The Tragic Buzzcut Of Bradley Manning

by JASmius

AHEM> Just thought I’d get that part out of the way early for a change.

And now, to the story:

It would be hard to imagine the saga of [Bradley] Manning getting any stranger… But it did one night in September when the former U.S. Army intelligence analyst, who is serving a thirty-five-year prison term for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified government documents to WikiLeaks, broke down in tears after authorities at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, told h[im] he had to cut h[is] hair…

Only now, as Manning perceived it, the U.S. military was messing with h[is] right to be who he is[n't] — a woman — and reinforcing the idea [of what he really] is – a misfit.

Among other unsavory things.

“I felt gross — like Frankenstein’s monster wandering around the countryside avoiding angry mobs with torches and pitchforks,” he wrote in a blog post from prison. Feeling “humiliated, hurt and rejected,” he felt like “giving up” and said he “cried and cried and cried and sniffled a little bit, and then cried some more.”

While all his fellow stockade mates stood around, pointing and laughing hysterically.  Like this:

The guards, too.

What was Manning supposed to get?  A bleeping wardrobe and full dressing room with makeup and compacts and self-lit mirror, complete with room for all his ridiculous blonde wigs with which he tries to make himself look like Reece Witherspoon?

Yes, yes he is.  And as Jazz Shaw warns us today, that will be what Barack Obama, in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief, will doubtless push for next:

The White House has been out there, loud and proud in support of the entire “transgender rights” question all year in an effort to be on “the right side of history” on this issue. But Manning may be the second most famous such figure in the country after [Bruce] Jenner….Will the Obama administration overrule their own military commanders and the rules of conduct for the Army and declare that an exception be made for Manning?

Yes!  They!  Will!

And let’s just say for a moment that he does. Would that be a direct acknowledgement from the federal government that Manning, still in possession of not only all of his original “equipment” but an X-Y chromosomal pair in the twenty-third slot, is actually “a woman” now?

Yes!  It!  Would!

Will the Army have to transfer him to a female inmate section?

Yes!  It!  Will!

Shaw is gallows-humorously rooting for The One to pull that particular trigger:

If Barack Obama wants to declare this man to be a female based on nothing but his personal feelings and “self-identification” and in defiance of science and abject reality, he should do so. And somebody should be able to challenge that in court and dump it in the lap of the Supremes as quickly as possible.

And would Justice Kennedy, writing for the Olympian majority, uphold that demented demidivine declaration?  Yes!  He!  Would!

And then I will “declare” myself a Sovereign-class starship, or even just an FTL-capable runabout complete with bottomless replicator, and warp my family and my pudgy ass out of here in search of a planet that actually has intelligent life resplendent upon it.

With or without buzzcuts, but on which no ridiculous blonde wigs are allowed.