Thank goodness for Larry Flynt.
Wow, I never thought that I would say that. But the "gold-plated wheelchair" crusader has amazed even his harshest critics this week by doing what no one expected: showing restraint.
For a man who has made a fortune exploiting the First Amendment, it was a shock when he announced Tuesday that he would not publish alleged nude pictures that he had obtained of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch.
"I don't think it was the best, positive move I could make. She's very much a pawn for the government. They force-fed us a Joan of Arc," Flynt told The Associated Press.
For those of you who have been living in a cave since the start of the war in Iraq, Lynch is the Army private who valiantly was rescued from an Iraqi hospital after her company was ambushed last March. This same Lynch allegedly had some pictures taken cavorting in the nude with two other soldiers before she was shipped off to Iraq.
While Lynch will neither confirm nor deny the existence of these pictures, her attorney told the New York Daily News: "She has dealt with life-threatening injuries; she has dealt with assaults to her body. The revelation of these photographs is nothing in comparison."
While what her attorney said is completely true, he left out one important thing: her exploitation by both the media and the Army.
Apparently, the facts of her rescue were far less dramatic than the initial story manufactured by the Army.
When the story of her rescue first surfaced, it seemed like a scene out of a Schwarzenegger movie. The original tale went something like this: After taking a wrong turn outside of Nasiriya, Lynch's company experienced a deadly ambush that killed nine fellow soldiers.
Lynch emptied her guns during this ambush and went down with a fight. After being shot and stabbed several times druing the course of the ambush, Lynch purportedly was taken to an Iraqi hospital and tortured until her valiant rescue eight days later. This was a true Hollywood rescue, complete with night vision cameras, Black Hawk helicopters and blazing guns.
However, in later reports the story became much less romantic. Apparently, Lynch never received any bullet or knife wounds, only broken bones after her Humvee ran into a tractor.
At this point, Lynch passed out and was taken to a hospital, where she received the best care the staff could offer a soldier in the midst of a war.
She was assigned one of the two nurses on the floor and the only specialist bed in the hospital. One of the doctors even tried to deliver Lynch in an ambulance to American forces, only to be shot at and forced to return to the hospital.
Regardless of how the story actually played out, Lynch unwillingly became the poster child for the war effort. The military has exploited Lynch in a way that is far more damaging than a few dirty pictures ever could be.
Which is why it is so surprising that Flynt decided not to publish the pictures.
The perpetual telling and re-telling of the arguably inaccurate story has turned Lynch into more than she ever wanted to be.
In her biography, she comes out and says, "They used me as a way to symbolize all this stuff. I'm not about to take credit for something I didn't do."
While I am not a fan of Larry Flynt's exploitative strategies and the way in which he amassed his wealth as a "Hustler" porn magnate, I applaud him for taking the moral high ground this time and stopping further exploitation of Lynch.
Grant Klinzman is a journalism junior. Reach him at grant.klinzman@asu.edu.