16 Comments

1. LarryD:

I recently saw Spiderman 3. In the movie, J. Jonah Jameson, who has a definite bias against Spiderman, discovers that a photo which fits his narrative, was faked. Jameson fires the photographer and ran a retraction. On page one. With an apology. Jameson (and thus the Daily Bugle) has more integrity than the New York Times.

After Capt. Jamil Hussein, Fauxtography, and Haditha, any “journalist” who doesn’t double check their stories, and editors who don’t triple check stories, is grossly negligent. And their organizations are deservedly suffering for it.

And I have no pity for them.

Jul 23, 2007 - 9:27 am 2. Insufficiently Sensitive:

After the New Republic’s disaster involving Stephen Glass, Franklin Foer has no business in the editor’s chair unless he rigorously vets all articles in the magazine. Particularly, those whose authorship and supporting facts are as deliberately withheld from readers as this recent one of ‘Scott Thomas’. It simply begs questioning, and Foer in his failure to prepare for it shows that he’s far more an opportunity-of-the-moment sort of propagandist than a public intellectual.

It may be that with the news of successes against al-Qaeda in Iraq, which leak out day by day despite the heroic struggles of the MSM to prevent their public appearance, that the opinion-vanguards such as TNR are entering a new phase: desperation and anything-goes to prevent a turn in public opinion toward support of the Bush administration policies.

Foer in running this article is acting like a low-level officer picking up a pistol to resist an overwhelming attack, instead of using his fookin’ brain. He’s on his way out.

Jul 23, 2007 - 10:23 am 3. Hermie:

Foer’s excuse is a poor one.

Running a story like that which charges our troops with heinous behavior, only puts fuel on the fire.

Some people might ask, didn’t TNR learn their lesson about verifying stories and sources?

Well, the story was just too good for the magazine. It validated their perceptions of our troops, and of course, they are far more informed than the unwashed masses whose sons and daughters actually are in the thick of it.

Jul 23, 2007 - 10:23 am 4. Old Dad:

How TNR manages Mr. Foer is none of my business. It’s imperative, though, that they correct the record. The allegations are serious, prosecutable, and just the kind of thing that our enemies love to exploit.

For what it’s worth, even a cursory editorial review should have blown this story out of the magazine, especially the ludicrous Shock Troops entry. It takes no military experience to see the glaring problems. Moreoever, had Mr. Foer consulted a third party with military experience, this tripe would have been spiked a long time ago.

I have a theory. I think “Scott Thomas” set up TNR, and I think he is a GI stationed in Baghdad. The details, especially in “Shock Troops,” are so blatantly wrong that it would take a military man to create them. A faker would have taken pains to get at least some things right. My guess is that Scott and his buddies got a good chuckle when his diaries hit the new stand. If I’m right, I hope he doesn’t get in trouble.

Even if TNR got suckered, they should have known better, and still must fess up and correct the record.

Jul 23, 2007 - 10:49 am 5. Sgt. Mom:

I hate to tell you how hard my daughter (USMC, one tour to Kuwait and Iraq in 2003) laughed, at reading the “Shock Troops” story about running over a sleeping dog in the street with a Bradley.

Or as she said, “What?! Was the dog dead already that it didn’t hear it coming?”

I am beginning to speculate along Old Dad’s line of thinking, that since everything with the “Shock Troops” stories were so completely and ludicrously wrong, and instantly debunkable by anyone serving at present… it is althogether possible that it is a set-up. I can see some clever soldier putting together a literary s**t sandwich just to see who would fall all over themselves in their hurry to chow down. The boy’s got a hell of a sense of humor, if so.

Jul 23, 2007 - 11:51 am 6. Joanne Jacobs:

I worked for a daily newspaper for many years and before that for a magazine. You check before you print. If you edit the magazine that printed Stephen Glass’ fictions, you check even more carefully.

The details matter: If there has been no scarred woman at FOB Falcon for the last year, if it’s impossible to wear a skull under a helmet, if a Bradley driver can’t see a wild dog that’s close enough to run over and can’t cut one neatly in half and couldn’t drive recklessly without endangering his entire crew, then Thomas has no credibility. He’s either embellishing secondhand stories or recycling old movie scripts or just plain lying to get into print.

Foer need not believe PR officers or military veterans who e-mail about discrepancies in Thomas’ stories. He can interview his own military experts about Bradleys and helmets. He can verify whether soldiers who say no burned woman has been seen at FOB Falcon actually served there. He can ask Thomas why he described an unmarked cemetery as a mass grave and whether he disputes the officer’s assertion that the bodies were moved for reburial.

Logic tells us that some of the thousands of soldiers serving in Iraq are callous jerks. They are human beings, after all. But made-up stories prove nothing.

Jul 23, 2007 - 12:13 pm 7. PeterUK.:

Interesting that nobody knows anything about the woman in the story,not her name,nationality,ore who she works for,but they know for a certainty that her injuries were caused by an IED,not a domestic or industrial accident.This smell more like a jolly jihadi disinformation operation,the MSM lap them up.

“Mitchell says he may decide to republish the piece on his blog, but is weighing the effect of all the negative attention on his wife, who works on a military base, and their young daughter.

Jul 23, 2007 - 2:46 pm 8. Captain Hate:

I like Marty Peretz’s written words and I’ve stated elsewhere that the The New Republic has needed a thorough fumigation as badly as the CIA. But why would he let the already compromised-by-Glass reputation of his publication take another shot instead of simply firing Foer. And others. That makes no sense to me.

Jul 23, 2007 - 6:33 pm 9. Insufficiently Sensitive:

“I have a theory. I think “Scott Thomas” set up TNR, and I think he is a GI stationed in Baghdad. The details, especially in “Shock Troops,” are so blatantly wrong that it would take a military man to create them.”

Wildly creative theory, ‘Old Dad’, but a malicious lefty aiming to manipulate public opinion by corrosive mendacity is a hell of a lot more likely suspect. And, by the way, your insult against military men is duly noted – are you Scott Thomas himself playing sock puppet?

TNR would pride itself on detecting a setup and escaping it. That’s what intellectual magazines supposedly do – they’re the smart guys. Unless Foer is willing to risk his and the magazine’s entire credibility in order to score one last desperate point against the military before it achieves any further successes. We KNOW the true believers in the TNR readership will hang on every word, but its whole masthead is now tottering for a fall in the world of factual news.

Jul 23, 2007 - 6:34 pm 10. Luther McLeod:

PeterUK, good to read you. Your acerbic wit, but dead on interpretations, have been missed by me.

I actually paid for TNR for over thirty years, canceled less than a year after AS became editor.

Despite all the rumors re TNR’s founding, I thought they did good work for the most part. A bias, but an acknowledged one. I can live with that.

Marty is conflicted, I think. Readership (which has steadily fallen) indicates a base problem.

The TNR of 1914 would have done better I think. Truth gains readers, manipulation of same loses readers. Simple.

Jul 23, 2007 - 6:47 pm 11. Carl Spackler:

Well, if TNR can write about dogs being chased by blind drivers in diesel powered, tracked vehicles, then I guess I can get off Broadway reviews from the Marine Corps Journal.

Jul 23, 2007 - 8:10 pm 12. Lem:

It has not gone unnoticed by the MSM that torture stories from abu-grab and Guantanamo had the most negative impact against the administrations WOT policies.

Not even the misleading “domestic surveillance” stories had the kind of impact the torture stories had.

So what do you do when soldiers ain’t misbehaving?

You dust off a Full Metal Jacket rip-off. The kind we quote in our sleep.

Jul 24, 2007 - 6:47 am 13. Old Dad:

Insufficient:

You misinterpreted my comment, but after rereading it, I can see why.

Let me clarify. I didn’t mean the “it would take a military man” as a dig. I meant it literally. Only someone with first hand experience could know how to get all the details wrong–on purpose. If I’m right, and I admit that I’m speculating–wildly or not–then the soldier author is hoaxing TNR big time. Why? More speculation. I know that quite a few of our troops are upset about the MSM. Is this pay back? Far fetched, I suppose.

Any how, if Scott really is serving in Iraq, you’ve got to wonder about his motives. No matter what his personal politics, he’d have to know that he was making stuff up. He’d also have to know that he’d get found out. I’m ust wondering what his game plan was, that’s all.

I’d never deliberately insult our troops, and you can take that to the bank.

Jul 24, 2007 - 11:17 am 14. Insufficiently Sensitive:

Good, Old Dad, glad that dig was not intentional.

But, I still think that if Scott Thomas were a con artist, it’s more likely that he’d succeed in gulling TNR if he could write enough like an ivory tower or NPR type than if he were a volunteer enlistee taking a break from dodging EFPs or whatever. The guild of PC writing is self-recognizing, and it would be a rare soldier who could emulate it enough to gain the editors trust. Unless, of course, TNR were so hungry for those bits of ‘news’ that they’d publish without checking.

Jul 24, 2007 - 1:24 pm 15. AlanC:

Here’s a pros take on Scott Thomas.

Little long but read the whole thing.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK1A3L4YEO74C19

Teaser:

My agent always urges me to provide a sound bite version of any idea I put out in public. I don’t actually think there are very many interesting ideas that fit into sound bites, but here’s the short version for those of you without much in the way of attention spans, followed by an explanation laying it out in some detail (and including some of that scary semiotic stuff I do for business and industry, along with a bit about writing and publishing these days):

Based on a mix of semiotic analysis and my seat of the pants experience as a frequent reader of professional and near-professional writing by new writers, my guess is this: I think “Scott Thomas” is actually an MFA writing student, or a recent graduate of such a program, probably with some military experience

Jul 25, 2007 - 8:28 am 16. AlanC:

PS: That last link was courtesy of Rantburg.

Jul 25, 2007 - 8:29 am

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