Rangergate, Day 3: Is there a German word for being strangely fascinated (but certainly not pleased) by someone coming unraveled? Schadenfreude doesn't come close, really. Maybe the ancient Greeks had a name for it; they were good at expressing complex notions.

Anyway, I don't plan to report much more on the Micah Wright "scandal." At this point there's little "news," mostly just message-board posters expressing feelings of "outrage" and "betrayal," a few pros popping up to give their thoughts, and Wright trying to convince people that, although he told the Big Lie, he's telling the truth about the timeline of events and his reasons for admitting he was never an Army Ranger. In an addendum to his initial announcement, Wright maintains he came forward on his own, not because of the impending Washington Post article exposing the truth:

"The Washington Post is running a story tomorrow, yes. I started this ball in motion last week when I decided that this entire thing was over. I called my publisher and informed them of the truth, and THEY called the Washington Post and informed them.

"This is not a case of imminent exposure bringing about this confession, this is a case of me stepping up to the plate and admitting what I have done.

"I have spent Monday through Friday calling all of my friends and co-workers that I could get ahold of and telling them the truth so that they wouldn't hear it from the Post. So if Newsarama (which didn't bother to interview ME for this story) wants to repeat third-hand stories and get the sequence of events out of order, that's fine, but for the record, I first put up a very accessible and public version of this webpage days ago."

But Richard Leiby, who wrote the Post column, has been making the rounds himself, countering those claims by Wright. Here's Leiby yesterday, commenting on A Small Victory blog:

"I want your blog readers to know that the only reason Micah Wright came clean on his lies last week is because I pursued three FOIA requests with separate US Army commands, seeking proof of his service, after he failed to provide documentation to me. Despite common perceptions, it is not easy for a reporter to verify the service of anyone with a Ranger background, or anyone who claims to have been associated with Special Forces. I did not have Wright's social security number and he refused to provide any validating information, aside from his birthdate. I filed the FOIA requests to follow up on the July 2003 article I wrote about Wright. When I finally verified in April 2004 that he had never served as an Army Ranger (each FOIA took months for processing), I called his publisher and demanded that the publisher press Wright for documentation of his alleged service. The publisher called Wright in the last week of April and he confessed his lies. I decided to write the story in my Sunday (2 May) column, and wanted to get a comment from Wright, which I did when he called me on Friday evening."

Leiby also contacted Comic Book Resources with similar comments, adding, "I have all the dated FOIA responses to prove the paper trail. Seven Stories will confirm my version of events."

And that, I hope, is that -- at least for a while. Barring an announcement that Wright is being blacklisted from comics or that, say, his name isn't really Micah Ian Wright but Armin Tamzarian, I can't imagine there is any more "news" to milk from this.