It appears that the latest Obama smear email has now been utterly debunked.
The letter that was being sent around was a legitimate letter written by a real soldier. However, that soldier is now recanting his account and is requesting that anyone who is promoting what he wrote in his original email to take the letter down:
Now the Bagram captain is dialing back, having signed the viral e-mail with his name, rank and unit – a possible violation of military regulations barring political statements. This morning, he sent The Mouth a new statement (punctuation corrected):
“I am writing this to ask that you delete my email and not forward it. After checking my sources, information that was put out in my email was wrong. This email was meant only for my family. Please respect my wishes and delete the email and if there are any blogs you have my email portrayed on I would ask if you would take it down too. Thanks for your understanding.”
An Army officer familiar with the incident told The Mouth today that the writer is “devastated that the letter was made public. It was never his intention that it go beyond members of his family.”
Now, will the right wing and PUMA sites actually honor the wishes of this soldier and take down his email which even he himself now says was written in error?
While I obviously believe that this soldier should have had his facts straight to begin with, I at least commend the fact that he is willing to admit when he is wrong. And one should note that the author of this letter never meant for it to be spread all over the internet either.
Had the soldier written a similar account of a visit by McCain, would he have found it necessary to “recant?” Personally, I perceive more inaccuracy in the reports of his recant than in his e-mail account of the event. I don’t think he is a professional reporter so he wrote from his own perspective whereas you folks are professionals. There is, however, nothing new in the way you’ve reported his recant, as the public has become accustomed to the media spin – you’re “slippery” at best.
If he had written a similar account of a visit by McCain, it probably wouldn’t have gone anywhere because, as everyone knows, McCain loves the troops and thus would never blow them off.
And, at least how he words his recant, he didn’t even see the event (he talks about checking with his sources) so how can he “write from his own perspective” if there is evidence that he didn’t even witness what he wrote about to begin with?
Besides, the factual accuracy of his latter had already been debunked.