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• Thursday, March 30, 2006 01:59 PM

  the stoning has begun

  Ah, the holier-than-thou brigade of media criticism has shown up already! I, for one, am happy that Jill Carroll is safe and mostly sound. Sandra M, I hope that if you are held hostage in a room in a war zone for months, that someone will worry about you too and rejoice when you're freed.

  Here's a story for Broadsheet, though: Inexplicably, the (male) right wing of the blogosphere has let loose with all kinds of speculations about Carroll because she apparently wasn't one of them. The best of them seem to think that she must have been part of a hoax/extortion scheme (http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2006/03/jill-carroll-christian-science-monitor.html).

  Some of them, in their infinite 101 Fighting Keyboarder wisdom, think that a silly girl who has spent the last two years regularly putting herself in all kinds of danger must be incredibly naive if she doesn't share their views: "Her father was just interviewed on FNC. He seems like a really nice guy. Sounds like a rebellious daughter."

  But what's truly, jaw-droppingly horrifying is that the worst of them appear to be using her to fulfill their vilest fantasies, arguing that she must have been "treated well" in exchange for sexual favors to her captors (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/3/30/144840/465). Where the hell is all this coming from?

  —Marianna Trench Read Marianna Trench's other letters
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