A priceless (and very sad) story today in the New York Times about Lynndie England’s fouled-up plea deal. Here’s the lead:

In a military courtroom in Texas last week was a spectacle worthy of “As the World Turns”: Pfc. Lynndie R. England, the defendant, holding her 7-month-old baby; the imprisoned father, Pvt. Charles A. Graner Jr., giving testimony that ruined what lawyers said was her best shot at leniency; and waiting outside, another defendant from the notorious abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Megan M. Ambuhl, who had recently wed Private Graner – a marriage Private England learned about only days before.

These are the people that the Left was happy to use to smear the entire U.S. military and our project in Iraq. Now, keep in mind that Andrew Sullivan once wrote that the only reason England and Co. would take such sick pictures in Iraq and look so remorseless about it is that they were getting orders from on high to do it. Then read this:

Just after the 372nd received orders to go to Iraq in February 2003, Private Graner, Private England and another soldier had a last party weekend in Virginia Beach. They drank heavily, and when their friend passed out, Private Graner and Private England took turns taking photographs of each other exposing themselves over his head.

Or this:

One night in October, he told her to pose for photographs holding a leash tied around the neck of a naked and crawling detainee. He e-mailed one home: “Look what I made Lynndie do.” The now infamous pictures of detainees masturbating, he said, were a birthday gift for her.

Eventually Graner moved on from England to Ambuhl:

She had been involved with another soldier in the unit. But by late December, she had ended that relationship and started one with Private Graner. In e-mail messages, the two dreamily recalled their nights stolen away in the crowded prison cells where the military police lived.

These people were a disgrace, and didn’t need orders to behave abysmally.