#28 sireverlast 8/10/2007 2:25:39 pm PDT reply quote

For those of you who have AKO whitepages, my initial report has been confirmed: BEAUCHAMP WAS DEMOTED EFF 01 AUG 07 FROM PV2/E2 to PVT/E1. You can verify this on AKO.

I’d gladly die before I ever sided with such base anti-reality, anti-American hatred.

“Trolling Ace’s comments again, wondering why this commenter didn’t leave said comment here as well as there, but never mind that”

If it’s cross posting you want, I’m happy to oblige. Here’s what I wrote up for the latest TNR Beauchamp thread:

To the Editors:

Having granted Scott Beauchamp anonymity for the express purpose of preempting investigation, you’re in no position to complain when the Army that you were stonewalling won’t share their work product with you. Ditto for your indignant protest that someone in the Army is, gasp!, leaking. It’s not as though you’ve been entirely forthright about acknowledging what you do know, yourselves.

You quoted Major Steven Lamb directly on August 7th, yet conveniently neglected to report the actual conclusions of the Army Investigation which that same spokesman was publicly confirming in multiple venues elsewhere. You declined to divulge Beauchamp’s in-house relationship with a TNR staff member, until it was clearly impossible to avoid that admission any longer. Indeed, that seems to be the deciding factor to date. Not until critics raised the spectre of a recantation, did TNR readers learn that you, yourselves, already knew Beauchamp had “signed several statements under what he described as pressure from the Army” when you published his coming out letter, way back on July 26th. For the purposes of shifting the onus here, let’s just pretend that the Army’s editorial counterparts at TNR would never pressure Beauchamp to corroborate his stories in any way, shall we? Oh, wait. That’s just what the critics are saying, isn’t it?

The Army would be under no obligation to exonerate or refute or otherwise satisfy TNR, even if you hadn’t been perfectly willing to cut them out of the loop when it seemed to work to your advantage. The idea that they should do so now by riding roughshod over the confidentiality of their own investigation and the privacy interests of Beauchamp’s fellow soldiers — and, indeed, of Beauchamp himself — so that you don’t have to expose your own sources and methods is a perversion of journalistic principle not a defense of editorial propriety.

The Army’s decisions are neither dispositive nor even relevant to the real controversy here. Your claim that “Shock Troops” was “rigorously edited and fact-checked before it was published” along with your decision to publish on that basis have always been the central issues. It is your own emphasis on “re-reporting” that allows you to pose such strawmen now and to obscure the fact that you have been unable to describe virtually any serious attempt at vetting “Scott Thomas” or his “war” stories before you went to press. As far as this reader is concerned, the first issue has already been settled in that breach.

What remains to be fleshed out is the question of editorial judgment and intention. Casting your critics, and the Army, of course, as ideologically debased adversaries without any conceivable claim to the integrity you apparently reserve to yourselves alone will certainly elicit applause from those who need no persuading. If they’re your target audience, then the ideological hole you’re digging yourselves makes editorial sense. If not, then what you need most right now is an intervention. Developments like the stark contrast between the representation you offered up from a gratuitously anonymous Bradley spokesman and the on-the-record assessment obtained from the same source by Bob Owen mentioned above unfortunately suggest that even your “re-reporting” may represent considerably less than a search for or committment to truth. In contrast, your defenders elsewhere add little to the story beyond the same sort of generalizations and pop psychology provided in your own hosted threads.

Publishing anonymous sources is no business for amateurs. If you’re not sure enough of your author, or his accuracy, or the importance of the message you’re sponsoring to take major lumps from any quarter for it, then you need to leave such endeavors to pros who are prepared to take the heat. You are hoist on an anonymous petard of your own devising, and playing the ex post facto political victim will do nothing to rehabilitate your journalistic / reputation.

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

Damaging information about Beauchamp? What was damaging? That he signed an affidavit? If TNR knows that, and considers it “damaging”, why do they still stand behind his lies? Why does TNR consider it damaging?

Moreover, on the same day he signed these statements for the Army, he gave us a statement standing behind his articles, which we published at tnr.com.

So TNR acknowledges he signed something. If he gave TNR his statement the same day as he signed the “statements”, why did TNR take several days before posting they still stood by his writings?

TNR is not even as credible as a small town high school newspaper.

Dean Barnett writes, “As you’ve probably heard, [Bob] Owens wrote a blog post yesterday that shredded the last remnants of The New Republic’s reputation”, a post in which Owens wrote:What is most interesting about the The New Republic’s statement …

“What’s more, the Army has rejected our requests to speak to Beauchamp himself, on the grounds that it wants “to protect his privacy.”

OK, first of all, I thought the guy’s wife worked for TNR. So I’m pretty sure they can’t “stonewall” her.

And even if that weren’t the case, TNR was certainly in regular contact with Beauchamp before. If HE quit talking to THEM, then that fits perfectly with everything the military has been saying. But, as always, Occam’s razor is the worst enemy of liberal conspiracy theorists.

But, even if we assume that everything TNR ever said is absolutely true (even the claims that make no sense and contradict each other) what the heck difference does it make whether the Army actually did put Beauchamp in a dungeon somewhere?

The average American personally knows or is directly related to at least a few military personnel. And if you just take that to one degree of separation, the average American could probably get in contact with DOZENS of active duty soldiers.

But now TNR – which claims to be a news gathering organization – is whining because its “sole contact” with the US military has been severed.

There are only two explanations for this, and I don’t know which is worse:

1) TNR is lying, and they have close relationships with lots of brave people in the military who literally would not lie to save their lives; but none of them are saying anything like what Beauchamp said, or

2) TNR is telling the truth, and nobody else who works for them even knows anyone WHO KNOWS ANYONE in the military.

I suspect the explanation is a weird combination of those two things. Of course no one who’s stood up in the face of machine gun fire could possibly give less of a rat’s ass whether the “evil HitlerBushCheny” wants him to lie or not. But the moonbats at TNR assume that 99.99% of the people in the military are “untrustworthy” because they don’t say any of the things that TNR wants to hear.

Moreover, on the same day he signed these statements for the Army, he gave us a statement standing behind his articles, which we published at tnr.com

And TNR put its own preface on his statement:

As we’ve noted in this space, some have questioned details that appeared in the Diarist “Shock Troops,” published under the pseudonym Scott Thomas. According to Major Kirk Luedeke, a public affairs officer at Forward Operating Base Falcon, a formal military investigation has also been launched into the incidents described in the piece.

Isn’t it slightly odd that TNR does not say that they heard about the investigation from STB?

Here’s what we know: On July 26, Beauchamp told us that he signed several statements under what he described as pressure from the Army.

Oh, really? Shouldn’t everyone who has been pursuing this story now be asking the Army for comment on this new allegation?

If it’s in print, it must be true.

They’re clueless.

BTW, what schools of journalism did the TNR editors attend? I want to avoid these schools.

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

Heh… quite a statement, especially coming from a pack of left leaning pseudo-intellectuals losers who have elevated verbal masonry to an art form.

It’s hard, getting taken on a ride… again…

But it happens, TNR needs to enter the acceptance phase… not all publications, no matter how lofty their ambitions, are meant to be taken seriously.

Accept it, run with it, The Weekly World News may have the market cornered on insane shadowy conspiracies at the moment, but TNR is closing in fast. Don’t fight it, flow with it…

Franklin Foer is the 2007 version of Steve Glass. A liar, pure and simple. But that’s what liberals do — “lie for sport” (an Ann Coulterism).

And here’s the fun part. SHOULD BoChump publicly recant his sworn statement, he’ll be admitting that he committed perjury by admitting that he lied to investigators when he admitted he was embellishing facts.

So go ahead, BoChump. Admit to comitting perjury as well.

Foer’s stonewalling because he has nothing. Rather than proving that his story is true, he’s only proven that it could be true, and now he’s demanding that the Army prove that it’s false.

That doesn’t smell like journalistic integrity.

LOL, they are such losers that when they say family memberS, I just assume that it will end up being only his wife.

Bryan – What I want to know is, if TNR (and Beauchamp’s family) have not been allowed to talk to him, how can they claim that he was pressured into signing a statement?

They can think he was pressured. They can hope he was pressured. But, they can’t state it as a fact if they’ve had no opportunity to talk to Beauchamp and ask him about the statement (which, at first, they claimed had never even been signed).

JadeNYU on August 10, 2007 at 4:38 PM

Exactly.

Additional thought on the signed statement: You make a sworn statement every time you file your taxes and sign them (even electronically). DKK

LifeTrek on August 10, 2007 at 4:31 PM

Yes, but the tax forms don’t have that little “Privacy Act 1974″ blurb at the bottom.

TheBigOldDog on August 10, 2007 at 4:25 PM

That sounds like a good idea.

pre-traumatic stress syndrome

That’s awesome, Nosferightu.

Wait a minute – so now they’re saying Beauchamp was pressured into signing the statements Goldfarb talked about . . . but these weren’t contradictary? Why would the Army pressure Goldfarb to sign statements that merely backed up everything he said?

Hypothetically, STB could claim he was “pressured” into admitting that the misconduct he described actually happened, with the possibility tht he and his “buddies” would be punished for it.

The problem with that is the Army investigation concluded what STB’s allegations were false. So if he doubled down to the investigators, he would have put himself in much greater jeopardy by signing what they concluded was a false statement. We know he’s getting the lowest form of punishment, which implies that didn’t happen. And brings you full circle, because investigators generally do not get people to make exculpatory statements.

They can think he was pressured. They can hope he was pressured. But, they can’t state it as a fact if they’ve had no opportunity to talk to Beauchamp and ask him about the statement (which, at first, they claimed had never even been signed).