Since 2003, readers of the Southern Illinois Daily Egyptian have been following the heartwrenching story of Sgt Dan Kennings, deployed in Iraq, and his 8-year-old daughter, Kodee, waiting and hoping for Daddy to return home safely.
Powerful stuff, particularly after news hit Southern Illinois that Dan had been killed in action—leaving Kodee (whose mother had died years earlier) an orphan.
…Which makes it all the more unforgivable that the whole thing was nothing but a cynical hoax.
Mudville Gazette details the unraveling.
Well, you know, “fake but accurate,” so it’s really no big deal.
I mean, you want to give them a little slack because it’s a student newspaper, but –
they never even bothered to verify anything about the freaking story!
Plus, tell me anyone who would find the letters cited in the links above credible as the products of an eight-year old.
Even an audience of college students? C’mon.
I do love, however, the way that the student reporter who first brought this to light and rode the story as it developed (probably expecting a Pulitzer) is now invoking the “Don’t blame me, I’m an idiot” defense.
Which is refreshing in its complete and total honesty.
You listening, Ms. Sheehan? Could come in useful in another, oh, couple of weeks or so.
She was home-schooled and everyone knows that only the government-run school system is capable of properly teaching our children.
Major league creep-out in the way the parents of the little girl who impersonated the “Kodee” character simply allowed a stranger to haul their child hither and yon without any suspicion of his motives.
I mean, there’s too trusting, and then there’s incompetent to manage the care and feeding of a houseplant, let alone a living, breathing child.
So, when does Ken show up and tell us this would have never happened if GW Bush hadn’t been on vacation. TW-Built, as in there is a sucker built every minute…in journalism schools the nation over.
Damnit. That just ticks me off!
It doesn’t matter if she never existed. She still has the moral authority to speak as a result of her loss.
You insensitive cad.
It’s SIU Carbondale. As any local will tell you, they’re more concerned with making the next kegger than they are any sort of fact checking at SIUC. “Facts, schmackts, where’s the Pabst?”
Corvan,
Do you really think that even the Uberintellectual Ken, can tie this story to the rich, full history of the War Between the States?
Do you really think that Ken will interrupt his daily reenactment of Grant’s harrowing swordfight with a burglar (who later turned out to be his man-Friday coming in to dump the night jar) just to debate you on which of the Presidents talked the goodest English?
You do not possess the lance nor the steed to cerebro-joust with KEN. Dismount sir. Dismount and lay down your sword.
And AWG,
Why do you want to hurt the good people at Pabst? You take that back!!!
The Pabst is prologue.
Spam word: “burp”—no lie.
I’m from Southern Illinois, and KODEE DOES NOT SPEAK FOR ME!
(Really, if you knew anything about SIU-C, you’d know this was a hoax. They’re still living in 1968.0
From the virtual reality based community:
Fake but absolute moral authority
True story: Once in an English lit class (I can’t remember which one; might have been 17th & 18th Century English Lit), the professor described a character from the play we were reading as “something of a poor man’s Falstaff”. Being an inveterate smartass, I immediately jumped in with “Aha! So he’s Pabst!”. I didn’t do especially well in that class (mostly due to severe burnout), but I did manage to crack up the prof.
sw: under. As in “Much like the bulk of SIUC’s students, in my college days I was no stranger to underachievement.”
Ho.Lee.Shit.
Too bad it’s a hoax, if it were true there would be a valuable lesson here: God doesn’t like parents who name little girls Kodee.
tw: center, I need one
’I thought I was playing a part in a documentary’. No, no Mr. Moore. documentaries are supposed to be real.
It doesn’t matter if she never existed. She still has the moral authority to speak as a result of her loss.
Right. And two (more) words: Tawana Brawley.
Continuing on in the fake but accurate mode, Cindy finally gets to meet the president.
Cindy meets the prez
Served up with some fake but real manufactured outrage live from Crawford, TX:
Sheehan and Sharpton
It doesn’t get any more real than this.