very like Vietnam, with young men and women slaughtered on the whim of madmen. I would prefer to think of the photo of that young man in his death throes as the portrait of a hero, not because I believe our wars in the Middle East are right, but because he was willing to give his life for what he thought was right. I grieve for him, something I couldn't have done without that photo. And it makes me grieve even more profoundly for all those whose ultimate sacrifice I did not see.

As for the too-often-reviled media, I prefer to think of AP's actions as a single act of courage in American journalism after a long, long drought. AP was doing, at last, what the news media in a war zone are morally tasked with doing.

God rest the souls of our young people being killed in Afghanistan.  Wake up, America.                         

 Photo: Getty Images

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