Note to all wannabe politicians and demogogues…keep your ulterior motives secret, not published on a blog. Blogs are not diaries, they are billboards.

James on July 27, 2007 at 7:37 AM

Why are you advising them?

Update (MM): Disagree. Strongly. Since when is thoroughly covering a story “overplaying” it? Because John Podhoretz says so? I’m getting plenty of e-mail from troops and veterans who don’t think the story is being “overplayed.” No, it’s not Watergate or Rathergate. So? Do we ignore every story that isn’t?

I agree with MM, which is to say that one of the main reasons I read HotAir is to enjoy and learn from AP’s and others’ takedowns of “the mainstream media.” Relentless, destructive critique of MSM persons and publications is among the most important tasks of bloggers, commenters, and tipsters of the Right. Sure, it’s too bad that this week’s subject is this tenth-rate Scott Thomas Beauchamp, not a ruling figure such as Dan Rather. However, an opportunity to put another wound in TNR is strategically valuable, and little Beauchamp, however lame he may be, has preparatory value, because the blogswarm needs a steady supply of practice targets.

Baldilocks notes that Columbia Journalism Review’s Paul McLeary, in his attempt to both defend the New Republic’s Scott Thomas Beauchamp and denigrate his attackers (which are now legion) apparently doesn’t realize that milbloggers is a portmanteau…

This guy definately supports the troops…

I feel so much better now…

BadBrad on July 27, 2007 at 5:57 AM

What a great link. The Sheehan/SirScott-a-lot Manifesto.

from that Kos link:

That is what I mean by ‘I support our troops’. I mean I am involuntarily, under threat of prison, forced to pay for their support. Now do I resent that?
You’re damn right I do. Because it is stupid as hell. Other countries pay taxes, but they get something for it, like health care. What do I get? I get to kill a bunch of Iraqis. Whoopdeedoo.

National Healthcare was not even a consideration at Valley Forge, or Iwo Jima. Deserters were hung during the Revolution, and look what it got us, the stinking U. S. of A. which must weigh as a millstone around the neck of the Scott-a-lots.

Tney didn’t tax people to create this country, yet many signers of the Declaration of Independence died penniless taking pay in worthless colonial script. But we did tax everyone to pay for the cowards landing at Normandy and their overfed families back home. Sickening. We bombed Germany and what did we get – a bunch of dead German kids – if I understand the Kos Manifesto.

The purpose of Kos-war is to enable the Socialist dream which is so much bigger than the American dream. Material rights of food, medicine, and daycare are so much greater in scope than the obscure fraud of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

The well fed, well controlled animal is a happier animal than an unchained uncontrolled beast running free

You can tell from reading his stuff that he’s on the make and you can take it to the bank that after the adoration by the left for FINALLY breaking down the people’s respect for those serving in uniform, he’s going to believe that he can best profit by converting the adoration into political office.

The fact that you can tell this from reading his stuff means he’s documented his chicanery, and has ensured that those who take him seriously can always be countered by quoting his own words, if for nothing else than to put his stupidity under the spotlight. Note to all wannabe politicians and demogogues…keep your ulterior motives secret, not published on a blog. Blogs are not diaries, they are billboards.

I feel so much better now…

We are going to be hearing from and about Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp for DECADES to come. In letters to the editor, on leftwing opinion shows, in newspaper articles HE WILL BE USED as the “absolute moral authority” about the depraved soldiers serving in Iraq. They will quote him, cite him, refer to him, not matter how much he is discredited over the fiction he and TNR are peddling.

Whether or not this was a “Plame-thing” or not, TNR deliberately decided to run with Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp’s “stories” in order to discredit the military. Just as TNR attempted to discredit all those stories about Pol Pot’s genocide in the mid 1970’s. Just as TNR tried to scapegoat Steven Glass instead of accepting responsibility for being dupes of AGENDA JOURNALISM.

The left NEEDS this story to begin to smear our troups. They’ve been desperately searching for an incident, a reason to begin calling our military “baby killers” again. Until now, the general public hasn’t bought it. Not Abu Gharib. Not Gitmo. Not Haditha. Not Jesse Whatshisface. The left, and the people running TNR, think that this time is the charm. They think that THIS story is going to be the beginning of the end of the “We support the troops” falsehood the left has been peddling for the last 6 years.

They don’t support the troops. They have never supported the troops. They WILL NEVER SUPPORT the troops because they HATE the military. The “support” they’ve claimed has all been a LIE, from day one. They despise those who serve. They wrap themselves up in their smug elitism and pronounce themselves superior to those who volunteer to serve and protect our nation. After all, from their perspective, our nation is BAD, BAD, BAD and does not deserve protection, nor should it be protected. Rather our country, in their eyes, should be OVERTHROWN and replaced with something that is more pure in their eyes. I’ll let you guess what that would be.

So, after 6 years of playing charades with the rest of America, after 6 years of pretending to SUPPORT THE TROOPS (but hate the war), they are finally coming out because Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp is “speaking truth to power” about the horrible, horrible, neanderthal-like class of people in our military who are in Iraq. Or as John Kerry (Mr. “Winter Soldier”) would say — if you don’t get good grades and stay in college, you’ll end up in Iraq and end up a butcher and baby-killer.

The fact that TNR fired the whistleblower who exposed the details of the plot proves that this entire thing was planned from the beginning. This whole thing is an attempt to manufacture consent to (1) forcing a withdrawal from Irag AND Afghanistan — don’t be deluded that this just involves the war in Iraq, and (2) positioning the left into doing what they do best: Hating the military.

Oh yeah, Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp *will* take a page from Kerry’s notebook. You can tell from reading his stuff that he’s on the make and you can take it to the bank that after the adoration by the left for FINALLY breaking down the people’s respect for those serving in uniform, he’s going to believe that he can best profit by converting the adoration into political office. Then, watch Scotty run.

Dear God, I hope I’m wrong. But I can just see this guy and the editor and publisher of TNR on Hardball, Today, Meet the Press, Stephie’s Sunday Show, etc. I can see Teddy Kennedy, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi publicly praising Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp for bravely coming forth (in the face of hate-speech spouting bloggers like Michelle and us commentators) and “telling the truth” about the evilness of America’s military in the Bogus War on Terror. I can see criticism from us, the milbloggers, and those actually serving being spiked and blackholed by the MSM.

I don’t know about the rest of you. But when they start spitting on our troops in front of me, *MOI* is going to do something about it.

You have a point… It would be no fun at all, to be a part of slamming the little jerk… The Army loses pretty much no matter what. Thanks for making me think it through a bit better, from a leadership perspective. I appreciate that.

paragon27x on July 27, 2007 at 3:21 AM

FYI… Been a few years since I was in the Sandbox, and actually felt compelled to chew an ass. (rare, but it happened… Tried to save it for when it was really needed.)

Thanks for setting me straight in my over-reaction to the little puke, Sir.

You have a point… It would be no fun at all, to be a part of slamming the little jerk… The Army loses pretty much no matter what. Thanks for making me think it through a bit better, from a leadership perspective. I appreciate that.

How credible is this?

I have no idea.

Sounds plausible anyway.

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”
- Carl Sagan

If I were to tell folks that I was born in St Louis, Missouri, they would probably just believe me without question. If I were to say that I was born in the Antarctic, they would probably want some pretty extraordinary evidence before believing me. If I were to say that I was born on the planet Mars, they would probably want some DAMN extraordinary evidence before believing me. Like maybe a trip to Mars in my Space Ship.

Now Scott Thomas’s claims are not up there with me saying that I was born on Mars, but they are not down there with me saying that I was born in St Louis, Missouri either. Probably somewhere in between, like me saying I was born in the Antarctic.

I see no extraordinary evidence for his claims. I really see no regular evidence for his claims, so I guess that we are just suppose to take his word for it? Where are other soldiers in his unit(s) testifying to the same thing and backing him up? Does anyone know of any? Where are pictures? Where is anything?

Unless and until Scott Thomas has got some of this, he is just blowing in the wind.

Why are we even paying any attention to him?

Why did I even bother to write this?

Colored contacts, maybe? I’ve known a lot of young people that have them these days.

ReubenJCogburn on July 27, 2007 at 12:08 AM

Good thought. But, looking at the comparison made by angryoldfatman, I think the chin is very different also.

Come on, that right there tells us a lot.

I would think that since those on the right did not believe the stories to begin with, that those in the unit, and all those serving in Iraq should know we dont blame them at all for what happened. Those on the right see the motives of one individual.

The sad thing is that he could of instigated some things, and we all know that sometimes we get caught up in the goofing around, being a badass. I even sometimes see pictures of Iraqi kids with a Military member standing beside them holding two fingers behind their heads. It is innocent, but I do sometimes feel a little un-easy about it.

Or the Harry Carey person having fun with the Iraqi, though I think the Iraqis were in on it. I think they knew what was happening because I know that if I was in Iraq, I would not be messing around because you never know when your time is up and they felt secure.

Anyway, the troops should know who is on their side. One side does it by their actions, the others shows their contempt by their actions.

Right now over in milblog land the forgotten side of this story is growing seed and that is that an effort will be developed to give email support to the rest of the 1-18 to let them know that we support them and know this is a guy who doesn’t have a lot of credibility anymore and we don’t in any way paint them with the same brush.

The project needs to be done, since these guys are going to take a mental hit from being collateral damage to this guy’s rantings and slanders.

They need our support and I will be one of the first ones there to kick in however I can.

partly of course it’s wanting to vindicate the military from a suspected smear

To me that’s reason enough to do anything, just by itself. That little maggot took the same oath I did, and a lot of you did, with no intention of honoring it–quite the opposite, in fact. He only joined up to pad his resume, and intended to pull this kind of crap all along–smearing and defaming the very military that he’s a part of. That goes beyond your usual problem soldier that just doesn’t belong in the Army. I hope they hammer this bastard with everything they can make stick, just to make an example out of him. I feel sorry for his unit, though, because they’re going to end up doing a lot of extra paperwork.

Is the guy in the green hat in this photo him? It sure looks like him.

angryoldfatman on July 26, 2007 at 7:26 PM

I don’t think so. STB appears to have blue eyes in his myspace pics. The guy in the photo you linked has brown eyes.

mikeyboss on July 26, 2007 at 8:23 PM

Colored contacts, maybe? I’ve known a lot of young people that have them these days.

His exact quote to me several months ago when i asked him about some of the things he wrote was. ” just because it didn’t neccarly happen to us doesn’t mean it isn’t true”.

ahhhh… “fake but accurate”

And, shockingly, Turns out Private B. is NOT a top 80% soldier.

as for private beauchamp him self. he just received is 2 article 15 for going awol for three weeks up at BIAP after he returned from R&R. not a model soldier despite that i have considered him a friend up untill now.

Yea, I suspected something like this may not make him very popular right now…

I won’t have him wanting to mke things sound more intersting over here to make more people want read his writing reflect me in a negative light!

I’m shocked… shocked, to find an agenda at play here!