The New Republic taken in again?

[Bricker]

I’m surprised no one’s posted about The New Republic’s controversy. They printed several pieces from a correspondent later determined to be US Army Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp which recounted various stories illustrating the horror, cruelty, and ugliness of the Iraq war.

Apparently, though, they may not have happened. The Weekly Standard quoted a military source of thier own as saying that as the result of the Army’s investigation, Beauchamp had signed an affidavit acknowledging various exaggerations and falsehoods in his three articles. Sundry bloggers have dissected claims made in Beauchamp’s articles and identified numerous inconsistencies. In addition, Beauchamp is apparently married to a New Republic fact-checker, Elspeth Reeve.

So far, The New Republic has fired only one person: a staffer named Robert McGee, an assistant to The New Republic’s publisher. McGee’s involvement in the scandal? He tipped off outside media to the fact that Beauchamp and Reeve were married.

In my view, the insistence of New Republic Editor Franklin Foer in defending Beauchamp is reminicsent of CBS’s defending the Dan Rather memos’ authenticity for days after every other news source had exposed them as phony. It’s clear that there are serious problems with the authenticity of Beauchamp’s articles, and TNR’s hunkering down behind a wall of support and denial won’t do anything positive.

[John_Mace]

TNR, like it’s conservative counterpart TNR*, is an agenda driven magazine. Both are susceptible to this type of problem. Note that it’s quite possible the confession is bogus, too, per your link:

It is not clear whether investigators might have pressured Beauchamp into disavowing the articles by indicating that charges might otherwise be filed against him under the military justice code. A military official said Beauchamp had committed two violations, making false statements and not obtaining permission to publish the articles, which were written under the name Scott Thomas.

Let’s just say that they shouldn’t be publishing articles by an anonymous soldier who just so happens to married to someone on their staff. Whether the articles are true are not, they are tainted. (Oooooh, tainted love… oh-oh-oooh…)

*The National Review

[Evil_One]

Based on the New Republic’s political bent and that of its target audience, the “facts” of these articles fell under the category of “too good to check”.

[elucidator]

I feel your pain. As you grieve to see a bastion of liberal thought brought low. But perhaps it is a bit early to rend your garments, there is quite a bit more to the story.

Perhaps you could give us more about these “numerous inconsistencies”, since the facts ar at your very fingertips. I have been cozened by the media, suckered into thinking that the “numerous inconsistencies” were few and rather trivial. Since you have the truth, perhaps you could share it more generously with us, the woefully ill-informed.

[RTFirefly]

I don’t feel I’ve got a dog in this fight - the New Republic has been the “Joe Lieberman Weekly” for a good while now, and they’ve been Iraq war boosters since there was a possible Iraq war on the horizon to root for. So if the real wingnuts want to do a takedown of the semiconservative pseudo-Dem New Republic, that’s fine with me.

That said, I don’t find the evidence behind the takedown particularly convincing yet. That Beauchamp is married to a TNR fact-checker is about as significant to me in impugning his story as Valerie Plame Wilson’s role in helping get Joe Wilson on a plane to Niger was in impugning his testimony. If the military really had the goods on Beauchamp, they wouldn’t be leaking claims about his supposedly being discredited to a right-wing rag; they’d put it in a press release. And “[s]undry bloggers have dissected claims made in Beauchamp’s articles and identified numerous inconsistencies” without so much as a single example of the alleged inconsistencies doesn’t mean anything at all.

I’ve heard the one everyone else has heard: that a story he thought he recalled from a mess hall in Iraq, he actually heard at a mess hall in Kuwait. Yeah, that tears his whole story apart.

It might be that he really did make it all up, and the frequently-fooled TNR fact-checkers got fooled yet again. Fine with me if it’s so. This is one battle I’m happy to see, because either some wingnuts will wind up looking bad yet again, or TNR will wind up looking bad yet again. Either way, all good liberals will have something to grin about.

[Bricker]

@elucidator

I feel your pain. As you grieve to see a bastion of liberal thought brought low. But perhaps it is a bit early to rend your garments, there is quite a bit more to the story.

Perhaps you could give us more about these “numerous inconsistencies”, since the facts ar at your very fingertips. I have been cozened by the media, suckered into thinking that the “numerous inconsistencies” were few and rather trivial. Since you have the truth, perhaps you could share it more generously with us, the woefully ill-informed.

Well, as I understand it:

[ul]
[li]The mass grave vs. the cemetery: Beauchamp’s language suggesting a mass gravesite uncovered by his unit; the “confirmations” produced by TNR only confirming that a cemetery was there. The difference between the orderly disposal of human remains in a cemetary and the picture of a “mass grave” is significant[/li][li]The Dog Cut In Half By the Bradley: Beauchamp described a dog’s body cut in half by the joy-riding Bradley driver, when the reality is that the Bradley, while manuverable, doesn’t have a line of sight for the driver for close-in work and the story Beauchamp recounts would need the connivance of the whole crew… as well as destroying half the dog’s body, rather then cutting it in half, and putting items on the tank – treads, atennas, sights, etc - at risk. Also slowing down to hit dogs would make the vehicle and other vehicles part fo the patrol more vulnerable to attack – and if the guy is driving, a two-hands/full time taks, how is stopping to record his ‘dog kill count’ in a green book?[/li][li]The half-hearted confirmation attempts by TNR - their “investigation” involved asking very general questions of experts, and not showing the experts the original articles or statements in question, which suggests no real desire to ferret out the truth but rather a desire to get something, anything, that could be used to say “confirmed.” Example: the Bradley expert that ‘confirmed’ Beauchamp’s story for TNR was contacted by Weekly Standard, and revealed that he had answered only general questions from TNR about the Bradley, and not been given any of the specifics of the story[/li][/ul]

If these flaws were in a White House report, or from a conservative magazine, I am very confident that we’d see post after post blasting them for their lack of truthfulness.

Why not apply the same standard here?

[elucidator]

@Bricker

…Why not apply the same standard here?

Well, of course, its difficult to say, the record of candor and straightforward honesty from conservative sources being so spotless. And all.

And who do we thank for bringing these gross inaccuracies to our notice? You have neglected to advise us as to whom we should honor with our gratititude.

[treis]

@Bricker

If these flaws were in a White House report, or from a conservative magazine, I am very confident that we’d see post after post blasting them for their lack of truthfulness.

Why not apply the same standard here?

And we come to the real reason for the thread. Another round of “Dopers are hypocrites” by Bricker.

[Malodorous]

@treis

And we come to the real reason for the thread. Another round of “Dopers are hypocrites” by Bricker.

Not only hypocrites, but hypothetical hypocrites. If such a story were from a conservative magazine, he’s sure we’d see posts blasting it. I’m not sure why Bricker (and a lot of other Dopers) get such a kick out of postulating hypocrisy of (usually unspecified, beyond the fact that there are lots of 'em) posters in make believe situations. There isn’t really anyway to respond constructively to being accused of a crime that happened only in the mind of the OP.

If you want to accuse someone of hypocrasey, link to a past thread where someone specific engaged in the behavior you’re discussing. There’s enough real stuff to debate without arguing in make-believe land.

[toadspittle]

A fascinating reading of that article by Bricker. My favorite line:

The Weekly Standard, the conservative magazine that has led the charge against Beauchamp, cited an unnamed military source yesterday as saying that Beauchamp had signed an affidavit acknowledging that his three articles were filled with exaggerations and falsehoods. That could not be independently confirmed, but it is common practice for the subject of an investigation to sign a statement confirming or denying the conduct in question.

Ruh-roh! Pot, this is kettle. Kettle, this is pot.
Regarding the actual falsehoods, elucidator:

“An investigation has been completed and the allegations made by Pvt. Beauchamp were found to be false,” an Army statement said. “His platoon and company were interviewed and no one could substantiate the claims.”

…

Beauchamp, 23, who is married to New Republic reporter Elspeth Reeve, wrote last month that a soldier had used a Bradley Fighting Vehicle to run over stray dogs, and that others had found and played with the skulls of Iraqi children. Beauchamp also wrote that he and other soldiers had openly mocked a woman whose face had been disfigured by an injury – but later acknowledged the incident had taken place in Kuwait before his unit was deployed, not at a Baghdad base as he originally maintained.

…

A military official said Beauchamp had committed two violations, **making false statements **and not obtaining permission to publish the articles, which were written under the name Scott Thomas.

**The Army statement did not specify what were described as Beauchamp’s falsehoods **and does not plan to make its report public. “The matter is considered to be closed,” said Lt. Col. Joe Yoswa, an Army spokesman in Baghdad.

[BrightNShiny]

[Digby’s take on it](I suppose more generally I want to know, when a people has the means to overpower or control another group do they always opt to do it?)

@Bricker

If these flaws were in a White House report, or from a conservative magazine, I am very confident that we’d see post after post blasting them for their lack of truthfulness.

Can you link to the thread in which you condemned the right-wing blogosphere for their bogus Jamil Hussein attacks on the AP?

[RTFirefly]

@Bricker

Well, as I understand it:

[ul]
[li]The mass grave vs. the cemetery: Beauchamp’s language suggesting a mass gravesite uncovered by his unit; the “confirmations” produced by TNR only confirming that a cemetery was there. The difference between the orderly disposal of human remains in a cemetary and the picture of a “mass grave” is significant[/li][li]The Dog Cut In Half By the Bradley: Beauchamp described a dog’s body cut in half by the joy-riding Bradley driver, when the reality is that the Bradley, while manuverable, doesn’t have a line of sight for the driver for close-in work and the story Beauchamp recounts would need the connivance of the whole crew… as well as destroying half the dog’s body, rather then cutting it in half, and putting items on the tank – treads, atennas, sights, etc - at risk. Also slowing down to hit dogs would make the vehicle and other vehicles part fo the patrol more vulnerable to attack – and if the guy is driving, a two-hands/full time taks, how is stopping to record his ‘dog kill count’ in a green book?[/li][li]The half-hearted confirmation attempts by TNR - their “investigation” involved asking very general questions of experts, and not showing the experts the original articles or statements in question, which suggests no real desire to ferret out the truth but rather a desire to get something, anything, that could be used to say “confirmed.” Example: the Bradley expert that ‘confirmed’ Beauchamp’s story for TNR was contacted by Weekly Standard, and revealed that he had answered only general questions from TNR about the Bradley, and not been given any of the specifics of the story[/li][/ul]

If these flaws were in a White House report, or from a conservative magazine, I am very confident that we’d see post after post blasting them for their lack of truthfulness.

Why not apply the same standard here?

What standard would you like us to apply?

Here we have:

No citation of the original claims by Beauchamp.

No citation of the confirmations by TNR.

No citation of those doing the refuting based on claimed familiarity with Army equipment, circumstances in Iraq, and whatnot.

You’d be laughed out of court with a case like this, Bricker. I’ve certainly slammed people at DKos and FireDogLake who had more evidence on their side than this.

If it were a White House report, I’d still expect to see actual evidence of their having the facts wrong, rather than “I hear some bloggers said X, Y, and Z.”

[Mr.Moto]

I don’t really care about the politics of this issue either - some conservatives lionize the military too much, and it is true that the horseplay of soldiers does get out of hand at times, even spilling over into actions that are blasphemous, sacreligious, disrespectful of the dead, or profane. If this were all that needed to be said, it wouldn’t need to be said at all.

But it isn’t all that needs to be said.

About the worst thing you can by in the military is a buddy fucker. In units that depend on every member to watch each other’s back, hidden agendas are deadly. This is why those great classics of WWII and Vietnam memoirs typically were published well after the fact, when military justice could not touch most of the men involved.

Scott Beauchamp tried to publish these kinds of memoirs comtemporaneously. The Army, naturally, had to investigate credible accusations of UCMJ violations made by a servicemember, and then Beauchamp was in a fix - he could stand by the memoirs and really get in trouble with the Army (and take quite a few people out as well) or he could disavow them and piss off a magazine.

Either way, sadly, he already fucked his buddies over - they know he sold them out for a magazine byline. And whether the stories were true or not, his life will be a living hell until he leaves the Army. And to tell the truth, I have no sympathy for him. His life ought to be as tough as possible. His job was to be a soldier, not a writer, and he was a lousy soldier from the looks of it.

Now, none of this has any bearing on whether any of this was true or not. But at this point, nobody can tell. I sure can’t, though the tales look exaggerated to a degree at least. Scott Beauchamp has reversed himself, and if whether we take him at his word now or then, he was lying at some point. TNR says they have confirmation of some tales, but they’re being close lipped about that. It may be that this confirmation is from people over there who “knew” of these things secondhand at best. Military units are natural rumor mills. The Army has conducted an investigation and apparently Beauchamp has been administratively punished to some degree. But we do not know the scale of his punishment, and what the Army can do even without a court martial is significant.

What would be required is confirmation one way or another. I’d like to see it, in the form of convincing physical evidence or another soldier who is willing to confirm or refute any of this, and who appears free of any particular axe to grind either way.

Someday soon, Beauchamp won’t be in the Army any more. That will be for the best for him and for the Army and for other soldiers - he seems to have poisoned the well pretty badly. I sure hope he turns out to be a better writer than these articles indicate he will be, and I hope he turns out to be a better person than he is a writer and a soldier.

[BrightNShiny]

@Mr. Moto

About the worst thing you can by in the military is a buddy fucker. In units that depend on every member to watch each other’s back, hidden agendas are deadly. This is why those great classics of WWII and Vietnam memoirs typically were published well after the fact, when military justice could not touch most of the men involved.

Please clarify. This reads to me as if you are saying that a soldier should not rat out another soldier for illegal or unethical activity. Is this what you are saying? Or is it the methodology (not reporting up the chain)?

[Bricker]

@Malodorous

Not only hypocrites, but hypothetical hypocrites. If such a story were from a conservative magazine, he’s sure we’d see posts blasting it. I’m not sure why Bricker (and a lot of other Dopers) get such a kick out of postulating hypocrisy of (usually unspecified, beyond the fact that there are lots of 'em) posters in make believe situations. There isn’t really anyway to respond constructively to being accused of a crime that happened only in the mind of the OP.

There’s no case that’s four-square on point with this one, I grant. But frankly, it’s not too hard an inferential jump to imagine that a GD forum that’s seen complaints about integrity and approach like “Petraeus report will actually be written by the White House ,” “Commentator says W should make himself president-for-life, & colonize Iraq,” “Diebold deletes Diebold-critical material from Wikipedia,” “What a difference a decade makes…Cheney’s assessment of invading Iraq,” “‘Newsweek’ cover story exposes well-funded global-warming denial machine,” and “Bush’s War Czar says the draft is on the table,” would include a complaint about fabricated stories from a conservative magazine.

Does anyone care to honestly aver that, had a similar story broken about conservative fabrication, it would not have been trumpted here? Why would such a story been given a pass, when such a wide range of conservative- and administration-critical material is thread-starter material?

[marshmallow]

@Bricker

If these flaws were in a White House report, or from a conservative magazine, I am very confident that we’d see post after post blasting them for their lack of truthfulness.

Why not apply the same standard here?

A WH report? This would make sense, given the amount of power and influence which resides there. They dole out the talking points to various conservative media outlets, including print, radio, and television, so it would be logical to attack the misinformation and lies at the source instead of branching out and attacking the thousands upon thousands of publications which dutifully repeat them.

As for blasting conservative magazines or newspapers, I don’t really see that happening very often on this board, only in rare cases where a specific article or author is drawing a lot of attention to himself, e.g. the propaganda push to paint the surge as a rousing success, recently swirling around all these “war critics” and various figures traveling to Iraq and saying embarrassing things, featured prominently in certain articles here and there in a recent Sam Stone thread.

But just any old article? Come on. There are too many Kristols and Krauthammers floating around out there, although one could certainly find refutations and criticisms of them on various blogs and media related sites if you wanted. Just not on this board, in general.

Certainly, in a broader sense, I don’t think you’ll see anyone supporting irresponsible journalism in any circumstance.

[Leaper]

@Malodorous

Not only hypocrites, but hypothetical hypocrites. If such a story were from a conservative magazine, he’s sure we’d see posts blasting it.

Well, at the rate BrainGlutton is posting, I’m sure we would!

(I keed, BG, I keed. :D)

[treis]

@Bricker

There’s no case that’s four-square on point with this one, I grant. But frankly, it’s not too hard an inferential jump to imagine that a GD forum that’s seen complaints about integrity and approach like “Petraeus report will actually be written by the White House ,” “Commentator says W should make himself president-for-life, & colonize Iraq,” “Diebold deletes Diebold-critical material from Wikipedia,” “What a difference a decade makes…Cheney’s assessment of invading Iraq,” “‘Newsweek’ cover story exposes well-funded global-warming denial machine,” and “Bush’s War Czar says the draft is on the table,” would include a complaint about fabricated stories from a conservative magazine.

Does the GD forum include one of these threads?

[Mr.Moto]

@BrightNShiny

Please clarify. This reads to me as if you are saying that a soldier should not rat out another soldier for illegal or unethical activity. Is this what you are saying? Or is it the methodology (not reporting up the chain)?

Probably both. Soldiers watch out for each other on small infractions, and a certain amount of “extra military instruction” (this is what we called it in the Navy) is often applied when small infractions are noticed by a soldier’s immediate superiors. Thus discipline is applied without a black mark landing on someone’s record.

Large infractions should be reported up the chain of command, not to someone’s editor in Washington, DC.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

I’ve been trying to recall which blogger predicted exactly what would happen here: some small detail in one of Beauchamp’s accounts would turn out to be inaccurate, and the Red Staters would immediately have placards and marching orders to spread the word that he had been completely debunked.

It may have been Kevin Drum or Atrios.

Mr. Moto, I wonder if things might be quite a bit different in a war zone, such as Iraq or Afghanistan, than your experience in the Navy was.