TNR back from vacation with their Scott Thomas excuses

I guess the editors of The New Republic are back from their vacation and trying to explain their journalistic shortcomings by blaming it on the Army in their newest A Scott Beauchamps Update;

Although the Army says it has investigated Beauchamp’s article and has found it to be false, it has refused our–and others’–requests to share any information or evidence from its investigation. What’s more, the Army has rejected our requests to speak to Beauchamp himself, on the grounds that it wants “to protect his privacy.”

At the same time the military has stonewalled our efforts to get to the truth, it has leaked damaging information about Beauchamp to conservative bloggers.

Well, I guess that’d be their perogative wouldn’t it? After all, you stonewalled when the dustup first began. Oh, and Beauchamps is now government property – he signed the papers fully knowing that would be the result.

Earlier this week, The Weekly Standard‘s Michael Goldfarb published a report, based on a single anonymous “military source close to the investigation,” entitled “Beauchamp Recants,” claiming that Beauchamp “signed a sworn statement admitting that all three articles he published in the New Republic were exaggerations and falsehoods–fabrications containing only ‘a smidgen of truth,’ in the words of our source.”

Here’s what we know: On July 26, Beauchamp told us that he signed several statements under what he described as pressure from the Army. He told us that these statements did not contradict his articles. Moreover, on the same day he signed these statements for the Army, he gave us a statement standing behind his articles, which we published at tnr.com. Goldfarb has written, “It’s pretty clear the New Republic is standing by a story that even the author does not stand by.”

Well, your boy Beauchamps lied to you about the melted-face contractor, at least on one “small” point about the geography and the chronology, why do do you still cling to him as a source? If the New Republic had a shed of journalistic integrity, they should at least say that their support for this fabulist is on hold – that they don’t stand behind him until new proof comes to light.

In fact, it is our understanding that Beauchamp continues to stand by his stories and insists that he has not recanted them. The Army, meanwhile, has refused our requests to see copies of the statements it obtained from Beauchamp–or even to publicly acknowledge that they exist.

Scott Beauchamp is currently a 24-year-old soldier in Iraq who, for the past 15 days, has been prevented by the military from communicating with the outside world, aside from three brief and closely monitored phone calls to family members.

Again, the Army has that right – TNR has not been a rational actor in all of this. Their rush to print fables and fairie tales has not given the Army any confidence in their ability to report the truth, so why should the Army cooperate.

We once again invite the Army to make public Beauchamp’s statements and the details of its investigation–and we ask the Army to let us (or any other media outlet, for that matter) speak to Beauchamp. Unless and until these things happen, we cannot fairly assess any of these reports about Beauchamp–and therefore have no reason to change our own assessment of Beauchamp’s work. If the truth ends up reflecting poorly on our judgment, we will accept responsibility for that. But we also refuse to rush to judgment on our writer or ourselves.

Good. That’s the captain’s job – go down with the ship, then.

The best line from this whole story comes, unsurprisingly, from Charles Krauthammer;

We already knew from all of America’s armed conflicts — including Iraq — what war can make men do. The only thing we learn from Scott Thomas Beauchamp is what literary ambition can make men say.

Personally, I’m tired of the whole story. But that’s what the editors of TNR want – like al Qaeda – they want to run out the clock and hope everyone forgets about the story or just gets weary of the whole thing. But I’m here until the bitter end. But, even AP is piling on TNR.

Category: Media, Support the troops, Terror War