How The New Republic Got Suckered
When Pajamas Media heard the authenticity questions surrounding the "Baghdad Diarist" articles by Scott Thomas Beauchamp in The New Republic, we asked our Washington Editor Richard Miniter to look into how the respected opinion magazine could once again be the locus of such a scandal. Miniter spoke with several people involved in the extraordinary story, including the whistle-blower and a German woman who was Beauchamp's fiancée until just before he married, of all people, Miniter discovered, a fact-checker at The New Republic. That fiancée said of her former boyfriend, the soldier/reporter: "He hates the army. The only reason he joined was because he wanted to have more experience to write about." Read on for that and other explanations of how The New Republic got suckered. (Pajamas Media welcomes a response to our report from The New Republic.)
An inside look at scandal and the perils of publishing what one insider calls a “sociopath.”
By Richard Miniter
Just as the world was beginning to wonder if The New Republic had been tricked by a fabricator for the third time in the past decade, the magazine’s staff went to a party.
It was a going-away party for a longtime New Republic senior editor Ryan Lizza, but the staff seemed more interested in discussing the magazine’s immediate future. It was July 20 and the avalanche of questions about a first-person “diarist” piece under the pseudonym “Scott Thomas” -a direct threat to the magazine’s credibility-was starting to tumble down.
The staff gathered at New Republic Editor Franklin Foer’s Northwest Washington home. Foer asked them not to worry; the editors would investigate the charges.
(Bloggers at Confederate Yankee, Little Green Footballs and Ace of Spades, among others, as well as the online edition of the Weekly Standard, called into question the authenticity of a pseudonymous article, headlined “Shock Troops,” in The New Republic. In the coming weeks, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the man behind the pseudonym would come forward, ultimately signing a written statement recanting his work for The New Republic. The U.S. Army has not released this signed statement, citing Beauchamp’s federal privacy protections.)
Later that night, Robert McGee, a then-assistant to The New Republic’s publisher, went looking for the host. He is curious what Foer thinks about the building scandal. He wants the inside dope.
He finds Foer on the front porch and asks as casually as he can: “So, what’s up with this?”
As McGee recalls the conversation, Foer immediately volunteered the standard answer: conservatives have an ideological grudge to settle because they perceive the magazine to be anti-war, anti-military and so on.
“He sounded almost rehearsed,” McGee said.
What bothered McGee about the conversation was that Foer saw the questions from the bloggers as a completely ideological attack. “Foer wasn’t acknowledging that at least some of the attacks on the [Beauchamp's] ‘Shock Troops’ piece came from active-duty military members whose skepticism was factually grounded, and not just from stateside political pundits.”
Perhaps because McGee worked on the business side of the magazine on the first floor and not with the editors and writers on the second, Foer didn’t consider him a genuine insider-and therefore gave him the company line. But McGee believes that Foer was speaking his mind.
Then the conversation turned to Beauchamp himself. Foer told McGee that soldier-writer was “an articulate guy on the front lines.”
McGee disagreed, thinking Beauchamp “wasn’t that rare of an asset.”
The web is fat with currently serving soldiers in Iraq posting their views as well as the reporting of embedded journalists and retired officers. He told Foer that “the military bloggers were just as qualified, if not more.”
“At that time, my main reason [for talking to Foer] was that I was sympathetic to the military service members who had already weighed in,” McGee explained. “Sympathetic (a) because I felt their skepticism was reasonable on factual grounds, and (b) because I fully understood their grievance that Scott Thomas Beauchamp’s anecdotes — though written in the breast-beating tone of a first-person confessional — effectively attacked the professionalism of everyone around him, and not just the personal character of Beauchamp himself.”
Foer did not see it that way.
What Foer did not tell McGee was that Beauchamp was married to Elspeth Reeve, one of the magazine’s three fact-checkers (a point that the press missed too). So Beauchamp was effectively an insider-and would get treated as such.
That understandably human decision would have painful consequences for The New Republic’s reputation.
The Cone of Silence
The New Republic has not responded to repeated phone calls from PajamasMedia.com.
Foer’s office voicemail indicates that he is on paternity leave until August 15. On the 16th and 17th, he did not return phone calls. What appears to be his home phone number-the only Foer listed in D.C.-has been “temporarily disconnected.”
Perhaps a cone of silence has descended. A longtime New Republic editor told me that she was not sure that she was allowed to discuss the Beauchamp affair, citing the magazine’s lawyers.
If the magazine had provided a full and immediate accounting of the incident, the story might look very different, full of mitigating factors and useful distinctions. It is a pity that the editors did not provide it.
But The New Republic cannot control the story. An insider-turned-whistleblower and the fabricator’s former fianc√©e, as well as other sources, have spoken to PajamasMedia.com-providing a plethora of new details that raise new questions.
Those questions include: Did the fabricator’s wife, Elspeth Reeve, fact-check her husband’s articles? Did her staff position make other fact-checkers go easy on him? Why didn’t Reeve’s knowledge of Beauchamp’s character and history make her skeptical of his work? (Remember the old journalist saw: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”) Did Foer’s friendship with Beauchamp affect the fact-checkers or provoke Foer to defend him in the face of mounting evidence? And, why was the whistle-blower the only New Republic staffer to be fired? Finally, what does the magazine intend to do to ensure that it does not get fooled again?
The Monday After
The Monday after the party, at the magazine’s offices, Foer was locked in a long serious conversation with Leon Wieseltier, the bear-shaped intellectual who has run the magazine’s literary section with distinction since 1983. They were talking about Beauchamp. Foer couldn’t understand why anyone would just make things up.
Wieseltier did. “Maybe he [Beauchamp] is a sociopath.”
As new details about Beauchamp’s strange private life emerged, Wieseltier’s initial assessment would prove to be on target. Wieseltier did not return phone calls regarding the incident.
Meanwhile, a floor below Foer and Wieseltier, McGee was about to make a controversial and momentous decision, which would soon cost him his job.
He had just learned that Elspeth Reeve (a reporter-researcher at the magazine) had a husband who was somehow involved.
He decided to post anonymously to three different blogs-discardedlies.com, Little Green Footballs, and Ace of Spaces (www.ace.mu.nu) -that the accused fabricator was married to a New Republic staffer.
“I avoided using Reeve’s name, referring to her only as a “TNR staffer.” Also, I initially said that ‘the staffer’s husband is either ‘Scott Thomas’ himself, or possibly one of the soldiers who is corroborating the claims in the article.’ (I didn’t phrase it that way out of coyness; I simply didn’t know for sure how Ellie’s husband was involved.)”
What he did not know: Reeve is a fact-checker for the magazine. Did Reeve fact-check her husband’s articles? So far, The New Republic has not publicly addressed that question.
McGee’s leaks would continue as he learned more. On July 25, “I first leaked Ellie’s [Elspeth Reeve's] name late Wednesday evening, in a private email to the guy who runs the Ace of Spades.”
At roughly the same time, unknown to McGee, the magazine was busy trying to find who was leaking this damaging information. It wouldn’t take them long.
By the time Reeve’s name appeared on the Ace of Spades blog on Thursday, 26 July, The New Republic published a letter from Scott Thomas Beauchamp, revealing his real name and defending his work. Beauchamp did not admit his wife worked at the magazine and neither did The New Republic, at that point.
But McGee’s posts were not the magazine’s only worry. “I wasn’t a source for the Weekly Standard,” he says dryly.
The conservative weekly had launched its own investigation.
How Culpable is Reeve?
In the days after the party, Elspeth Reeve received the sympathetic attention of editors and fact-checkers at The New Republic’s offices. They did not blame her for escorting a fabricator into the magazine’s inner sanctum, who hoodwinked them and body-slammed the magazine’s reputation, according to McGee. Apparently, they did not ask what responsibility she might bear.
Reeve certainly knew enough about Beauchamp’s strange history of lies to lead her to be careful of his journalism or to speak up when other editors fact-checked his work. Beauchamp’s odd personal history directly bears on his credibility and on Reeve’s fiduciary duty as an editor to flag potential problems.
Reeve is not talking to the press, most likely on orders from editor Franklin Foer or the magazine’s attorneys. Yet it is possible to reconstruct what she knew about Beauchamp.
I tracked down Beauchamp’s former fianc√©e in Schweinfurt, a town near a U.S. Army base in Western Germany. Her name is Priscilla. She didn’t give her last name. She describes herself as “half German, half American.”
She knew Beauchamp well. He had proposed to her in August 2006 and she was very close to his family and his Army buddies. While heartbroken lovers are not a wholly disinterested sources, in an exchange of emails she comes across as pretty generous and fair-minded. “I don’t really know what to think about him now. He is so different. The time with him was wonderful, but maybe just lies.”
In another email, she writes: “Well, I think he is a good person, but, he is not sure what he wants. He makes stuff too much in a hurry and doesn’t think about it. Sometimes he is very philosophical and looks for reasons, what is life about …. blah blah blah.”
While clearly hurt by Beauchamp earlier this year, she is not consumed by a burning hatred of her former beau. So the rest of what she says should be weighed carefully, not least because it reveals what TNR fact-checker and wife Elspeth Reeve knew about Beauchamp.
Reluctantly and indirectly over a string of emails, Priscilla reveals a recurring pattern: Beauchamp was repeatedly willing to deceive those close to him to reach his goals.
By age 23, he had been engaged three times to three different women whom he did not marry.
Or consider his relationship with the Army. Priscilla writes: “He hates the army. The only reason he joined was because he wanted to have more experience to write about.”
Oddly he was secretive about his intentions to serve his country. “He didn’t even tell his mom he joined in the army. One day before basic training he left a note on the table for her…”
It is telling that he did not talk to her face-to-face, but simply made his admission and vanished.
He is manipulative. “He is very charming and he can convince people very good and he tries to make his side very clear.”
He is ambitious. “He always wanted to become a writer and he has a huge imagination,” Pricilla writes, without irony.
In another email, she notes: “He always wanted to write for The New Republic and so he thought the ‘Iraqi Diary’ is a good start and he could keep writing for them after that.”
Beauchamp wrote his first “Baghdad Diarist” for The New Republic, in January 2007, while he was still engaged to Priscilla.
Priscilla believes that one of the reasons that Beauchamp was interested in Reeve (and ultimately married her) was her position at The New Republic.
Indeed, it appears that Beauchamp’s relationship with Reeve shifted into high gear around the time he was first published in the magazine. “He knew Elspeth from college, but they never were a couple. Then she started emailing him in February or so.” That was a few weeks after his first piece appeared in The New Republic. “I really think she supports him with his articles.”
Did Reeve’s job at The New Republic really make a difference? “Yeah, I think it was a plus point for her that she is a writer/journalist …”
Reflecting on whether Beauchamp saw marriage to Reeve as a good career move, Priscilla refused to go that far. “I don’t know why he married her. I mean they weren’t together before … but like I said, I think her job was one reason too.”
It appears Beauchamp had little interest in Reeve until she was in a position to help him. “I knew he was engaged twice before he was with me, but not with Elspeth [his college friend and now wife]. … Last summer, we were together in my room and he told me about her and made fun of her.”
Reeve knew that Beauchamp was a cheater. “Of course she knew about me,” Priscilla wrote. “She knew about me since last year and she knew we were engaged.”
Beauchamp has a history of disappointing those around him. Beauchamp’s best friend in the Army (who now no longer speaks to him) was dating a local girl and he encouraged the budding young writer to meet her sister. That is how he met Priscilla.
Soon things got serious. “He proposed to me last August, then he went to Iraq. I had very good contact with his family and we planned the wedding together.” They planned to wed as soon as he returned.
Beauchamp’s parents believed that Priscilla was about to join their family. “His family came to Germany for his [Beauchamps'] R&R and they thought they would come to see me. He didn’t even tell his family that he wanted to break up with me.” He simply pretended that he still intended to marry Priscilla.
Then, he suddenly switched. “I waited over 8 months, faithfully, and he just came to my hometown for a day. He said he is not ready for marriage yet but he still loves me! …. Well, after Germany, he went to France for a week and then to the States to marry her [Elspeth Reeve]. It was quite a surprise for his family.”
Beauchamp appears to repeating this behavior. Even though he has access to free phones on base to call the United States, he is not offering an explanation to the press-just as he didn’t offer one to Priscilla.
If Priscilla could talk to him “I would ask him why! And how it is possible that a man can change like this …”
The editors at The New Republic might be wondering the same thing. They should also wonder why Elspeth Reeve didn’t warn them.
Instead, Reeve was a treated as a victim. “She certainly got sympathy from other staffers (women and men) in the workplace the following week,” McGee told PajamasMedia.com.
Perhaps The New Republic staff did not want to argue with her or make her defend her husband. Or perhaps insiders did not see the moral dimension to this journalistic scandal. Dig a little deeper and far more human motivations emerge.
Is The New Republic’s fact-checking operation structurally flawed?
Let’s go into the fact-checking department. Elspeth Reeve was one of three fact-checkers at the magazine.
Did she fact-check her husband’s articles? While it is hard to believe that an established magazine would make such an elementary error, so far no one at the magazine has bothered to address the question. That’s an interesting omission.
Even if Reeve did not double-check her husband’s reporting, she worked alongside the other two fact-checkers and often shared a take-out lunch with them in the magazine’s conference room. They liked her. Would they really treat Beauchamp’s pieces like an article that floated in from a stranger?
At any publication, staff writing is less closely scrutinized than freelance material. Not coincidentally, virtually all of the journalistic fabrication scandals of the past 30 years-from The Washington Post’s Janet Cooke to The New York Times’ Jayson Blair-involved staff writers. Insiders. Trusted people.
More pointedly, the last two sets of New Republic journalistic scandals-Ruth Shalit and Stephen Glass-were perpetrated by staffers.
Scott Thomas Beauchamp was not a staffer; he may not have ever stepped foot in The New Republic’s two-floor rabbit warren of offices. But he was an insider, through his wife.
Perhaps the fact-checkers believed that they didn’t have to check his work thoroughly because they knew and trusted his wife, who they affectionately called “Ellie.”
The New Republic’s fact-checking department may be structurally flawed. At the magazines with the best reputation for fact-checking, The New Yorker and Reader’s Digest, fact-checking is a career. At The New Republic, it is an entry level job known as “reporter-researcher.” It is a stepping stone, a dues-paying drudgery endured so that one can become a full-time writer. Even the job title is revealing. The “reporter” part comes first. Often the fact-checkers are busy writing items of their own for The Plank, the magazine’s weblog, or the magazine itself. (Elspeth Reeve has written a number of pieces; one was about Bob Tyrell’s book party at Morton’s.) So it would not have taken much for one of the fact-checkers to skim, not scrutinize, Beauchamp’s “Baghdad Diarist” pieces.
Maybe they feel sorry for Reeve because they are partly to blame. Beauchamp published three pieces over a six-month period. Odds are each of the fact-checkers had a hand in one of them.
Then there is the role of the magazine’s editor. Foer had met Beauchamp, shook his hand and talked to him, according to McGee.
That’s the real reason why Foer insisted on correcting his quote in The New York Times about knowing that Beauchamp was a soldier with “near certainty” to “absolute certainty.” Some of the blogosphere’s speculations look overheated once we know that Foer actually met Beauchamp.
Did the fact-checkers also give Beauchamp a pass because they knew their boss, Foer, met and liked the charming young soldier? Is Foer fighting back so hard because he just can’t believe he too was suckered?
McGee, the former assistant to the publisher, thinks so. “They dragged their feet about admitting problems with Beauchamp’s articles because he was married to a staff member,” McGee told me.
Another foot-dragging factor: The New Republic has been hoaxed before-and everyone, even Hollywood, noticed. The film “Shattered Glass” chronicles Stephen Glass’ elaborate fabrications. The Glass incident was painful; who can blame Foer for not wanting to repeat the experience?
What did the fact-checkers miss?
A lot, as it turns out. Beauchamp’s first article for The New Republic appeared in January 2007 and so far been completely ignored by bloggers and the press.
It describes a neighborhood he calls “Little Venice” in Baghdad that can only be transited by vehicle because of waist-high sewage streams. This seems suspicious to me. I have been to Baghdad a number of times between November 2003 to May 2006. I have never seen (or heard of) sewage flowing down the street higher than the top of anyone’s boot. Yes, there is sewage on the streets in some Baghdad neighborhoods, but it is not waist-deep. If there was, Beauchamp would not have been the first to break the story. Add to that, a neighborhood filled with canals of flowing sewage would require a lot of water in parched land…
In the same piece, Beauchamp writes that one of the vehicles in his convoy had to stop to change a tire. That’s odd for two reasons: most vehicles have run-flat technology and, standard operating procedure would be to tow the damaged vehicle, not change a tire on a sewer-soaked battle space.
The final bit that is hard to believe: that Beauchamp and his comrades would be allowed by their commander to dismount and talk to the locals who were wading toward them. It is hard to imagine that an NCO or officer would allow his men to be exposed to sniper fire or roadside bombs. Indeed, that could be a career-killing mistake even if no soldiers were harmed.
Why didn’t any of The New Republic fact-checkers puzzle about these things? There could be good answers for any or all of them, but the piece doesn’t reflect such hard questioning.
Which raises the next question: How good was the magazine’s after-the-fact fact-checking of Beauchamp’s articles?
Not very. Consider this post from “Confederate Yankee,” one of the most effective watch dogs on this story.
The blogger found one of the “corroborating experts” that The New Republic spoke to in the course of its follow-up investigation. A spokesman for the maker of Bradley Fighting Vehicle told Confederate Yankee the he been contacted by an unnamed male fact-checker from the magazine. It would appear that the fact-checker kept his questions at a very non-specific level, possibly to solicit a stronger-sounding corroboration. The unnamed fact-checker searching for some rhetorical cover-it might be possible for a Bradley to do some of things Beauchamp described-rather than probe for uncomfortable truths.
Hunting the Whistle-Blower
Shortly after 7 AM on Thursday, July 26, McGee got a short phone call from The New Republic’spublisher. The magazine staff had tracked his anonymous web postings to his work station near the publisher’s office. Her message was short: “Your services were no longer needed.”
The magazine was at least as consumed by finding the whistle-blower (McGee) than in presenting a full accounting to its readers.
McGee’s says his leaks were not motivated by ideology. He told me he “didn’t feel an ideological distance when I worked there. I felt pretty comfortable.”
He said he felt frustrated that the magazine could not do the simplest thing: admit they’d made a mistake, that their fair-minded critics had raised some good points and that they would address it as best they could.
It is odd that McGee has been the only one fired over the Beauchamp scandal. Wouldn’t Foer be a likely candidate? Or the fact-checkers who failed to do their duty? Or Elspeth for knowingly bringing Beauchamp into its respected pages?
Instead, the left-o-sphere turned on its attack machine and pointed it at… McGee.
An attack on McGee in the Huffington Post outed the former publisher’s assistant as gay.
“It was funny, making an attack that was pointless. Actually, doubly pointless — not only is my homosexuality a complete non-secret, but in any case, the factual claim that I’d made about Ellie’s [Elspeth Reeve's] link to STB [Scott Thomas Beauchamp] had already been publicly confirmed by The New Republic. Also, I think it’s worth pointing out that [the author] was clearly attempting to ‘out’ me not as merely gay, but as a ‘gay conservative.’ In other words, someone who ought to have no credibility on either the left (because of my self-loathing politics) or on the right (because of my unbiblical fondness for cock).”
Funny, how the anti-gay attacks now come from left field.
McGee has been out since college-and noted that few on the Right had raised any issues about his interest in men. He sometimes openly mentioned it on posts on Little Green Footballs. “No one ever made a big deal out of it,” he says, until the Huffington Post did.
Still, McGee isn’t bitter. He thinks he did the right thing and has plenty of good references from prior temp jobs to get a new gig. His interview with PajamasMedia.com was his first and his last. He just got a cease-and-desist letter from The New Republic; he won’t be doing any more interviews.
Meanwhile the editor, Franklin Foer, the fact-checker, Elspeth Reeve, and her fabricating husband, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, hunker down in a fortress of solitude.
The magazine has so far announced no reforms to safeguard itself from future fabricators.
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130 Comments
1. ic:Priscilla, you must thank your lucky stars for not marrying a sociopath.
Aug 20, 2007 - 12:53 am 2. David Thomson:I have meticulously followed the Soldier Beauchamp scandal. There is little I have not read on this matter. Franklin Foer’s arguments on behalf of this scoundrel reminds me of the attorneys representing O.J. Simpson during his infamous murder trial. An adversarial approach to truth may be effective in a court of law—but it usually proves to be a disaster in the court of public opinion. Only hard-core leftists seem to buy into Beauchamp’s fantasies. Everyone else has concluded TNR is still defending the indefensible.
Why does TNR continuously have this problem? Why don’t these incidents ever seem to occur in more conservative publications? This is a very simple question to answer: left-wing writers are far more inclined to lie and slime. These individuals subconsciously, if not even consciously, subscribe to the post modernist credo that everyone is entitled to their own truth. They are moral relativists to the core. Why would one expect anything else?
Aug 20, 2007 - 3:17 am 3. James:Why is TNR hunkering down behind lawyers?
I would think the only ones who have anything actionable would the (Anonymous) Soldiers in Beauchamps units, but he didn’t name them.
(Or perhaps McGee for wrongful termination).
Aug 20, 2007 - 3:56 am 4. Increase Mather:TNR needs to understand, this is not going away. The question that seems most interesting is why Beauchamp, when so many other military bloggers are so much better qualified?
The only answer seems to be that he could be counted on to produce a negative, hate-filled presentation showing US forces as pretty much, the scum of society.
It’s what the left wants.
Aug 20, 2007 - 4:56 am 5. John:Actually, Beauchamp’s article about “Little Venice” has received a fair amount of coverage, along the lines argued here, in the blogosphere.
Aug 20, 2007 - 5:09 am 6. Mark:Excellent piece. I’d like to see the “whys” of why this man fabricated these stories explored a bit more. Also, the evidence of his pre-deployment first person narratives set in Iraq seem to be the most damning circumstantial evidence, and they aren’t mentioned here.
And like an above commenter, I can’t for the life of me figure out what potential cause of action TNR’s lawyers think they have against McGee or their current employees, stopping them from talking to the press. The only thing that makes sense is something in their employment contracts, but for a former employee like McGee, it is almost a sure thing that anything they are threatening is non-enforceable.
Aug 20, 2007 - 5:21 am 7. Brett:By what authority does the New Republic issue a cease and desist order to a former employee?
Are criminal charges or a civil suit involved?
Aug 20, 2007 - 5:23 am 8. George Dixon:Bottom line, the left lies.
The left is antiAmerican, interested in power at the expense of truth and hypocritical in its attacks on non-believers.
Time for a reaction……..
Aug 20, 2007 - 5:35 am 9. Tully:So nice of TNR to openly demonstrate their love of free speech by firing, smearing, and muzzling Reeve.
Aug 20, 2007 - 5:47 am 10. der Alte:.
Aug 20, 2007 - 5:49 am 11. Richard Aubrey:.
What an interesting story! !
.
.
I find it curious that the tales Beauchamp told were mistakes that he would, himself, know were false based on his military training. In other words, he knows about Bradleys and run-flat tires and patrol SOPs.
He could bet the ranch that the TNR folks didn’t have a clue.
And he could be certain that the stories, once out of TNR’s preciously and morally superior ignorance of things military, be caught instantly. Because normal people, not to mention soldiers, know better.
If he’d wanted to set up TNR, what would he have done differently?
I don’t think that was what he was doing. But if he’d wanted to be more clever, he could have made the same points in ways which could not so easily be refuted. It would not have been difficult.
A puzzlement.
Aug 20, 2007 - 5:49 am 12. Deb Durkee:This whole thing is simply unbelievable. I knew the media was infected with liberal bias and an almost hatred for this country and its president, but this whole thing is so self-destructive on their part.
Orwell, ever all-knowing, said it best: “All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.”
Aug 20, 2007 - 5:59 am 13. Immolate:Superb article! There has been much speculation and little fact offered on this story, with some exceptions of course. This article is perhaps the most exhaustively researched and sourced, and the most damning.
One thing, the “Little Venice” story has been reviewed and discussed in the past on conservative blogs. If I’m not mistaken, Powerline did a couple of articles on it. One of them they actually located a place that had that name, among others, and canals that went through the town. Waist deep? Perhaps, but not sewers and not choked with sewage either. I wouldn’t drink the water myself, but I live in the south and we don’t drink the water here either.
Aug 20, 2007 - 6:02 am 14. JD:Just a fun little tidbit – at the Shattered Glass movie site is an ad for The New Republic! Heh!
http://www.shatteredglassmovie.com/index_flash.html
Aug 20, 2007 - 6:03 am 15. Cassandra:Now this would be almost funny, if it weren’t so sad.
The antiwar left is trying to silence a gay dissenter who strayed from the intellectual plantation?
Sacre bleu! Whatever happened to all this blather about tolerance, transparency and how we need to question authority? I guess when it comes time for them to put their money where their mouths are, those fancy ideals go right out the window and they behave just like… dare I say it? Authoritarians!!!
*snort*
Aug 20, 2007 - 6:07 am 16. Pez:Ok, so now TNR is supporting a women hating, manipulating sociopath?
And I loved that bit where he made fun of “Elle” to his German fiancee. I mean this antidote is something that can NOT be disputed by TNR, what with melting woman face story and all.
Aug 20, 2007 - 6:08 am 17. goy:Odd how so much of this parallels the WaPo / NYT fiascos over Joe Wilson’s ego-driven fabrications:
ideological blindness on the part of agenda-driven journalists;
a trusted insider brings in a spouse who turns out to be a liar;
fabrications directly attacking the military’s role (ultimately aimed squarely at President Bush) in defending the U.S. in particular and Western Civilization in general;
the ego of the fabricator overriding any compunction with respect to the truth (sociopath?);
ideologically-driven attacks against bystanders or those who seek to expose the lies, instead of holding the liar himself to account.
There are probably more. The most glaring common denominator, however, is the blinding hatred of the hard left and the extent to which they’ll go to push a dead ideology, though the heavens – and reality itself – fall.
Aug 20, 2007 - 6:09 am 18. Vicki:Fascinating article.
One thing I have not noticed in reports about Beauchamp are comments about why someone would consider a person who did what he claimed in Iraq would be truthful.
The examples he wrote about exhibit a deep moral flaw to begin with, so why not expect him to fabricate the truth too. It would be like expecting Ted Bundy to give you the truth, the whole truth. Something is lacking in these people.
Aug 20, 2007 - 6:17 am 19. Cris:As to the issue about the fact checkers’ follow-up: “How good was the magazine’s after-the-fact fact-checking of Beauchamp’s articles?”
The left dislikes the military and has very little interest in what it is and how it actually works. If the news is bad for the armed services, that’s good enough.
To most of the media, any AFV is a tank.
A bullet is a bullet is a bullet. Ask the Iraqi ‘bullet lady’.
Ironically, all of this reminds me of an Arab saying.: ‘He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool.’
Aug 20, 2007 - 6:38 am 20. S. Weasel:What’s strange to me in this whole affair is how tone deaf the left is. Yes, soldiers — particularly in stressful situations — can do callous things and indulge in black humor. But the episodes STB recounts are the wrong kinds of things. I can see a soldier taking liberties with the skull of a dead combatant, but a child? No way. I could see them mocking an enemy who had been blown up by an IED he was trying to place, but never somebody on our side. Certainly not a woman. The number one risk these guys face is a roadside bomb. The last person they’d mock is someone who’d gotten a piece of one: superstition and decency both forbid it.
Aug 20, 2007 - 6:42 am 21. Curly Smith:Uh, aren’t you overlooking the most obvious explanation? The one where Beauchamp’s articles were 100% factual, encrypted with PGP and then transmitted to TNR headquarters, BUT the transmission was intercepted by the NSA who then cracked the PGP and modified the articles to make Beauchamp and TNR look like bumbling incompetent terrorist supporting boobs instead of the patriots that they are? The patriotic studs at TNR wouldn’t have had any reason to doubt that the articles were genuine as they were encrypted and the checksums checked and they couldn’t really verify the “truths” since everything that happens in Iraq, and in the military, is TOP SECRET. That, my friends, is the most likely scenario but it may not have been the NSA, maybe it was aliens from Mars or Uranus…
Aug 20, 2007 - 7:00 am 22. Billy:A fascinating article. The only negative I see is that it relies somewhat heavily on what Priscilla– the ex-fiancee– says. I hope Mr. Miniter did a better job of fact-checking than TNR did!
Aug 20, 2007 - 7:09 am 23. Me:Interesting piece. Another example about how, on the left, some leaks are better than others.
The bottom line, of course, is that this all happened because Beauchamp’s narrative was a perfect ideological fit for The New Republic. I’m quite sure his diary installments would have escalated to the coup de grace — the inevitable baby-killing story, or perhaps the rape and murder of a beautiful Iraqi woman (ala the film “Casulaties of War”). He probably already has it written.
Beauchamp’s biggest error was in being talentless. His diaries were derivative and pedantic. He was imitating a style most of us have seen; therefore, we became suspicious.
For example, the rivers of shit? That’s straight out of Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam War novel “The Things they Carried.”
It’s particularly amusing that The New Republic editor was holed up with the magazine’s “literary section” editor the day after this hoax broke. I mean, for heaven’s sake, couldn’t that guy — “who has run the literary section with distinction since 1983″ tell Foer, “Yeah, I’ve seen this somewhere before…”
Aug 20, 2007 - 7:16 am 24. Capitalist Infidel:So, McGee got a cease and desist order? I’d tell TNR to go to hell. “Whistleblowers” are legally protected. I sure haven’t seen any outrage about the treasonous behavour from some in the state department when they leaked information about the NSA wiretapping
Aug 20, 2007 - 7:21 am 25. Captain Scarlet:This “outing” of the already out McGee by the Huffpo columnist fits perfectly the profile of the “8 years of hate and fear” (paraphrasing) that moderator Melissa Etheridge spoke of in the intro to her question to Obama during the gay issues forum, or the “attacks on people, not just on people’s rights, but on people” that Hillary spoke of in one of her responses. For the best take on this, go to the Dennis Prager show archives at TownHall.com.
Aug 20, 2007 - 7:23 am 26. Granddaddy Long Legs:Is there any reason for the “How Culpable is Reeve?” section? I know it adds context to back up many of the assumptions in this piece, but isn’t that kind of detail a little creepy? Writing so much about the guy’s personal life leaves a bad taste in my mouth and will be excerpted by liberal bloggers to validate their inane claims that PJM is part of some “right wing smear machine.”
Aug 20, 2007 - 7:38 am 27. eb:It appears that TNR has followed the worst path in this fiasco but frankly I am unimpressed by this article.
Is it just me or is it crazy ironic that a piece on this subject would depend so much on uncorroborated accounts by people with clear axes to grind?
Believe me, I am completely convinced that Beauchamp is a liar and TNR is complicit in supporting his lies, but it serves no purpose to post such a poorly researched, and poorly edited article. Especially considering the subject.
Aug 20, 2007 - 7:44 am 28. OGLiberal:Can we please stop portraying The New Republic as if it were The Nation? While TNR has certainly grown sour on the war in Iraq, they were one of the biggest cheerleaders on the left pre-invasion and for quite some time afterward. There are still folks at the magazine who think it was a good idea and think that we should stay there, including the freaking Editor-in-Chief. Ideologically, TNR is more like O’Hanlon and Pollack – folks on the left (and in this case, “the left” includes liberals, moderates and conservative Dems) who supported the war but are unhappy with the way the administration has handled the subsequent occupation. (kind of like many of the neo-cons) Spencer Ackerman (who supported the original invasion) was probably TNR’s loudest anti-Iraq War voice…and they fired him!
If Beauchamp lied in his stories, this is more like a second Stephen Glass – and the blame lies with both the writer himself and shoddy editorial/fact checking procedures and practices by TNR. But this was not some grand lefty “smear the troops so we can end the war” effort. It just wasn’t.
Aug 20, 2007 - 7:44 am 29. Mahon:The most on-target thing written about this seems to be an early posting by semiotician Jon Barnes describing the Baghdad Diary pieces as the product of a Master of Fine Arts program graduate looking to be the next Hemingway or Fitzgerald (F. Scott, not Patrick). Add sociopathic manipulation and a loose acquaintance with the concept of truth, and there you are.
TNR’s reaction is another matter. Advanced Rather-Mapes Complex, I guess.
Aug 20, 2007 - 7:49 am 30. Skippy:I’m not going to defend Beauchamp’s smears against other soldiers; they’re despicable and he’s a louse for doing it.
But do we really need to go digging up jilted fiancees to discredit someone who seems more than capable of doing the job himself?
We don’t really know why Beauchamp joined the Army. If it was, as claimed, to get material, then the fact that he has to make stuff like this up is a good indicator of just how pedestrian most of Army life is; even in Iraq. But, you know what, I don’t care why he joined (though I care a great deal about his false claims once he did).
If you’ve ever read Herman Wouk’s ‘The Caine Mutiny’ you’ll almost certainly remember Greenwald’s drunken tirade and odd, oblique defense of Captain Queeg at the dinner after the trial. The bottom line, he asserts, is that regardless of Queeg’s motivations for being in the Navy, he was protecting the country when everyone else in the room was enjoying civilian life.
I don’t care if Scott Beauchamp joined the Army to gather material. So what?! The fact is he did. People have joined for better – and worse – reasons than him and I’m not sure they’re especially relevant.
We can prove Beauchamp’s calumnies and TNR’s agenda without stepping down into the gutter.
Aug 20, 2007 - 7:50 am 31. BMOON:Two more bottom lines…
1.) The current, slow, agonizing, death throes of mainstrem American journalism.
2.) Thank God for the blogosphere!
Aug 20, 2007 - 7:55 am 32. Linda Frank:If Beauchamp hated the military and joined to get a story, it speaks reams about his credibility.
Aug 20, 2007 - 7:56 am 33. crypticguise:This story continues to expand; it has gone from incredible to quite credible based on the continuing stonewalling from TNR.
The key may be this:
…They were talking about Beauchamp. Foer couldn’t understand why anyone would just make things up.
Wieseltier did. “Maybe he [Beauchamp] is a sociopath.”
A sociopath who has lied to just about everyone. I feel sorry for his wife and his ex-fiances. The rest – well they are just “stepping stones” to Beauchamp’s goals in life.
Aug 20, 2007 - 8:01 am 34. Harry Voyager:The irony is, if they had done the fact checking, and simply done the typical bottom of pg 30 “we screwed up” this would have all blown over weeks ago, with practically none the wiser, but with them acting so incredibly *wierd* about it, it’s just to interesting to let slide.
Aug 20, 2007 - 8:05 am 35. David Thomson:“There are still folks at the magazine who think it was a good idea and think that we should stay there, including the freaking Editor-in-Chief.”
Marty Peretz now seems like a lonely voice in the wilderness. He is no longer the owner. This very morning TNR posted an article by senior editor John Judis declaring the war on terror to be something of a con job used by George W. Bush to increase his power. On this particular issue, TNR is beginning to sound like the Nation.
Aug 20, 2007 - 8:05 am 36. sam:We don’t really know why Beauchamp joined the Army.
Uh, yes we do. He said as much in his blog.
Aug 20, 2007 - 8:08 am 37. Liberal Conservative:wow, incredible story…
I hope Mcgee finds works very soon. he surely has the honor and integrity to deserve it. and a nose for a scoop if he’s a writer.
every paper is a ship, so is the TNR and a ship does not sail while the crew is below deck. a storm is fought by manning the sails and fighting the surge head on. she has taken on too much water now, I call to all ye on the TNR, abondon ship for ye be lost with her.
Aug 20, 2007 - 8:27 am 38. Old Dad:Assuming that Ms. Reeve is a “fact checker,” that explains why the diaries got a pass. It’s clear that the pieces could not have been rigorously, or even cursorily fact checked.
I also wonder, along with Richard Aubrey above, about STB’s state of mind. I suppose it’s possible that he was so ignorant and poor a soldier that he didn’t know that he was writing nonsense. That seems unlikely, though. One alternative is that he knew he would be caught. Maybe he was looking for a way out of the Army. Maybe he was simply thinking that no publicity is bad publicity.
I’m beginning to think, though, that maybe he’s just a little crazy. I wonder if a psych evaluation was part of the Army’s investigation?
Aug 20, 2007 - 8:31 am 39. Mike G in Corvallis:Richard Aubrey wrote:
Richard,ave yo u ever interacted, on a personal level, with a sociopath of the sort that Beauchamp seems to be? A pathological liar is contemptuous of other people, and almost invariably is convinced that he is the smartest person in the room; he doesn’t seem to be par ticularly concerned about being caught. When you confront him on one of his lies, his reaction is to double down — to concoct a bigger lie for cover and dare you to disbelieve him. If you refute the second lie, he’ll be outraged at your attempt to smear his character, and he’ll concoct yet another lie.
I’ve seen several of these creatures in action. The patten fits Beauchamp all too well.
Aug 20, 2007 - 8:34 am 40. holdfast:i
Granddaddy – the article has to focus on Reeve and STB’s personal life because it was inexorably intertwined with this unproffesional life. And frankly, it also goes to show that he had a propensity to be a scumbag. When the story was breaking I spent a bit of time skulking arund STB’s myspace page and those of his friends – and this article is consistent with what I found there (and explains a few things as well). It is unfortunate that the Priscilla parts of this article could not be further corroborated, but Miniter frankly discloses the lack of coroboration – he doesn’t hide behind multiple fictional witnessess like STB and TNR. Hopefully others will read this piece and follow-up further.
Aug 20, 2007 - 8:39 am 41. Immolate:Indeed Sam, and this seems to be less a case of selective recall than people weighing in who have not kept up with the details of the story since the beginning.
How else could the “just a savage right-wing smear job” meme find enough oxygen on the left to survive? Even liberals don’t want to appear to be stupid. But when you read the TNR articles, the available self-published material from Beauchamp himself, then consider that information against the facts as we know them, it is very difficult to continue granting Scott the benefit of the doubt.
Aug 20, 2007 - 8:40 am 42. Owen Glendower:TNR itself has acknowledged that they published Beauchamp’s essays with only ONE corroborating witness:
All of Beauchamp’s essays were fact-checked before publication. We checked the plausibility of details with experts, contacted a corroborating witness, and pressed the author for further details.
Also by TNR’s own statement, they regarded Beauchamp as an insider:
But publishing a first-person essay from a war zone requires a measure of faith in the writer. Given what we knew of Beauchamp, personally and professionally, we credited his report.
“Personally and professionally? Just what part of Beauchamp’s professional reputation impressed TNR’s editors?
Aug 20, 2007 - 8:46 am 43. tjmmz9843:Someone pointed out that it’s easy to believe Beauchamp is a liar / fabricator, because **even if his stories are true**, he’s still a dirtball. His own words and actions underscore his poor character. Good point.
For analogous reasons, it’s easy to believe Priscilla is telling the truth about Beauchamp. Her input has a definite “jilted girlfriend” ring, to my ear. But wait a tick… She wouldn’t be out there slagging Beauchamp like a jilted girlfriend unless, um, she were a jilted girlfriend. Just by existing, her account underscores the likelihood that Beauchamp treated her like crap, and married Reeve very suddenly.
Aug 20, 2007 - 8:48 am 44. Ali-Bubba:Good work, Mr. Miniter. How silly that leftoids thought they could harm McGee by outing him. And we are supposed to be the homophobes …
Aug 20, 2007 - 9:02 am 45. fulldroolcup:Just a clarification: “whistle-blower” statutes protect employees against retaliation by their employers for reporting evidence of criminal behavior, fraud or statutory violations. McGee hasn’t been alleging fraud or criminal behavior, so he’s not protected under the WB statutes.
TNR’s lawyers may be attempting to use a “cease and desist” LETTER (not an ORDER, which comes from a judge) to shut McGee up, claiming he is slandering/libeling TNR and threatening to sue him if he doesn’t stop.
If I were in McGee’s shoes I would keep quiet until I consulted an attorney to determine whether to seek a declaratory judgment to quash the letter. Myself, I think the “public controversy” here would make it impossible for TNR to sue successfully; so maybe McGee will wind up ignoring it.
In any case, unless a judge issued a “cease and desist” ORDER, it has no legally binding effect. Given who the miscreants are here, it’s TNR who should be treading lightly, not McGee.
Aug 20, 2007 - 9:16 am 46. john smith:This poppycock. A magazine has an editor. Does the editor do his/her job or what? Or is it so layered like so many other elitist organizations that catching on is “so over” long after the “CAT has left the bag” The magazine’s fact checking entity is a little flawed which indicates the magazine itself may be a little flawed. God what driviling SPIN.
Aug 20, 2007 - 9:19 am 47. Peter:Here is something that I don’t understand: factcheckers that have no idea of the facts.
Now I’m no publisher but it would seem that if I had an incoming article about the military I’d find a veteran and get him, or her, to vet it.
If I had an article about law enforcement, I’d ask a cop. Medicine, a doc or nurse.
I mean, shouldn’t the famed fact checking of journalism include someone who knows, well, facts?
In the decades I’ve followed news I’ve never seen an article about something I have personal expertise in that didn’t have glaring errors.
Aug 20, 2007 - 9:24 am 48. 1charlie2:Richard Aubrey wrote
I find it curious that the tales Beauchamp told were mistakes that he would, himself, know were false based on his military training. In other words, he knows about Bradleys and run-flat tires and patrol SOPs.
Umm, no, not really. He wrote like someone who had never been in combat. He missed precisely the multitude of minor things that demonstrate a BS artist at work.
One example (which I’ve posted elsewhere): In peacetime, I believe (I have no direct experience with Brads in particular) that everything in a Bradley is probably stowed away carefully. But in combat much of the “keep it clean and pretty” rules get tossed. Judging from experience with other vehicles, the inside of a Brad in combat is likely to have some stuff just tossed in, and driving crazy for no reason other than sick amusement is likely to result in someone getting hit by something sharp and heavy. And that would result in severe “wall-to-wall counseling” for the driver from the others in the vehicle, even if the Army took no notice.
But if you’ve never deployed in combat with a Brad, it’s easy to imagine someone doing this, and then write about it.
There are lots of other errors of precisely the same type — little things that strike the experienced as “hmmm, that’s extremely unlikely.” When your narrative contains one such thing, I think either the very unlikely occurred, or you’re exaggerating. When your stories are full of them, you’re Baron Von Munchausen.
Aug 20, 2007 - 9:30 am 49. tjmmz9843:fudroolcup – That sounds about right. But TNR is a corporation (or as lefties always put it, “rich corporation”) with resources, and McGee is a little guy with no job right now. So it doesn’t matter how lame their “cease and desist” letter is: they can afford lawyers to write nasty letters to the other side, and he probably can’t.
Aug 20, 2007 - 9:34 am 50. WorldTraveler:Little Venice (Google maps link) is a neighborhood in Baghdad near the presidential palace. It is full of high end homes, which were used by high ranking Bath party loyalists. You can see the ponds in the picture, they are interconnected by canals which pass through the various home lots.
Think exclusive country club…
Aug 20, 2007 - 9:40 am 51. Victory:The question about whether the fact-checking process at the magazine has broken down is merely rhetorical, right? WOW does this story show perfectly the eat-their-own attitude of the left these days. And the fact that the HuffPost attacked the whistle-blower for his sexuality not only puts the lie to their alleged magnanimity re. such issues. Of course, what they’re saying is that anything-other-than-a-far-left gay person is, in effect, NOT an “authentic” gay person. Just as conservative blacks aren’t “really” black, conservative hispanics are traitors to their race, etc. etc.
It is one thing for republicans to label less-than-pure-ideologically members of the party as “RINO”’s since that’s about ideas, but to literally oust a person from their own race or sexual identity for a failure of POLITICS is pretty amazingly fascistic, even for the current netroots. Tell you what it reminds ME of: The German racial classifications in the 1930’s re being “6/10ths Aryan” etc. etc.
Aug 20, 2007 - 9:53 am 52. CivilAiredalePatrol:It is always the Left who “out” gays.
Aug 20, 2007 - 10:08 am 53. McGehee:Is it just me or is it crazy ironic that a piece on this subject would depend so much on uncorroborated accounts by people with clear axes to grind?
At least we know from the text of what we’re reading, where the accounts come from. The existence of each source’s respective ax is clearly disclosed for the reader to judge.
That’s how a professional does it. Mr. Miniter would never “fit in” at TNR for that very reason.
Aug 20, 2007 - 10:23 am 54. Dave P:I don’t know what all the fuss is about, Beauchamp will be taken care of by his fellow soldiers. As far as the TNR is concerned, they’re no different than CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC, PBS, NPR etc. All anti American and inti military. The left always finds a military type to carry their banner so they can say “See”, we told you so. Or have we forgotten about Mr. “unfit for command” John Kerry. He was an outright traitor and yet he ran for president carrying the Democrat Banner.
Aug 20, 2007 - 10:27 am 55. Chris Jones:I think a couple of years at Leavenworth would be appropriate for Beauchamp.
Aug 20, 2007 - 10:30 am 56. Big Dog:Seems to me that a few of the fellows in Beauchamp’s unit should have given him a blanket party (or something akin to that). Screw the discredit on TNR, that is of their own doing. Beauchamp brought discredit to his unit and the Army and for that he should have paid a price.
Big Dog
onebigdog.net
Aug 20, 2007 - 10:33 am 57. Kevin:We’re missing the big picture here people. Elsbeth’s parents were unable to spell Elizabeth! THAT should be where the focus of this story is.
Aug 20, 2007 - 10:36 am 58. Ripper:Gene Kelly directed a comedy in the mid-60s: “A Guide for the Married Man.” In a series of blackout sketches, Robert Morse teaches Walter Matthau how to cheat on his wife.
One scene featured Joey Bishop and a beautiful young woman caught together in bed by his wife. While his wife raves on about his infidelity, Bishop pulls on his pants asks and asks, “What woman? What on earth are you talking about?” Meanwhile the girl is in the same room, calmly getting out of bed, dressing, and finally walking out the door.
While the wife babbles about his obvious infidelity, Bishop calmly collects himself and denies everything, telling his wife, “What are you talking about? There is no woman.”
Soon the girl is gone, Bishop is sitting fully dressed in his easy chair, steadfastly denying that anything has happened. Eventually his wife doubts she ever saw anything. In the end she apologizes and begins to make dinner.
That’s TNR’s strategy in a nutshell.
Aug 20, 2007 - 10:41 am 59. Becky:If the left’s only argument is going to be that McGee is gay and that we should ignore that Beauchamp’s sociopathic relationships – relationships, which, as written here, can easily be fact-checked (ie: engaged three times, family surprise, etc). then good luck with that.
Looks like Beauchamp gave TNR a shovel and they eagerly continue to dig their own grave. And why shouldn’t they keep digging? Their reputaion is already dead. Best they can do know is to throw dirt on top of it to keep the stink down.
Aug 20, 2007 - 10:42 am 60. Kevin:“I wasn’t a source for the Weekly Standard,” he says dryly.
Is there a wetter way to say that? Sorry, I’m a huge fan of busting TNR, but this is reading like a dime novel that’s only worth 7 cents. Also a big fan of Miniter, but I’m expecting ‘a dark and stormy night’ or ‘roiling clouds’ or some other such nonsense in the concluding paragraphs. Is there a ‘and they all lived happily ever after’ ending? I’m awaiting it with mild suspense. ‘K, I’m done whining. On to finishing the article!
Aug 20, 2007 - 10:45 am 61. ArmyJAG:I too have been follwing this as a retired Army lawyer. I thought I also heard about one part of Beauchamp’s story where he wrote about the shooting of an Iraqi civilian and it turned out he was still in Germany (pre-deployment) at the time. Wasn’t that also an glaring error which easily could have been discovered?
Aug 20, 2007 - 10:49 am 62. thomas wincek:How about doing a piece called “How The American People Got Suckered” instead?
You know, in reference to Rove and company manufacturing consent for an unnecessary war, and illegal occupation of a sovereign nation?
Or is the truth too “hard-core lefty” for you?
Thanks,
—Tom
Aug 20, 2007 - 10:54 am 63. Kevin:“He is ambitious. “He always wanted to become a writer and he has a huge imagination,” Pricilla writes, without irony.”
How could you write that with irony?! Mr. Miniter, you’re clearly attempting to spin this story. WHY? There’s no need. Beauchamp and TNR are completely busted. Your attempts at spin only hurt us. Cut it out!
Aug 20, 2007 - 10:55 am 64. Tony Panzarella:The glass has been shattered again.
Aug 20, 2007 - 10:57 am 65. Mike T:Maybe it is not fact-checkers, but outright censorship of news (to get a story TNR likes). After all, censorship is becoming America’s favorite past-time. The US gov’t (and their corporate friends), already detain protesters, ban books like America Deceived (book) from Amazon and Wikipedia, shut down Imus, stifle Ron Paul and fire 21-year tenured, BYU physics professor Steven Jones because he proved explosives, thermite in particular, took down the WTC buildings. Free Speech forever (as long as you check your facts).
Aug 20, 2007 - 11:08 am 66. Diver:Hmm…journalist get caught making up lies and they’re leftist pigs…The President of the United States and his entire adminstration send our troops to heir death over lies and actually profit from it, and their the best thing since sliced bread in the eyes of Republicans. Funny how you put common folks in the fire but leave the elitist to bask in your ignorance. Not the least of which is howthe Republican party found (aka hijacked) religion a couple decades as a means to get you to vote for them? They only go to church to get you to sign your son’s and daughter up for the American equivelent of terrorism, by snding them to other countries to kill and be killed.
You neo’s are prety pathetic, Maybe we should send all of you to Iraqi and do the world a favor.
Aug 20, 2007 - 11:12 am 67. Jim O'Sullivan:A cease and desist order? I’d love to see the paperwork on that litigation. Anybody got venue and file number for it?
Aug 20, 2007 - 11:18 am 68. Bill:TNR could start with how the Clintons made regime change US gov’t policy in order to sucker Bush into starting an un-popular war and sour the voters on Republicans, just to get Hilliary elected.
thomas wincek :
How about doing a piece called “How The American People Got Suckered” instead?
You know, in reference to Rove and company manufacturing consent for an unnecessary war, and illegal occupation of a sovereign nation?
Or is the truth too “hard-core lefty” for you?
Aug 20, 2007 - 11:20 am 69. Ian:The thing is that the NR doesn’t need to protect its credibility. For the audience it now seeks to pander to, the antiwar left, the credibility of anything tending to be construed as against the war is deemed credible per se, and all criticism just a reflection of ideological intolerance. It makes perfect economic sense for NR just to dig in and claim that the writer is being persecuted on political grounds not matter how absurd this claim may be. Because in any event this will sufficiently appease its intended audience and that’s all that is really necessary.
Aug 20, 2007 - 11:21 am 70. mattb:What’s unclear is just how involved were Scott and Elspeth in January when TNR published his first diary. Did he find his way to TNR without her only to have a relationship rekindled (kindled?) with an old college chum? Seems unlikely. I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but considering they were apparently not an item in college or at the time of the first publication, perhaps Elspeth was really the catalyst for the whole thing. [dream scenario - "Hey Franklin, I know this guy from college who's going to Iraq and hates the war. Want me to get him to write some 'war is bad' stuff for us?"] Who can blame a wanna-be writer for falling instantly in love with the woman who gave him his first real gig. And perhaps the only reason she said “yes” to marriage was to keep the stories coming. OK, that last part is a bit far-fetched, but it’s something to think about.
Aug 20, 2007 - 11:23 am 71. LA Doc:Ahh yes, more lying leftist hypocrites. Funny how these whiny pseudointellectuals are so hysterical and histrionic about anything that scares them or that they disagree with, but when it comes to their own behavior, it’s many times worse than those who they breathlessly criticize.
Aug 20, 2007 - 11:29 am 72. James S. Robbins:If TNR recasts itself as a literary magazine that also runs a few current events articles then they’ll be OK. Something like the New Yorker, but without the cartoons.
Aug 20, 2007 - 11:29 am 73. Stan:Diver, you really equate our military with terrorists? Your loose way with facts is pretty typical of the anti-American left. Spew all the hatred you wish, we’ll continue to consider the source (consider it insane that is).
Aug 20, 2007 - 11:32 am 74. donbl:Two points for me:
1. Love can be blind to lies. Give Reeves at least a pass.
2. The left is very comfortable with partial or complete untruths that support their vision of America. The magazine management should institute structural change and apologize. Their credibility will take years to rebuild.
Aug 20, 2007 - 11:33 am 75. jose:I am from mexico and if you lived there long enough you would learn not to trust anything any newspaper or any other publication would write. I guess it’s the same here (USA).
Aug 20, 2007 - 11:34 am 76. Allan:I am beginning to think that Beauchamp knew exactly what would happen and was planing on being caught. First in hopes of getting out of the army and not having to spend any more time in Iraq where he could possibly get hurt, and as they say by doing this “He has made tis bones” as far as the radical left is concerned. I am sure the radical left movie producers, ie Redford, are salivating and can not wait for Scot to send them his manuscript. Look for the movie in time for the 2008 elections.
Aug 20, 2007 - 11:38 am 77. Yehudit:By what authority does the New Republic issue a cease and desist order to a former employee?
Threat of lawsuit? Something McGee could not afford to defend.
Aug 20, 2007 - 12:01 pm 78. Becky:Donbl said, “Love can be blind to lies. Give Reeves at least a pass.”
Maybe it was Reeves who had her eyes wide open. She reeled in a what her editors would have greatly coveted – a live American soldier willing to provide them with negative propaganda that they could spread around the world. They just didn’t expect to get caught like this – again.
Seems to me that these two used each other and both got exactly what they deserved in the process.
Aug 20, 2007 - 12:11 pm 79. david:heh, he said “cone of silence”. Funny thing is this has a very distinct feel of Maxwell Smart.
Aug 20, 2007 - 12:24 pm 80. phil:Does Dan Rather work at TNR?
Aug 20, 2007 - 12:29 pm 81. Beverly Daniel:…and we’re surprised by all this from TNR? why is it that the left are the ones to always “out” a person? why is it the left always stifles an opposing thought? could it be their overwhelming hatred for Bush overcomes all semblence of fairness and honesty? or is it because thats who they really are?
Aug 20, 2007 - 12:31 pm 82. Lem:i think the latter is closer to the truth.
The man who mistook his wife for a Pulitzer.
Aug 20, 2007 - 12:34 pm 83. Joe:Why have the conservative pundits not jumped all over this, and why is it the so called rich intellectuals who are never held accountable. Completely fabricate and mangle the reputation of a completely honorable profession. Call one person a “nigger” and they will hang you. Call every soldier a baby killer, and they will honor you.
Aug 20, 2007 - 12:41 pm 84. Lem:Joe
There are some facinating Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame parallels here.
Joe Wilson as Beauchamp smearing, making stuff up.
Valerie Plame as Beauchamp’s wife who’s identity must remain secret.
The MSM as itself. Defend, defend, defend and when found out blame the vast right wing conspiracy.
The CIA as TNR, unable or incapable of finding out the truth.
Aug 20, 2007 - 12:41 pm 85. Neo:cease-and-desist based on what ?
Are news and magzine organizations even more secretive than the government ?
Aug 20, 2007 - 12:49 pm 86. Tim:1. Who did the fact checking for this piece?
2. We have no clue what Beauchamp’s “issue” is, we can only guess. Some day we’ll probably know, but as long as he’s being held incommunicado by the military this story can’t be put to rest. That said, in my opinion he’s an a*****e. But then opinions are just like a******s, we all have them.
3. TNR is not some far left magazine and is not a magazine that promotes a negative view of the troops. Some of the views expressed in Diary pieces and other articles in the magazine have been/are very right wing.It’s certainly closer to the center than this website, The Weekly Standard, or National Review.(Though more left than right, I read all three magazines.)
4. Who is the Weekly Standard’s source? Hint, he may not be that savory himself. Note that this is not an attack but a question.
5. Bad things happen in wars. We hear about VERY few of them. When I read the diary piece I thought the bit about the woman was over the top but the rest seemed like bad behavior by some kids who are under enormous stress. It didn’t change the respect I have for our troops who are doing an incredible job one iota.
6. I’d like to see TNR put a little more distance between itself and Beauchamp. However, they are right to await further statements from Beauchamp and the military before they make a final judgement.
7. As for McGee, there are proper ways to handle disagreements with ones employer. If he had resigned and then revealed his information he would be worthy of respect. And before some of you attack, I’ve done that myself.
8. How about if we make a civilized effort to get to the truth by employing the same standards we ask for from our idealogical foes without all these mindless partisan attacks?
Or maybe I’m just naive …
Aug 20, 2007 - 12:54 pm 87. Jack Kalpakian:I hope that McGee gets a job soon. It is important to treat people fairly, and TNR has shown itself incapable of doing so. I am not surprised by the scandal, and I think that some historical research will show many of the “truths” that the press has foisted upon the population since the start of the television age to be fabrications as well.
Aug 20, 2007 - 1:01 pm 88. Bill Adkins:Flog Beauchamp all you want – but that’s old news. This is currentt:
“VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day.”
Aug 20, 2007 - 1:16 pm 89. Paulo:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/opinion/19jayamaha.html
I have read Miniter’s books and would expect him to really get these guys. I am pretty disappointed by this weak attack. It is practically nothing. Just a smear by a jilted ex-girlfriend and somebody calling someone else a “sociopath”. I don’t see where TNR is hurt by this as the claims make it seem. Those are just opinions. Who cares?
Aug 20, 2007 - 1:19 pm 90. Ken:Regarding Kevin’s comment that the author is spinning the story:
Aug 20, 2007 - 1:20 pm 91. RealityCheck:I noticed that style in the story also, but took it to be a style of ironic revenge, patterning the writing after the typical TIME or NEWSWEAK article: smooth and too pat, destroying the target of the piece, which is the smooth and too pat stylistic renderings of TIME and NEWSWEAK magazines!
It is funny the way the radical right wing will foam at the mouth at some soldier who probably wrote lies. However when the President lies about important facts like WMD in Iraq, what do we hear from the right wing, that’s right nada.
You seem to forget that TNR supported the invasion of Iraq, it is not as if they were ant-war from the start.
Their policy of not saying anything is working pretty well, give it another week or two this story will be pretty much dead. Only the crazy wingnuts will really care, normal Americans will not give a damn.
Aug 20, 2007 - 1:21 pm 92. K. Anderson:As a former Army Sergeant and Bradley Commander I got quite a kick out of reading the Beauchamp articles. They reminded me of the hyperbolic fiction of a 16 year old who grows his air over his eyes and never wears any color other than black, including painting his fingernails black.
They sound like something this teenager would write while listening to his favorite Marylin Manson songs in his basement and then share them with other simmilarly deranged teenagers.
To a Left wing, ivy league educated (or second tier ivy league wannabe educated) fact checker, who has NO experience with the military or guns or living without plumbing and air conditioning or a hot shower for months at a time, this would all sound perfectly reasonable. And besides, it fits the narative perfectly. Military = Knuckle dragging sub-human baby killers.
It all makes perfect sense.
Aug 20, 2007 - 1:28 pm 93. Rick P:Here is another little thought to ponder. Even after this whole thing, I bet you there was not one person at TNR that stopped to think, “Hey! Maybe we ARE wrong about all these horrible things happening. Maybe our soldiers really aren’t that bad.” They probably just wondered where they could find another source willing to tell the ‘truth’ about Iraq.
Aug 20, 2007 - 1:32 pm 94. Joe:It is obvious that the fact checkers at TNR are there only for show when it comes to liberal propaganda that they want to hear. I do not think TNR senior staff cares in the slightest whether the stories they were getting from Beauchamp were actually true. They remind me of Dan Rather, who to this day denies that the transparently fake Bush memos were forged. In their fierce and irrational hatred, TNR senior staffers simply have no credibility left. Nowadays I assume that what ever they print, the opposite is probably much closer to the truth. Like so many once fine media outlets, they are dragging their institution down, month by month, to a slow death.
Aug 20, 2007 - 1:34 pm 95. Malika:I have been following this story as many have. This was a wonderful piece of writing. Thank You very much.
Aug 20, 2007 - 1:38 pm 96. Doug Barber:This is a fine piece of reporting. Thanks!
Aug 20, 2007 - 1:40 pm 97. steve poling:I don’t think that you should simply state that “leftists are more inclined to lie and slime,” because it’s deeper than that. It is more appropriate to state that “leftists are more inclined toward moral relativism” then observe that:
If the ends justify the means, then there will be occasions where lying and sliming are justified by important-enough policy goals.
I think that an attachment to moral absolutes, be they Biblical, Koranic, Randian, or whatever, will preclude short-term advantageous behaviors resulting a greater perceived, if not real, degree of integrity. Thus, I think one should ask first, is s/he a moral relativist or not? And then decide whether to count the silverware.
It’s interesting that even when you look this story from a perspective of moral relativism, the lies and sliming of the left have been dis-advantageous because they were found out. Thus, to pull off moral relativism, you have to be infinitely smart anticipating all of the consequences of your actions. Good luck with that. If you aren’t, you just end up like Wile E. Coyote, super genius.
Aug 20, 2007 - 1:53 pm 98. pchas:Excellent reportage on the Beauchamp case. TNR has hit bottom and Franklin Foer just keeps on digging.
What’s almost as interesting–maybe more so, is the continued inability the leftwing trolls to conceive of the magnitude of TNR’s folly as evidenced by their denials, dismissals and efforts to change the subject. Fascinating.
Aug 20, 2007 - 1:53 pm 99. Oldsmoblogger:Skippy: Excellent invocation of Barney Greenwald (my judgment may be biased by Wouk’s being my favorite American author of the 20th Century) and The Caine Mutiny. As the details of the story began to come out in early August, the first thought in my head was “Tom Keefer.”
Aug 20, 2007 - 1:57 pm 100. Lem:Remember the old ABC Wide World of Sports promo when “the agony of defeat” line came on?
Is that TNR crashing….. again
Aug 20, 2007 - 2:00 pm 101. Stan:Tim,
First, Beauchamp is not being held incommunicado and is free to speak to whomever he chooses. He has declined to speak to anyone. Second, the WS source may be unsavory? Saying “Hint” implies you have evidence that the source is tainted. Somehow I doubt that. The source of Beauchamp being a liar is his own words, not the WS source. All that source claimed was that PVT Beauchamp had signed a sworn statement recanting his story. We already knew the stories were fabricated, so the source at WS is essentially irrelevant. Finally, “Bad things happen in wars”. Is that another way of saying “fake, but accurate”? I really despise that particular meme. Fake is fake no matter how much you want a particular narrative to be true.
Bill Adkins, “Quick! Look over here!! Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Move along, nothing to see here.” Stay on topic please, strawmen go to the end of the line. I can point to a hundred stories in direct opposition, that doesn’t make it relevent to Beauchamp and TNR libeling the military.
Aug 20, 2007 - 2:01 pm 102. Good Lt:Great piece. This never would’ve been blown open had the lefties controlled the flow of information. It would’ve simply become one of the “larger truths” they’re always trying to convince everyone of.
And, umm…reality Check for “RealityCheck.”
Posters like “reality check” continue to parrot lies like “Bush Lied” while ignoring factual evidence that is inconvenient to their political worldview.
Google “Iraq Liberation Act 1998,” for starters. Then go to YouTube and type “Flip Flop Democrats on Iraq” into the search field. Watch the video. You will then see where the intel that “Bush lied” about was in 1998 and beyond – exactly where Bush (and Clinton, Gore, Albright, Reid, etc. before and with him) said it was. Cripes – even Kevin Drum can admit it. It’s not an opinion. It’s a fact.
You’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. “Reality Check.”
Try to remember, hard leftwingers, that history didn’t start in 2002. There was a lot going on before BOOSH got into office, and there is ample evidence all available at the click of a mouse to prove it.
Aug 20, 2007 - 2:12 pm 103. MD2000:I’m only vaguely aware of this issue, but I have to admit the guy sounds like a pathalogical liar.
In response the Wilson/Plame comment. Reading between the lines on that one, it sounds like the typical bureaucratic mess. The Iraq/Niger among many others facts needed double-checking, the VP’s office told the CIA,”Oh, go ahead and see if it’s true.” Wilson was asked by CIA, with some suggestion from his wife, to check it out. His trip was hyped to him as “The VP wants you to check this out”.
He assumed he was on a mission of utmost importance direct from the Dickster himself, while as far as the VP’s office knew the CIA was just looking over some details and would eventually get back to them. Whether Cheney actually saw the results of his trip (did anyone want to present a contrary opinion to the VP?) or whether it was buried in the minutae of a thousand single-space pages dumped on the VP’s office every day – who cares? We know the high-ups were fond of “sexing up” the facts.
When the incorrect facts were used, Wilson mistakenly huffed in print “he asked me to check, I told him he was wrong, and he ignored it.” Cheney’s office took unbrage and counter-puffed “who is this bozo, and why is he making up lies about us?”
In his true traditional style, Cheney set out to straighten the record on someone who (he thought) was making up lies about him. They illegally exposed an agent as part of a concerted smear campaign, much as everyone on the Republican side would like to think no dmage was done. Presumably the CIA has sufficient leverage that Google cache no longer reveals which other people list the same “front” companies on their resume as Ms. Plame, but at one time you could find at least one. He hastily removed his online resume after a call from Wired magazine. Presumable foreign intelligence agencies do not let the US government clean their cache like Google would. Thanks for the tipoff, Dick!
Aug 20, 2007 - 2:20 pm 104. David Thomson:“If the ends justify the means, then there will be occasions where lying and sliming are justified by important-enough policy goals.”
Your point is well taken. After all, Martin Luther said that there are times when lying is justified. When it is required, he advised that one do so boldly. Leftists don’t believe, however, that lying is something you do rarely and thoughtfully. No, it is one’s right to lie on behalf of all political goals. It becomes the normal manner to proceed in the everyday world.
Aug 20, 2007 - 2:25 pm 105. TBinSTL:Unlike a leftist publication, the comments on this stay open and the negative posts are not removed. Even link-spam to unrelated articles are left intact. Funny how that works….
Aug 20, 2007 - 2:35 pm 106. holdfast:WorldTraveler – and can you drive a Humvee in those canels? Can you change a tire in one (especially hard since Humvees don’t carry tires – and wasn’t STB in a mech Bradley unit with tracked vehicles?).
ArmyJAG – it is a bit confusing, but the story to which you refer was from his private blog – basically he was “doodling” some war stories – nobody ever said those were real. They do go to show a propensity for bad prose in the service of being a mickey spillane wannabe. Some of the descriptitve devices are also very similar to the later diaries in TNR, which might go to show that it is all fiction.
TIM: STB can talk to anyone he wants – his phone privelages have been restored; however, the Army cannot MAKE him do so (it would be a violation of his subhuman rights). Also, bad stuff does happen in war – and when it does, TNR and the rest of the media are free to report it (and they do – think Abu Ghraib) – but if they are too lazy to find the real stuff and instead rely on some 7th rate hack , they are going to get busted. Problem for TNR, STB’s “bad stuff” just couldn’t be real, and anyone with relevant experience in any western army would know that. Too bad TNR would never hire such a person or think to have one of their fact-checkers call one. The military’s loathing for the Army and those who serve in it causes them to commit journalistic malpractice on a regular basis – any other industry that screwed up that regularly would have been hounded by the media and sued to death by trial lawyers – but then, who watches the watchers?
Aug 20, 2007 - 2:54 pm 107. Jim Rockford:The nepotism and personal corruption between Reeves and Beauchamp are important because they reveal a pattern/practice on the Left:
Nepotism.
Would Beauchamp had gotten a hearing absent a personal romantic relationship between himself and Reeves? Unlikely.
This is part and parcel of the elitism, “insider-ism” and anti-merit attitude of a connected, inter-married, and nepotistic elite that is fundamentally hostile to advancement on merit.
Very important and very revealing.
In order to be published in the New Republic, a soldier must have a personal sexual/romantic relationship with a staffer. No one else need apply.
Aug 20, 2007 - 3:15 pm 108. CarpeDiem:sounds like a case of malignant narcissism
Aug 20, 2007 - 3:40 pm 109. BellaMia:It’s another Wiley E. Coyote moment with the Roadrunner.
Beep Beep!
Aug 20, 2007 - 4:27 pm 110. JO3:STB wrote complete nonsense because he has no real knowledge of combat. His own blog from Germany reveals him to be a grease-monkey who has probably never gone 10 feet past the compound fence.
Aug 20, 2007 - 4:47 pm 111. Terence:They believed it because they wanted to. Interesting the title of the article uses the phrase “Got suckered”, which implies that they were the object of wrongdoing, not the subject. That seems to fit into the likely eventual and typical excuse of victimhood.
Aug 20, 2007 - 7:00 pm 112. Tom W.:Has the mainstream media published any accurate stories about Iraq?
We’ve been lied to all along, right from the initial invasion, when we were told that our troops were bogged down by a sandstorm and unable to deal with superb Iraqi tactics, up to the present day, when we’re told of phantom bombings and decapitated, bullet-riddled bodies that the Coalition and Iraqi forces never find.
Iraqi election workers quit en masse, even though they didn’t; a 12-inch action figure was taken prisoner; our troops were sent into battle without body armor, even though they weren’t; and so on.
Every right-thinking person should take a moment to marvel that our troops and the Iraqis are going to win this war, despite an all-out effort by the global media to prevent that outcome.
Military personnel are simply the finest people alive, which is why self-loathing mediocrities like Scott Beauchamp hate them.
Aug 20, 2007 - 7:03 pm 113. Meg:Folks,
This is actually the **3rd** time TNR has gotten burned like this – does anyone remember Ruth Shalit?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Shalit
Aug 20, 2007 - 9:04 pm 114. Tony Panzarella:Sounds as though “Diver” can’t get over the fact that his beloved liberals blew two consecutive Presidential elections. Speaking of “lies” …. how about Ted Kennedy and the drowned girl? Hmmmmmmmm????
Aug 20, 2007 - 9:43 pm 115. Peter Loti:Great article!
Aug 20, 2007 - 11:34 pm 116. David:Also, interesting discussion in comments. Thanks.
McGee should not let himself by silenced by his former employers. Any attempt to enforce their cease-and-decist demand would only draw attention to themselves — attention of a kind they don’t want.
If I got such a letter from TNR they be damned sorry they ever sent it!
Aug 21, 2007 - 3:40 am 117. Frank in Purcellville:McGee should continue to talk. If the legal team at TNR threatens him again with a cease and desist order, he should tell them to put it in writing and to please sign it so he can use it when he takes them to court. That should effectively end TNR’s arrogance.
Aug 21, 2007 - 8:40 am 118. dmc:Ironic that STB in his quest to write for TNR believed he was advancing that cause by marrying Reeve. The actual result is that he has destroyed it. For TNR to salvage any of its credibility it will have to sever all ties with STB.
Aug 21, 2007 - 11:14 am 119. Robert:Foer couldn’t understand why anyone would just make things up.
Wieseltier did. “Maybe he [Beauchamp] is a sociopath.”
Wieseltier may indeed be spot-on in his assessment. I remember this essay on psychopathy/sociopathy:
http://jonjayray.110mb.com/psycho.html
An exercise: How many of the characteristics listed do you find in Scott Thomas Beauchamp?
Aug 21, 2007 - 11:58 am 120. thufir:The real question here is, why exactly did all of you jump on this particular story and have been desperately attempting to prove it false ever since? To the extent that you’re digging up ex-girlfriends as character sources? What was so offensive about Beauchamp’s story? It certainly wasn’t the lack of plausibility, as any enlisted man who has been in a war will tell you.
Aug 21, 2007 - 1:23 pm 121. holdfast:thufir – it was, in part, the lack of plausibility. Although I have not been to war, I was an enlisted man for over a decade. I think I understand the mindset quite well. The idea of repeatedly and deliberately crashing a combat-loaded Bradley into walls – or mocking a wounded woman in a mess hall and not getting beaten to death – did indeed strike me as so implausible as to be impossible.
It was also that, by describing rather awful things as being routine, he was smearing the army as a whole. Not to say that all soldiers are plaster saints – clearly they’re not, or that bad things don’t happen in war – clearly they do, but STB’s story on the IED woman made it seem as if a really awful sort of cruely was accepted and routine. He made it seem like discipline was so lax that a Bradley driver could go dog hunting, thereby placing the Bradley and those in it in grave danger merely to get him his sick thrills. He made it seem like the sanitation system in Baghdad was so bad that kids had to play in waist-deep rivers of sh*t (we all know that the infrastructure in Iraq suffers from decades of neglect and abuse – and that for years Baghdad received electricity at the expense of the rest of the country). He made it seem like Iraq was overrun with zombie dogs (Ok that one was more bizarre than offensive). In short STB defames his fellow soldiers and the army as a whole. He could not find the sort of stories that he wanted to write about, so he made them up – some from whole cloth (the IED woman) and some from kernels of truth (an old cemetary becomes a mass grave).
It matters because while TNR has a small circulation, it is read by influential people in politics and journalism. Stories go from TNR, to the NYT to the local news.
Aug 21, 2007 - 2:40 pm 122. deathstar:Thufir.
I think you have it 100% backward. It was the major lack of plausibility, recognized by enlisted men who had been to war, that triggered doubts in the blogosphere and lead to the humiliation of TNR and Beauchamp.
Aug 21, 2007 - 2:43 pm 123. ChrisO:This article is so ridiculous as to be laughable. I’m not a TNR reader, and I don’t wholeheartedly buy Beauchamp’s story, although it’s clear from the reading I’ve been doing on this that the maze of charges and counter charges is being interpreted according to existing biases, both on the left and right. But for an article that takes TNR to task for shoddy reporting, this piece is remarkably thin. Using a jilted ex-fiance to not only assess a man’s charcter, but also to analyze his real reasons for marrying someone else? Are you kidding? Oh, but wait, in e-mails “she comes across as pretty generous and fair-minded.” In that case, no problem. Analyze away.
And McGee, whom I’ve seen described elsewhere as a temp (which, if true, is a pretty significant omission on your part) posts information he’s learned while working at a magazine to right wing blogs that are attacking the magazine, and you treat it as a scandal that he was fired? In what universe does a guy doing that get to keep his job? Especially if he is indeed a temp. The fact that he chose to post to right wing attack blogs says more than a little about his politics and agenda.
I have no idea what happened at TNR, and I find the firestorm around it more interesting than the actual articles. But to see commenters on this site praising this as an example of “great reporting” is a joke.
Aug 21, 2007 - 7:30 pm 124. Vladi G:Breaking news for the PJ Media Crowd! After extensive fact checking, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei still not dead!
Now, what were you guys saying about the New Republic?
Aug 21, 2007 - 8:04 pm 125. Roger L. Simon:VladiG:
As CEO of Pajamas MEdia, allow me to state publicly and directly we made a mistake on the Ayatollah Khamenei death. Of course, we acknowledged that within several hours and even published contradictory reports.
This is now weeks since the Beauchamp Affair and The New Republic has acknowledged nothing.
Tahnk you for your input. We will try to do better,but I always hope we admit our mistakes.
Aug 21, 2007 - 8:55 pm 126. Mel:The newest (Summer 2007 – not yet fully available online) issue of Columbia Magazine, CU’s quarterly alumni publication, contains a profile of TNR editor Foer.
He’s charged with turning TNR around (financially) on a very short timetable — three years.
Last line of the article, a Foer quote:”I hope that the New Republic will have a devil-may-care attitude when it comes to pissing people off.”
Aug 22, 2007 - 6:06 am 127. holdfast:Mel: I fixed that for you:
Last line of the article, a Foer quote:”I hope that the New Republic will have a devil-may-care attitude when it comes to fact-checking and reportorial standards.”
ChrisO – the only thing that is laughable is TNR’s efforts to defend this. Instead of just manninig-up, saying that they were trying to do something different with their Iraq Diarist, and that it didn’t work out, they keep trying to play offense and looking even more silly. Even a cursory review of STB’s blog and his myspace page would have show what whackjob the guy is – I guess that was more diligence than TNR was prepared to do,
Aug 22, 2007 - 8:43 am 128. gesus:I must say I stumbled upon this article by accident, but I cannot discern where in fact the “sociopath” has been proven wrong. After hearing accounts from Vietnam veterans in my community I believe that soldiers in combat are capable of most anything. When you may die any day and have no idea who is friend or foe the capability for dispicable action grows greatly. What would you have TNR say? They are still trying to sort it out themselves. It took them over 2 years to figure that Iraq was a bust.
Aug 22, 2007 - 1:19 pm 129. holdfast:gesus – you sound like a sock puppet of some other commenters above. Your “I cannot discern where in fact the “sociopath” has been proven wrong” is as disengenous as the folks who call in to CSPAN, claim to be long-time Republicans and then criticize everything about the Republican Party and Conservatism in general.
In case you were too dense to figure it out, this story is about background and motivation – if you want to actual debunking of STB’s “diaries” follow the links up in the story to Confederate Yankee or Ace of Spades. See how TNR fact-checked the Bradley dog-killing story by asking a Rep for the company that makes the Bradley if the vehicle can make tight turns (yes it can) – too bad it also has a huge blindspot on the right that would prevent the driver from seeing the doomed doggie. That is just one example – as has been stated numerous times, awful things happen in war – too bad STB couldn’t find any and instead had to make up this BS.
BTW, is your Vietnam Vet friend perchance named Jean Francois Kerry? Maybe JenJis Khan?
Aug 22, 2007 - 5:06 pm 130. harkin:Can someone please link to the best list of questions for TNR that so far have not yet been answered? Weeks have gone by and all TNR has done is add to the amount of mystery and it would be nice to see a list of the most relative items still unclear (which seems to be everything except STB made fun of a disfigured woman after the trauma of a long flight to Kuwait).
I myself would like to know if it’s true (as I read somewhere) that fact-checker at TNR is an entry-level job. The way the Bradley manufacturer described the questions from TNR when they were trying to verify the dog story seemed to indicate that TNR had no interest in reporting the facts but was doing CYA of the very thinnest kind.
You really have to wonder if they learned anything at all from the Glass affair.
Aug 23, 2007 - 10:27 am