I’ve written before (here, here, and here) about the scandal regarding The New Republic’s publication of articles by a US soldier in Iraq, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, describing barbaric behavior on the part of our soldiers. They were also complete lies….

Michael Yon on the Scott Beauchamp story, and redemption:As the real story unfolded, The New Republic looked increasingly culpable and ridiculous trying to hide behind a fact-checking process that was clearly stuck on the difference between fact and fa…

Beauchamp: I’m sorry if it’s personally… if it hurts you or hurts my wife, which I know it will, then I’m really sorry. But, if I’ve learned anything from this, it’s that this is her area and I’ll stick to my area and things will be a lot better for both of us.

What was his wife’s part in all this? Was she just his connection to TNR, or did she write, co-write, or edit the articles?

Foer, in TNR’s pages: “We just want the truth”.
Foer to Beauchamp from the transcript: “Your wife doesn’t want you to recant; and may suffer at work if you do”.

Is that the way to get “the truth”, or a way to blackmail someone into giving you a very specific answer you’re fishing for?

That’s so funny. Come to Manhattan and see the lib chicks who inhabit these media companies. You might wanna feel sorry for him.

JiangxiDad on October 25, 2007 at 10:20 AM

That very well could be and it made me smile to think of the type – though I know only a few. Where I live now is, thankfully, pretty conservative.

Let this be a lesson to others.

aunursa on October 25, 2007 at 9:05 AM

It should be and is a lesson to some, but it’s not likely those of Foer’s type will learn from it. Foer and the rest had plenty of examples they could have learned from.

I bollixed all that up in the section about lie #1. My apologies.

See how easy it is for someone to admit they screwed up? And the retraction isn’t buried on page C-23 like the MSM does it. This is the gold standard in the intellectually-honest blogosphere:

We’re not perfect; we make mistakes.
When we make them, we don’t edit them out and pretend we never said what we said. We admit we were wrong, and put the correction right next to the original. We learn from the mistakes and try not to repeat them. And we don’t shoot the messenger. Someone can point out an error without being considered a “troll”, “traitor”, or “apologist” for institutional evil.

We don’t always live up to that standard, but it’s what we strive for.

And they have the gall to look down their J-school-grad noses at pajama-clad barbarians.

You are right, stonemeister. Unfortunately, we are guilty of the same thing. Remember how eagerly we read the lists of those “mysterious deaths” of Clinton acquaintances? Like we wished Clinton was some mafia don, having people offed right and left. Like we eagerly await every scandal based in the Clinton’s camp. We hope Hill and Bill are guilty and almost resent the times, few in number, that they are found not involved in illegality.

Qzsusy on October 25, 2007 at 10:57 AM

I don’t know who “we” are, but whatever the case, what you’ve described is not the same thing. Wanting something to be true is not the same as assuming that it is indeed true.

I worry that it’s deeper than that. I’ve been noticing that, in the judgement of many on the left, if a story sounds like it should be true, they feel that is as good as if it were verified to be true.

stonemeister on October 25, 200

You are right, stonemeister. Unfortunately, we are guilty of the same thing. Remember how eagerly we read the lists of those “mysterious deaths” of Clinton acquaintances? Like we wished Clinton was some mafia don, having people offed right and left. Like we eagerly await every scandal based in the Clinton’s camp. We hope Hill and Bill are guilty and almost resent the times, few in number, that they are found not involved in illegality.

I was having an issue going back and forth yesterday with the TNR site’s inability to allow searches or links fron Google searches to old articles (Beauchamp especially). While I will still concede that it may be a purely technical glitch, after attem…

I feel some sympathy for Beauchamp’s wife. I can’t imagine she would have married him had she had the insight into his character this reveals. I’m expect he seemed charming and intelligent in normal circumstances.

cyrano on October 25, 2007 at 9:42 AM

That’s so funny. Come to Manhattan and see the lib chicks who inhabit these media companies. You might wanna feel sorry for him.

Their example should have served to guide NRO’s friends at TNR during the Beauchamp scandal. But it obviously didn’t.

The difference is though, is that the plagiarized stories are still true, whereas, Beachamp’s stories are lies that TNR wishes were true.

Had the case been plagiarism, TNR probably would have had an easier time admitting that since they wouldn’t have had to admit that they published agenda-driven lies.

Don’t you realize that the Beauchamp diaries may be fraudulent, but the lies tell a bigger truth about the attrocities committed in Adolf Chimpler’s illegal war for oil?

Oh, screw it. I can’t even type this with a straight face.

“He obviously was under considerable duress during that conversation, with his commanding officer in the room with him.”

Squad Leader != Commanding Officer

Not that I would expect Foer to know the difference.

I feel some sympathy for Beauchamp’s wife. I can’t imagine she would have married him had she had the insight into his character this reveals. I’m expect he seemed charming and intelligent in normal circumstances.

Anyone who has had a face-to-face debate with a leftist has observed this phenomenon…”don’t confuse me with the facts, it’s true, dammit!”

Precisely.

Franklin Foer has perfected his impersonation of a gyroscope in a vacuum — he can’t stop spinning. The editor of The New Republic spoke with Howard Kurtz yesterday about the release of the transcript of his conversation with Scott Beauchamp……