Out of the bag: Micah Wright's announcement yesterday that he was never an Army Ranger seems less like a soul-searching confession and more like an attempt to beat The Washington Post to the punch. In today's "Reliable Source" column, Richard Leiby reports that Wright came clean last week to Seven Stories Press, publisher of his anti-war poster book You Back the Attack! We'll Bomb Who We Want!, after The Post insisted on evidence of Wright's military service:

"Seven Stories has canceled publication of Wright's next book, If You're Not a Terrorist, Then Stop Asking Questions, due out in two months. It also will remove from future printings of the first book his detailed and wholly fictional account of parachuting into Panama under fire during Operation Just Cause. Wright's book of satirically 'remixed' World War II propaganda posters was a minor success, selling more than 20,000 copies. It carried endorsements from two WWII vets, novelist Kurt Vonnegut and historian Howard Zinn.

"'The romance of his military background rang a bell with me and made me like him a lot,' Vonnegut told us Friday. 'You almost want to say, "So what else is new?" Human beings are terrible liars. I still like what he did. He's a liar, but I still like his pictures.'"

Wright's "Mea Culpa" on his website has been edited since yesterday, condensing the apology and changing the date from April 15 to April 25. (Thanks to David McClure, who points out in my comments section that the date likely was changed because the post mentions the death of Pat Tillman, which was on April 22.)