How do they respond to it?

With a 6,827 word behemoth of a article that spans through 14 pages. 

6,758 words of it are pure garbage.  Garbage written in a pathetic attempt to save his job.  Its only the last paragraph that gets to the crux of the matter:

When I last spoke with Beauchamp in early November, he continued to
stand by his stories. Unfortunately, the standards of this magazine
require more than that. And, in light of the evidence available to us,
after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the
events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described
them. Without that essential confidence, we cannot stand by these
stories.

Why does it take him so long to get to the fact that the stories cannot, nor should they be, stood by?  Because he has to write about the fact that he should never had allowed Scott Beauchamps wife to fact check his stories:

But there was one avoidable problem with our Beauchamp fact-check. His
wife, Reeve, was assigned a large role in checking his third piece.
While we believe she acted with good faith and integrity–not just in
this instance, but throughout this whole ordeal–there was a clear
conflict of interest.

He tells us about a soldier, whom he admits was taken out of Iraq on mental health grounds, who was the basis for the burned woman story.  Foer states the soldier stands by his story but provides no additional evidence.  None of the other soldiers at the base where this supposed burned woman appeared say they saw the lady.

And recall, this lady first appeared in the Scott Beauchamp stories at a Iraqi base, which was changed to a Kuwaiti base after the controversy broke.

Foer writes about receiving anonymous emails, at Scott’s behest, from soldiers that say everything written by Scott was true.   If only the Army wouldn’t be so mean to the soldiers then maybe they could get more details.

Pathetic.

Foer writes that these anonymous soldiers confirm the Bradley story, but as Bob Owens writes, he ignores the Bradley manufacturers themselves:

Foer also does not really respond to remarks by “the spokesman for the manufacturer of Bradley Fighting Vehicles” Choosing his words carefully, Foer states that “Nothing in our conversations with them had dissuaded us of the plausibility of Beauchamp’s pieces.” Foer, of course, said our conversations.

Foer still does not admit that TNR’s questions to Doug Coffey, spokesman of BAE Systems, the Bradley manufacturer, were vague to the point of uselessness. Foer also refuses to release the names of the other anonymous experts, including a forensic anthropologist, he claims support the story. It seems he does not want these experts to discuss the quality of the interviews they conducted.

Throughout the behometh Franklin Foer attacks those who questioned the piece.  He attacks the Army over and over again as being the reason he could not verify the stories by Scott.  From this,

It [the Army] first gave the story of Beauchamp’s supposed fraudulence to a former porn actor turned blogger named Matt Sanchez.

To this,

When Beauchamp had described his statements to us, it seemed like he
was walking a fine line, trying to satisfy his commanders while staying
on the side of the truth.

You see, its all the big bad Army’s fault because they can be so mean.

But what it all comes down to is that The New Republic felt that had the kryptonite to the Iraq war, or as they would call it, the Bush war.  They had some lady in their office, who had a husband in Iraq, who would tell these wild and crazy stories of the brutality of war, ala Oliver Stone’s Platoon, which would portray the war exactly the way they want it portrayed.

They must of been rubbing their hands in glee when they first got his stories.  It’s apparent now that they wanted to believe the stories so much that they did little to no fact checking.  And the fact checking they did do they assigned it to the writers wife.

Franklin Foer never brings himself to apologize for his publications behavior nor their mistakes.  In the end it was everybody’s else’s fault.

And that, my friends, is definition of being a liberal.

UPDATE

Meanwhile a writer at National Review has been caught in some lies of his own, and the difference in responding to the allegations is huge.  Franklin Foer and The New Republic would never admit the stories were false, never admit they made a mistake (until a year later) and instead of praising those who brought these allegations about Scott to their attention Franklin attacked them.

Not the National Review:

Bottom line: NRO strives to bring you reliable analysis
and reporting — whether in presenting articles, essays, or blog posts.
Smith did commendable work in Lebanon earlier this year, as he does
from S.C. where he is based, as he has done from Iraq, where he has
been twice. But rereading some of the posts (see “The Tank” for more
detail) and after doing a thorough investigation of some of the points
made in some of those posts, I’ve come to the conclusion that NRO
should have provided readers with more context and caveats in some
posts from Lebanon this fall. And so I apologize to you, our readers.

I thank Smith for his good, brave work. He’s a smart, reliable
reporter with a great patriotic spirit and sense of service. We owe him
and our readers better — we should have gotten you more context and
information before a post or two went live. It’s understandable how it
happened — the nature of blogging being what it is — but given what an
underreported tinderbox we’re talking about, especially, we owed you
more. We weren’t blogging about Dancing with the Stars there.

So I’m grateful to the reporter who contacted Smith with questions.
He brought them to my attention. We did due diligence. We’ve reported
this back to him. And now we’re reporting back to you.

Much, much different.  The way a ethical publication should respond.  The National Review didn’t blame anyone else for their mistake, instead they investigated the controversy quickly and put out a message that they screwed up.

I’m hoping Franklin is taking notes.

Since our last statement on “Shock Troops,” a Diarist by Private Scott
Thomas Beauchamp that we published in our July 23 issue, we have
continued our investigation into the article’s veracity. On Wednesday,
for a brief period, The Drudge Report posted several documents from the
Army’s own investigation into Beauchamp’s claims. Among those documents
was a transcript of a phone conversation that TNR Editor Franklin Foer
and TNR Executive Editor J. Peter Scoblic had with Beauchamp on
September 6–the first time the Army had granted TNR permission to speak
with Beauchamp since it cut off outside contact with him on July 26.
During this conversation, Beauchamp refused to discuss his article at
all: “I’m not going to talk to anyone about anything,” he said. In
light of that phone call, some have asked why The New Republic has not
retracted “Shock Troops.”

The answer is simple: Since this controversy began, The New Republic’s sole objective has been to uncover the truth.
As Scoblic said during the September 6 conversation: “[A]ll we want out
of this, and the only way that it is going to end, is if we have the
truth. And if it’s–if it’s certain parts of the story are bullshit,
then we’ll end that way. If it’s proven to be true, it will end that
way. But it’s only going to end with the truth.” The September 6
exchange was extremely frustrating; however, it was frustrating precisely because it did not add any new information to our investigation. Beauchamp’s refusal to defend himself certainly raised serious doubts. That said,
Beauchamp’s words were being monitored: His squad leader was in the
room as he spoke to us, as was a public affairs specialist, and it is
now clear that the Army was recording the conversation for its files.

The next day, via his wife, we learned that Beauchamp did want to
stand by his stories and wanted to communicate with us again.
Two-and-a-half weeks later, Beauchamp telephoned Foer at home and, in
an unmonitored conversation, told him that he continued to stand by
every aspect of his story, except for the one inaccuracy he had
previously admitted. He also told Foer that in the September 6 call he
had spoken under duress, with the implicit threat that he would lose
all the freedoms and privileges that his commanding officer had
recently restored if he discussed the story with us.

On September 14, we also spoke at length with Major John Cross, who
led the Army’s investigation into the Beauchamp case. Contrary to
reports in The Weekly Standard and other outlets, Cross explicitly said that Beauchamp “did not recant” his article in the sworn statements he had given the Army.
Moreover, although the Army’s investigation–which declared that the
claims in “Shock Troops” were false–purported to be conclusive, Cross
conceded that there were at least a dozen soldiers in Beauchamp’s
platoon whom he had not interviewed. TNR pressed for clarification:

Scoblic: So you didn’t get statements from everyone in his platoon, then?

Cross: We got statements from everyone in his platoon that was available that day we were conducting the investigation.

Scoblic: At a later point did you follow up with any of the people that weren’t available that day?

Cross: No.

Faced with the fact that Beauchamp stood by his story and the fact that the Army investigation had serious gaps–as well as the fact that our earlier reporting had uncovered significant evidence
corroborating Beauchamp’s accounts–The New Republic decided to continue
its investigation. On August 10, we had filed a Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) request with the Department of the Army for all documents
pertaining to its investigation of Beauchamp, particularly any
statements Beauchamp had signed. But it was not until October 10 that
Central Command informed us that the FOIA request was finally under
review by the appropriate office. We also repeatedly tried to get these
documents directly from the First Infantry Division, to which Beauchamp
is assigned, but we were told that they could be released only through
a FOIA request. We also tried to get the statements from Beauchamp
himself. However, when Beauchamp requested a copy of his own statements
from an Army legal adviser, he was told that he first had to coordinate
any dissemination of them with Army public affairs.

It was as we were awaiting the documentary record of the Army’s investigation that the Army leaked several documents,
including the September 6 transcript, to The Drudge Report, which
incorrectly reported that the documents show that Beauchamp had
recanted. In fact, they show no such thing, and Drudge soon removed the
supporting documents from its website, and later its entire report.

The New Republic is deeply frustrated by the Army’s behavior. TNR has endeavored with good faith
to discover whether Beauchamp’s article contained inaccuracies and has
repeatedly requested that the Army provide us with documentary evidence
that it was fabricated or embellished. Instead of doing this, the
Army leaked selective parts of the record–including a conversation that
Beauchamp had with his lawyer–continuing a months-long pattern by which
the Army has leaked information and misinformation to conservative
bloggers while failing to help us with simple requests for documents.

We have worked hard to re-report this piece and will continue to do
so. But this process has involved maddening delays compounded by bad
faith on the part of at least some officials in the Army. Our
investigation has taken far longer than we would like, but it is our
obligation and promise to deliver a full account of our findings.

–The Editors

As many have stated in the comments of this post, the fact that Scott decided to
go back to his unit and put this whole episode behind him, is not proof
that he has admitted he lied and is now sorry about it.  He instead
decides  to pretend like the whole thing never happened.  While
I was at first inclined to give him some kudo’s for trying to make this
thing right I now have to agree with many of the commentors that in
fact he has done nothing of the sort.  He has done the opposite in fact
by ignoring the whole debacle. 

Now, if what Foer says is true in the above response, that he in
fact now stands by his obvious lies, then he can go pound sand for all
I care. 

As for TNR, their excuses for not saying a peep about the investigation
are weak.  They never responded to the many new facts found by Bob
Owens, instead they chose to ignore everything.

Which can not be excused.

Also, what evidence do they have that it was the Army that leaked the documents?  I’m guessing none.  Just another attempt to soil the reputation of our military in my opinion.

They, along with Scott apparently, are
digging themselves into a hole that grows deeper by the moment.

UPDATE

Bob Owens on these “other soldiers” who supposedly refute the Army’s findings:

There are 58 pages of sworn statements
currently under legal review at Central Command’s FOIA Office in Tampa
that seem to directly disagree with that assertion, so let’s get the
facts as we know them out in the open.

To date, The New Republic has been very vague about the
specific claims of these anonymous soldiers, including how many
soldiers support each allegation, what their relative positions are
within the company or incident that puts them in a position to support
their allegations and what, precisely, they said in support
of their allegations. I think that it is quite reasonable for the
editors to release the full claims, if not the names of the claimant.

In addition, specific questions about each anecdote need to be answered for these claims to be regarded as truthful.

He also goes into each of Scott’s allegations in his stories, refuting all of them. 

But TNR still stands by the obvious lies.

And down the hole they go.

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 fabrication. In the lingering spotlight, no one seemed to appreciate the soft shoe.

It was not a story I followed closely because then–as now–I was focused on the war. But what struck me as most important was not that Beauchamp wrote some bad combat stress fiction, but that a media organization printed it as truth.

And what of Beauchamp?  Because he was the man who originally wrote the lurid overwrought fable of puppy-killing among the grave-desecrating cretins who made fun of a woman disfigured by bombs, the tepid outcome left many people unhappy.  Especially those who wanted to see him humiliated (he has been plenty humiliated.) Beauchamp was allowed to stay in the Army and suffered only a minor administrative setback.

I was at a reconciliation meeting between Sunni and Shia in the West Rashid district of Baghdad on 24 October, and it happened by complete coincidence that I was with Beauchamp’s battalion. In fact, I was with his old company commander for much of the day, although I had no idea for most of it that I was with Beauchamp’s old company commander. 

At the reconciliation meeting, Beauchamp’s battalion commander, LTC George Glaze, politely introduced himself and asked who I wrote for. When I replied that I just have a little blog, the word caught his ears and he mentioned Beauchamp, who I acknowledged having heard something about.  LTC Glaze seemed protective of Beauchamp, despite how the young soldier had maligned his fellow soldiers. In fact, the commander said Beauchamp, having learned his lesson, was given the chance to leave or stay.

It can be pretty tough over here. The soldiers in Beauchamp’s unit have seen a lot of combat. Often times soldiers are working in long stretches of urban guerrilla combat dogged by fatigue and sleep deprivation. This is likely one of the most stressful jobs in the world, especially when millions of people are screaming at you for failures that happened three years or more ago, and for decisions to invade Iraq that were made when you were still a teenager. Just as bad is the silence from the untold millions who have already written off your effort as hopeless. Add that to the fact that buddies are getting killed in front of you. (More than 70 killed in Beauchamp’s brigade.) I see what these young men and women go through, and the extraordinary professionalism they nearly always manage to exude awes me on a daily basis.

Lapses of judgment are bound to happen, and accountability is critical, but that’s not the same thing as pulling out the hanging rope every time a soldier makes a mistake.

Beauchamp is young; under pressure he made a dumb mistake. In fact, he has not always been an ideal soldier. But to his credit, the young soldier decided to stay, and he is serving tonight in a dangerous part of Baghdad. He might well be seriously injured or killed here, and he knows it. He could have quit, but he did not. He faced his peers. I can only imagine the cold shoulders, and worse, he must have gotten. He could have left the unit, but LTC Glaze told me that Beauchamp wanted to stay and make it right. Whatever price he has to pay, he is paying it.

The commander said I was welcome to talk with Beauchamp, but clearly he did not want anyone else coming at his soldier. LTC Glaze told me that at least one blog had even called for Beauchamp to be killed, which seems rather extreme even on a very bad day. LTC Glaze wants to keep Beauchamp, and hopes folks will let it rest. I’m with LTC Glaze on this: it’s time to let Beauchamp get back to the war. The young soldier learned his lessons. He paid enough to earn his second chance that he must know he will never get a third.

Though Beauchamp is close, I’m not going to spend half a day tracking him down when just this morning I woke to rockets launching from nearby and landing on an American base. Who has time to skin Beauchamp? We need him on his post and focused.

As for The New Republic, some on the staff may feel like they’ve been hounded and treed, but it’s hard to feel the same sympathy for a group of cowards who won’t fess up and can’t face the scorn of American combat soldiers who were injured by their collective lapse of judgment.  It’s up to their readers to decide the ultimate fate.

The New Republic treed like a bandit …  personally, I think they would make a nice Daniel Boone hat.

And he is 100% right.  You can count me as being in the “skin Beauchamp” camp but after reading Yon’s usual clearheaded thinking I believe the man IS trying to make it right.  While I don’t doubt he wrote the lies because he is against the war and wanted the people back home to believe it was Vietnam all over again while at the same time he wanted to become the next “Hemingway” but once caught he apparently made good.  He stayed with his comrades, he took their punishment like a man and faced the piper, and for that I hope he is forgiven.

Of course all this may be different if Foer’s statement last night is true:

Despite the contentious conversation, Foer continued to defend the
article days later. He did so again yesterday, reiterating that other soldiers
whom the magazine would not identify had confirmed the allegations.

While Beauchamp “didn’t stand by his stories in that conversation, he didn’t
recant his stories,” Foer said in an interview. “He obviously was under
considerable duress during that conversation, with his commanding officer in the
room with him.”

While the discussion “was extremely frustrating and engendered doubts,” Foer
said, Beauchamp defended his story in a subsequent conversation that was
conducted with no superiors present.

If he did in fact decide to defend the lies then all that I have written can be thrown out the window. 

But so far we have learned much on Foer and TNR.  They cannot be trusted and as Michael Yon said, are the ones who deserve to be treed.

Ed Morrissey:

No one has even addressed the story at The Plank,
TNR’s staff blog. No one, from Martin Peretz on down, has bothered to give an
explanation for the transcript in which Foer threatened Beauchamp with his
wife’s job if he recanted, or the named soldiers in the Army report who denied
Beauchamp’s claims. All Foer can do is to argue — through Kurtz — that he has
verified the stories with anonymous sources.

I find it hilariously ironic that Foer refuses to defend himself and TNR in
his own magazine, but instead goes whining to Howard Kurtz — at the newspaper
that he demanded Beauchamp refuse to engage. I wonder why Kurtz didn’t ask him
about that, and ask Foer why he was talking to the Post when he didn’t want
Beauchamp to do so. Foer’s hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Bryan at Hot Air:

The phone call in which Scott Thomas Beauchamp delivers the Mother of All No Comments, thereby refusing to stand by his own work for TNR, took place on September 7, 2007. So from that date forward, Foer has had a piece of knowledge in his head that he has refused to divulge publicly; namely, that when pressed, Beauchamp did not stand by his stories. But what did Foer’s TNR say after September 7, 2007?

Nothing.

Go back to what Foer’s TNR said on July 26, 2007.

Although the article was rigorously edited and fact-checked before it was published, we have decided to go back and, to the extent possible, re-report every detail. This process takes considerable time, as the primary subjects are on another continent, with intermittent access to phones and email. Thus far we’ve found nothing to disprove the facts in the article; we will release the full results of our search when it is completed.

Look at that last line again. Did TNR release the full results of its search when it was completed? I suppose they could argue that it wasn’t completed even as of today, but once they knew that Beauchamp no longer stood by his stories, they had all they needed to know. They knew that on September 7.

And they sat on it.

Foer was a party to the call. He didn’t have to wait for the Army to do a thing, and in fact owed it to his readers and his employers, one of whom was also a party to the call, to come clean. He didn’t.

And there’s another lie in that same paragraph. If the original article had been fact-checked at all, it wouldn’t have been run because the facts would not have checked out. So there’s lie #3. Their re-reporting evidently amounted to asking one of Beauchamp’s mates enough questions to get vague confirmations that have turned out to be false, and to ask misleading questions of a subject-matter expert to skew his findings toward an angle that benefited TNR. Lies 4 and 5.

And there’s one more: TNR has consistently accused the Army of keeping Beauchamp from talking to them. He’s been free to talk to them since August 6. Lie #6. They were the ones who told him not to talk to media. It’s right there in the transcript that Foer evidently never intended to see the light of day.

Now, compare and contrast all of this to the last scandal to hit the conservative yin to The New Republic’s yang, National Review Online. In March 2006, when NRO became aware that they had published many pieces written by a man who was being accused of plagiarism, they investigated. They didn’t attack the critics. They went through all of the accused’s articles and checked them for evidence of plagiarism, and when they found that he was guilty, they acknowledged their errors and apologized. National Review handled that scandal exactly as it should have been handled. Their example should have served to guide NRO’s friends at TNR during the Beauchamp scandal. But it obviously didn’t.

And their digging that hole even deeper for themselves.  Maybe they think this whole thing will blow over, at this point I can’t imagine what they are thinking by refusing to acknowledge that the gig is up.

I guess it all comes down to the usual leftist drivel.  “Sure, the story may be fraudulent, but the lie tells a bigger truth about the evil war perpetrated by Bushitler so its ok to keep the lie going.”

Makes sense right?

Kathryn at The Corner put up the PDF’s and I’ve combined them here and made them searchable (26 page PDF).

Some of the interesting parts:

Scoblic: I think Scott, what this is, you know, is that we’re going to have to come out to say that…because you know, you’re not going to talk to us anymore about the piece we just can’t, in good conscience, continue to defend it. And so the way it ends is that there’s going to be another round of stories and the story is going to be that an author lied to his editors. And they decided that they can’t trust him anymorc.

Beauchamp: Well. .. J mean, J understand it could be spun that way, but it could be interpreted in any way, and it’s going to be interpretcd in any way that it was going to be interpreted … I mean, that’s … that’s …

Scoblic: It’s not going to be, Scott. It’s going to be interpreted (unintelligible)

Foer: Most people think (unintelligible)… most people have an assumption that goes against you. And the few people that … there are a few people view to the extent that I view only do so because of the decency to stand by you. So, if we’re not able to stand by you because you aren’t able to answcr our questions, urn I think it kind of…you wouldn’t have much credibility left in the public eye.

Funny:

Scoblic: What are you going to do after this job? Are you staying in the Army?

Beauchamp: Urn, I don’t know what I want to do. Urn I haven’t made up my mind yet what I want to do.

Scoblic: Ah..you’re not going to be able to write anymore after this … you know that, right?

Beauchamp: 1…1 mean, I don’t really care at this point. That’s not…that’s not. .. basically what I’m saying is that’s not what is important to me…

Foer: (unintelligible)

Beauchamp: What’s important to me…

Foer: (Unintelligible) You could have told us this a month ago and ah… you know saved us… basically a lot of heartache and pain.

And even funnier is the findings of the Army:

6. Findings:

a. That “Scott Thomas,” author of “Shock Troops,” is PYT Scott Thomas Beauchamp, assigned to 1st Platoon. A Company, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment.  See Exhibit B, also found at www.tnr.com…ibloglthe plank?pid-128957 and Exhibit E.

b. That the incident of blatant disrespect for a disfigured woman in the FOB Falcon DFAC is a tale completely fabricated by Private Beauchamp. See Exhibits T-Y.

c. That the desecration of human remains and the discovery ofa “Saddam~era dumping ground” is false. CPT Erik Pribyla reports of seeing a “skull and what appeared to be a human femur” during the reconnaissance of Combat Outpost Ellis. He gave orders for the skull and femur to be buried with as much dignity as possible during the initial occupation of Combat Outpost Ellis (Exhibit G). PFC King reports that he buried the skull (Exhibit I). Other Soldiers report that there were several animal bones discovered during the initial occupation as well (Exhibits G, H. M. R & S). I find that the second set of bones were probably those of chicken. goat, or sheep remains. commonly found on Iraqi farmsteads in trash piles where they are dumped after a meal. The bones were collected and interred in a discreet manner. At no time did a Soldier place the cranial bones on his bead or wear them on patrol (Exhibits J, K, & N).

d. That the deliberate targeting of wild dogs is completely unfounded. See Exhibits H, L, M, N, 0, P, Q, R, & S. Combat Outpost Ellis is located in rura1 farmlands that are laced with canals and narrow roads. Driving erratically to hit dogs would greatly increase the level of unnecessary risk and be detrimental to the success of the patrol.

e. That Private Beauchamp desired to use his experiences to enhance his writing and provide legitimacy to his work possibly becoming the next Hemingway (Exhibits C-4 & D).

But we all know what is going to happen here.  The left has never met a loser they didn’t love and make excuses for and it wont be any different for this guy.  He will leave the Army, come home and tell everyone that the Army made him retract the story, that its all real and one big coverup, and he will be put up on a pedestal once again.

But the big story right now is the fact that TNR cover this whole conversation up, as Michelle Malkin notes:

I repeat Ace’s distillation for those who have only superficial knowledge of
this scandal: Remember: TNR Hid The Existence Of This Phone Call From
The World.

To paraphrase the Clintons: It’s the cover-up, stupid.

And TNR’s sliming of The Weekly Standard.

And TNR’s false allegations that the military was censoring Beauchamp.

And TNR’s pathetic attempts to wrest control of the story from Beauchamp as
he attempted to tell other media outlets that he was not being gagged, use
Beauchamp’s wife as a wedge, and refusal to acknowledge the truth of their
journalistic malpractice.

I mean check out this section of the transcript:

Scoblic: We were told you are setting up interviews with the Times and the Post?

Beauchamp: With the Newsweek and the Washington Post and it’s basically to let the media know that I’m not being censored. I can talk to the media, but I don’t want to.

Scoblic: Scott, all that does is trigger another round of stories. I mean, (unintelligible)

Foer: (Unintelligible) You owe it to us ah to just ah … you owe it to us to basically kind of report on ourselves and be able to put out whatever next thing… 1think you ought to basically talk to us, and let us control the way this story proceeds. I think that’s the least you could do for us. I think it would be further evidence, further sign to us that you’re just sticking it to us if you went and talked to these other guys before we could put anything out further.

Beauchamp: So. urn … so what are you saying?

Foer: I’m saying that I’d rather you not talk to the Washington Post. Newsweek or whoever else until we put out our final judgment on your pieces.

Not too mention Foer’s attempt to use Scott’s wife to force the guy to not recant.

Something tells me TNR is not going to come out of this looking too good.

Ya think?

UPDATE

Drudge may have gotten the docs from the Army since Bob Owens was about to get the documents from his FOIA request which, if tru,e sucks ass.  Bob has done much of the legwork on this story and while in the bigger picture the only thing that matters is getting the truth out, Bob should have seen some of the kudo’s for his work.  Drudge scooped it but you can still leave some thank you’s to Bob over at Confederate Yankee.  Job well done.

UPDATE II

Michael Goldfarb was the other one who has done a ton of legwork and he writes a good synopsis of these documents:

It is now clear that somewhere along the way, TNR stopped acting in good
faith and started doing damage control. They cited a Bradley expert who
purportedly confirmed that the vehicle could be operated as Beauchamp described.
But when Bob Owens tracked down said expert, BAE spokesmen Doug Coffey, he
denied making any such statement, saying that TNR had mischaracterized his
comments and that the editors had never shown him Beauchamp’s stories. He added
that having read the stories, they were indeed “suspicious,” and that he did not
believe the Bradley could be operated as described. TNR never acknowledged
Coffey’s later statements or its apparent misrepresentation of his earlier
statement.

And then came our report that Scott Beauchamp was no longer standing by his
stories. The editors at TNR responded to this report by insinuating that THE
WEEKLY STANDARD was not a credible source. They also accused the Army of
“stonewalling” and preventing them from speaking with their author. That was on
August 10. Bob Owens subsequently reported that TNR spoke to Beauchamp on
September 7–the transcript now posted on Drudge–but TNR never returned to the
subject, despite their claims of a “commitment to the truth” in that August 10
statement.

The documents posted by Drudge reveal that the New Republic’s editors
have known for several weeks that the central anecdote of the story was untrue,
that the other anecdotes were deeply suspect, and that the author was no longer
standing by his work. And yet they remained publicly silent even though they had
long ago promised to be open and forthcoming on the matter. Worse still, they
asked Beauchamp to cancel pending interviews with the Washington Post and
Newsweek, lest their complicity in Beauchamp’s slanders come to light.

Foer attacked his magazine’s critics as “reckless” and “ideologically
motivated,” at one point even demanding an apology from the bloggers who did so
much to advance this story and find out the truth of the matter. He now has more
than a little ’splaining to do.

Oh, he has much more then just some ’splaining to do.  The use of Scott’s wife to goad him into not recanting is just plain disgusting and wrong, wrong, wrong.

Foer: I think, I don’t wanna… You’re obviously in a very uncomfortable position in that your wife is involved in this, and I wish she wasn’t involved because I, I… trust her, I care for her, I don’t want her to get hurt in all of this. But she just, she sent me a note to tell you that it’s the most important thing to her that you say that you didn’t recant. And I don’t…1 feel that (unintelligible) in saying that to you because it puts me in an awkward position, but it’s what she wanted me to convey to you.

UPDATE III

Via Michelle comes news that Foer has responded.  Get this, he whines that he could not get access to a transcript of his own phone call:

“It’s maddening to see the Army selectively leak to the Drudge Report things
that we’ve been trying to obtain from them through Freedom of Information Act
requests,” Mr. Foer said. “This fits a pattern in this case where the army has
leaked a lot of stuff to right wing blogs.”

Mr. Foer said TNR had been trying since July to get access to some of the
documents Mr. Drudge posted, but that the Army had not cooperated.

Is this guy for real?

Other’s Blogging:

• Hot Air
• Blackfive
• Verum Serum
• Right Voices
• Michelle Malkin
• Ace of Spades HQ
• The Jawa Report
• Suitably Flip
• Blue Crab Boulevard
• Media Mythbusters

On August 10, after assuring their readers that they had “not thus far
uncovered factual evidence (aside from one key detail) to discount his personal
dispatches” (the mistaken “key detail” made nonsense of Beauchamp’s “Shock
troops” column), the editors asked the Army to allow them, “or any other media
outlet, for that matter,” to speak with Beauchamp. This statement is
particularly galling in retrospect, as we now know that it is TNR — not the
Army — that has gagged Beauchamp. On September 7 “the editors” asked their
author to cancel interviews he had scheduled with the Washington Post and
Newsweek. Given their “commitment to the truth,” one wonders why they would make
such a request. But do they deny that they did?

TNR editor Franklin Foer and executive editor Peter Scoblic seem to think
that they can keep up this charade indefinitely, but it is only the indifference
of the MSM that has let them get away with it for this long. “The editors”
closed their August 10 update by saying that they “refused to rush to judgment
on our writer or ourselves” — virtually the only honest statement we’ve ever
gotten from TNR on this matter. But it should not be the last. At some point
they’ll have to say something on the subject, only then the questions won’t be
about Beauchamp. They will be about “the editors.”

The last known word from TNR on this matter was August 10th when they said that the Army was refusing them access to Beauchamp and that they wanted Beauchamp to have permission to speak to either TNR or any other MSM outfit.  The investigation was ongoing so no access was allowed except family.  Once the investigation was completed in mid August he was free to speak to whomever he wanted and on September 7th he spoke to The New Republic.

Five weeks later not a word on what Scott said to them. 

But we do know that interviews with the Washington Post and Newsweek with Scott were cancelled at TNR’s request.  Who is gagging who now?

It is no longer about Beauchamp its about The New Republic and their ongoing stonewalling and deception. 

But I have to give them a hand here, when its another organization doing the bad fact checking they will take the gloves off:

A magazine gets a hot story straight from a soldier in Iraq and publishes his writing, complete with gory details, under a pseudonym. The stories are chilling: An Iraqi boy befriends American troops and later has his tongue cut out by insurgents. Soldiers mock a disfigured woman sitting near them in a dining hall. As a diversion, soldiers run over dogs with armored personnel carriers. Compelling stuff, and, according to the Army, not true…

The Army said this week it had concluded an investigation of Beauchamp’s claims and found them false.

“During that investigation, all the soldiers from his unit refuted all claims that Pvt. Beauchamp made in his blog,” Sgt. 1st Class Robert Timmons, a spokesman in Baghdad for the 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, based at Fort Riley, Kan., said in an e-mail interview.

The Weekly Standard said Beauchamp signed a sworn statement admitting all three articles were exaggerations and falsehoods…

Calls to Editor Franklin Foer at The New Republic in Washington were not returned, but the magazine said on its Web site that it has conducted its own investigation and stands by Beauchamp’s work.

Not returned?  What happened Frank, you were quite happy to attack those who were making allegations before and now you won’t return calls back to the AP?  Hmmmmm.

Bob Steele, the Nelson Poynter Scholar for Journalism Values at The Poynter Institute school for journalists in St. Petersburg, Fla., said granting a writer anonymity “raises questions about authenticity and legitimacy.”

“Anonymity allows an individual to make accusations against others with impunity,” Steele said. “In this case, the anonymous diarist was accusing other soldiers of various levels of wrongdoing that were, at the least, moral failures, if not violations of military conduct. The anonymity further allows the writer to sidestep essential accountability that would exist, were he identified.”

Steele said he was troubled by the fact that the magazine did not catch the scene-shifting from Kuwait to Iraq of the incident Beauchamp described involving the disfigured woman.

“If they were doing any kind of fact-checking, with multiple sources, that error _ or potential deception _ would have emerged,” Steele said.

He added that he was also troubled by the relationship between Beauchamp and Reeve, his wife, who works at The New Republic. “It raises the possible specter of competing loyalties, which could undermine the credibility of the journalism,” he said.

Paul McLeary, a staff writer for Columbia Journalism Review who has written about the matter, said The New Republic failed to do some basic journalistic legwork, such as calling the public affairs officer for Beauchamp’s unit.

“There is a degree of trust and faith editors have to put in their writers,” McLeary said. “If you’re on a tight deadline, you have to go as far as you can. The New Republic definitely didn’t go as far as it could in terms of checking out its stories.”

Ace wrote a long post last night where he takes apart the supposed eyewitnesses and comes to the conclusion that we have one eyewitness who corroborates all of Scott’s stories.  Very interesting post. 

The only good thing to come out of this kerfuffle is that people now understand that the MSM cannot be trusted.  It started with the Jamil episode, but of course the AP produced a man who denied being their source with a totally different name, and that all got fixed somehow.  With this story there appears to no way to dig their way out of the hole they dug.  They trusted a source because he was in Iraq and because he was married to a staffer.  That’s it.  They didn’t do any fact checking, except for maybe that one guy that Ace alludes to, and then went to print.  I believe it’s because the story fit their view of the war so well.  

Bloodthirsty robots sent by the United States to kill kill kill.

But I think we all know whats going to happen here.  TNR and Scott will both STFU for awhile, Scott will eventually get discharged, as a Private I’m sure, and then he will say that his confession was coerced as he was beaten with paperclips.  TNR will then claim vindication and they have the high road with their compadres once again.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned from a military source close to the investigation that Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp–author of the much-disputed "Shock Troops" article in the New Republic’s July 23 issue as well as two previous "Baghdad Diarist" columns–signed a sworn statement admitting that all three articles he published in the New Republic were exaggerations and falsehoods–fabrications containing only "a smidgen of truth," in the words of our source.

Separately, we received this statement from Major Steven F. Lamb, the deputy Public Affairs Officer for Multi National Division-Baghdad:

An investigation has been completed and the allegations made by PVT Beauchamp were found to be false. His platoon and company were interviewed and no one could substantiate the claims.

According to the military source, Beauchamp’s recantation was volunteered on the first day of the military’s investigation.

Of course don’t tell The New Republic this.  They verified everything the loser said. 

They can’t be faulted too much tho seeing as how his stories fit in so well with the narrative of the Iraq war they believe in so fervently.  Our soldiers just HAVE to be bloodthirsty ignorant robots.  Just like Three Kings told them they were.

One more made up story on top of the piles of made up stories from our media and the left. 

Want to learn more about those stories?  Check out the Media Mythbusters wiki here.

The editors of The New Republic declared:

… After questions were raised about the veracity of his essay, TNR extensively re-reported Beauchamp’s account.

In this process, TNR contacted dozens of people. Editors and staffers spoke numerous times with Beauchamp. We also spoke with current and former soldiers, forensic experts, and other journalists who have covered the war extensively. And we sought assistance from Army Public Affairs officers…

~~~

As noted above, among the experts that TNR relied on were Army Public Affairs Officers, or PAOs.

~~~

On August 3rd, I contacted Major Renee D. Russo, Third Army/USARCENT PAO at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, in an attempt to fact-check the new claim that the verbally assault on a female burn victim occurred at Camp Buehring, Kuwait, and not at Forward Operating Base Falcon in Iraq as he had claimed after his series of articles published by The New Republic was first disputed.

In a response posted on August 3rd, Major Russo stated:

Mr. Owens,

We have received other media queries on the alleged incident, but have not been able to find anyone to back it up. There is not a police
report or complaint filed on this incident during that timeframe. Right now it is considered to be a Urban Legend or Myth.

I am still researching the incident and will have to get back with you
later with any new developments.

~~~

It so happens that Jason Zengerle, Senior Editor of The New Republic did contact Major Russo. What did Major Russo tell Editor Zengerle?

According to Major Russo:

I released the same information that I gave you. The process and answers are the same when dealing with media queries.

In other words, the Army PAO contacted by The New Republic was told by the PAO that the claim could not be verified, and that the burn victim story was regarded as an "urban legend or myth"… and The New Republic ran their story without disclosing this apparent contradiction.

They leave out the fact that the Army investigating this losers stories told them that the burned women part appears to be urban legend.  The fact that no one could be found to corroborate the story.  Why is that? 

Because it doesn’t fit the narrative they want to tell about the story.  Like the AP and the Burning Six story, they produce a few anonymous sources who say its all true, except it was in Kuwait of course, and they can’t be named for fear of retaliation.  When it comes to a sensational story in a leftist rag there is no need to produce evidence apparently.  Print a big story at Fox News and they go bananas demanding names and serial numbers.

Col. Steven Boylan, Public Affairs Officer for U.S. Army Commanding General in Iraq David Petraeus, just emailed me the following in response to my request to confirm an earlier report that the U.S. Army’s investigation into the claims made by PV-2 Scott Thomas Beauchamp made in The New Republic had been completed.

He states:

To your question: Were there any truth to what was being said by Thomas?

Answer: An investigation of the allegations were conducted by the command and found to be false. In fact, members of Thomas’ platoon and company were all interviewed and no one could substantiate his claims.

As to what will happen to him?

Answer: As there is no evidence of criminal conduct, he is subject to Administrative punishment as determined by his chain of command. Under the various rules and regulations, administrative actions are not releasable to the public by the military on what does or does not happen.

As Bob points out, let that second sentence sink in.  "No one could substantiate his claims."  A bit different from what TNR reported in which they received corroboration from his fellow soldiers but just had to keep them anonymous.  Mighty convenient.

Anyways, it looks like this story is coming to a close.  An unhappy end for the lefties who so wanted to believe that our troops are mindless bloodthirsty robots for sure but I’m sure they will now claim the military is covering everything up and its all one big conspiracy. 

After a thorough investigation that lasted nearly a week the  4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division has concluded that the allegation made by Private Thomas Scott Beauchamp, the "Baghdad Diarist", have been

"refuted by members of his platoon and proven to be false"

The official investigation the 4th IBCT Public Affairs Office qualified as "thorough and professional" concluded late August 1st.  Officials would not speculate on the possibility of further action against Private Beauchamp, nor would they confirm his current whereabouts or status.

Bob Owens also received word from Kuwait where this loser NOW claims the burned woman story occurred. 

This morning, I contact Major Renee D. Russo, Third Army USARCENT PAO in Kuwait, to ask her if she knew of "a female civilian contractor at Camp Buehring with severe facial burns, and if so, when" she was there.

Here is her emailed response, in full.

Mr. Owens,

We have received other media queries on the alleged incident, but have
not been able to find anyone to back it up. There is not a police
report or complaint filed on this incident during that timeframe. Right now it is considered to be a Urban Legend or Myth.

I am still researching the incident and will have to get back with you
later with any new developments.

As it stands now, the U.S. Army in Kuwait, like the U.S. Army in Iraq, is casting strong doubts on the veracity of Beauchamp’s claims, stating that to the best they can determine at this time, the female contractor Beauchamp claims to have abused is either part of an "urban legend or myth."

All the editor of TNR can fall back on is that a manufacturer of the Bradleys says its possible to maneuver the bradley in such a way to hit a dog.  Of course the complaint was about the visibility on the drivers side which made it impossible for the driver to maneuver like that.  Funny how they don’t print an answer to that one. 

Just one more pathetic example of the tactics used by the liberal left to get what they want.  Total defeat of the United States in Iraq.  They will stop at nothing to ensure that what happened in Vietnam happens once again.  They want our soldiers to spit upon when they arrive home.  They want them hated. 

There’s no doubt the Baghdad Diarist comments distract from the mission. Lt. Colonel James Crider of the 1-4 Cavalry of Ft. Riley, Kansas gave me a Significant Acts (SIGACTS) briefing that included three car bombs, several IED’s and today’s near encounter with a lobbed grenade. No one has been injured due to information from locals. “The 1-4 Cavalry has been fairly successful in getting the people on our side,” said Lt. Colonel Crider with a slightly southern accent that translates well to the residents of this southeast Baghdad neighborhood…

With the dangers of the real mission in mind, soldiers at the PAO are frustrated that the major media has chosen to focus on the negative, a common complaint I have heard among troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The real question here is about accountability,” said Public Affairs Officer Major Luke Luedeke who was quick to debunk several statements in Private Beauchamp’s article “Shock Troops”, after several military bloggers, JD Johannes, Jeff Emanuel and Michael Yon, pointed out glaring inconsistencies in Beauchamp’s articles.

~~~

After several terse conversations, it was obvious soldiers at FOB Falcon took the events described in The New Republic very seriously. What was not so obvious was how seriously The New Republic editorial staff treated the matter. If the investigation proves the “Baghdad Diarist” stories to be false, what will The New Republic do? Will they retract the story? Will they reveal the process they used to vet the original information? Every soldier I spoke to realizes he or she is accountable for what is said and done while deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Careers can be ruined because of scandals like the “Baghdad Diarist.”

And Michael Goldfarb received some clarification from Matt about his visit:

We emailed Sanchez to see if we could get anything more definitive. Sanchez reports that the New Republic has sent “one or two emails” to the PAO at FOB Falcon to ask what were called “lukewarm” questions as part of their effort to “re-report” the stories.

Sanchez added that:

No one has seen or heard of the melting lady. No soldier would confuse an officer with a contractor. It just wouldn’t happen. It’s a small base and most people have seen each other. I just got back today and all these people I haven’t seen in a month are welcoming me back. They don’t know me, but they’ve seen me before.

Meanwhile a comment left at Matt’s blog appears to indicate that Beauchamp is currently undergoing a Article 15-6 investigation.  Not being Army I’m not sure what that is but I’m told its close to a Court Martial.

Right now, PV2 Scott Thomas Beauchamp is in the middle of an Article 15-6 investigation. If his allegations are true, then he’s a dirtbag who demeans disfigured women, tolerates the desecration of human remains and thinks that running over dogs is funny. If his allegations are false, he’s a walking honor code violation. Either way, I’m not impressed. Nobody on my tour did the kinds of things that he’s claiming.

Just rewards in my opinion.  I’m hoping he gets a great view of some bars in the stockade very soon.

UPDATE

ChrisG in the comments updates me on what exactly a Art 15-6 is:

an Army Regulation (AR) 15-6 Investigation is a formal or informal investigation into allegations which requires a commissioned officer to act as the investigator working with JAG, CID, and the entire command to discover if there is enough evidence to proceed with judicial UCMJ (Court Martial), non-judicial UCMJ (ART-15), or some other action.

Article 15 and AR 15-6 get confused often.

This means that a commissioned officer, probably a captain (O-3) Company Commander, or higher because of the charge, has been removed from combat operations to be the investigator.

http://www.gordon.army.mil/osja/15-6.htm (Guide to investigators)

http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/r15_6.pdf (Actual Regulation)

Good news to my ears.

As conservative bloggers yesterday continued to challenge the veracity of Beauchamp’s accounts, Foer said: “It is really unfortunate that someone like Scott, who was really only trying to tell his particular story, has become a pawn in the debate over the war and the Weekly Standard’s efforts to press an ideological agenda.”

Whoakay……who was trying to press an ideological agenda by publishing a soldiers stories without fact checking the damn thing?  I mean we all know you WANT to believe are soldiers are capable of this gross behavior but wanting does not make fiction…..fact.

TNR has also admitted that this loser is married to a staffer:

The magazine’s editor, Franklin Foer, disclosed in an interview that Beauchamp is married to a New Republic staffer, and that is “part of the reason why we found him to be a credible writer.” 

Cough….Plame…..cough. 

Don’t these people ever learn?

The only thing left out of this report is why Gracie, Ace’s inside source, was fired.  Pretty important news in my opinion but Kurtz leaves it out.

And finally we get this good news:

Foer also said Beauchamp "has put himself in significant jeopardy" and "lost his lifeline to the rest of the world" because military officials have taken away his laptop, cellphone and e-mail privileges.

Off to the brig shortly.  Couldn’t have happened to a better POS.

Other’s Blogging:

• Little Green Footballs
• Mudville Gazette
• Hot Air
• Hugh Hewitt
• Riehl World View
• Blue Crab Boulevard

Another long day…cleaning an M16, landscaping, dipping Pro Masks (gas masks to civilians) into strange concotions, a little bit of office work…basically a hodpodge of menially tasks to keep me busy. We finally got official dates on Iraq deployment: May 15 – Our Bradleys get shipped to Kuwaite June 11- Advanced Units move in June 28 – Bravo Team, second squad, first platoon, Alpha Company, first battalion, 18th brigade, first infantry division (the breakdown of who I belong to) deploys. Were probably going to sit in Kuwaite for some unknown amount of time, and then move into Baghdad…

This guy is an idiot.  Posting the what, when, and how his unit is getting deployed during a war is a HUGE no-no.  Bob talked to the PAO at Camp Falcon and got this response:

It most certainly is an OPSEC violation.

As I said earlier in this post, this guy is heading to the stockade, or jail for those not too familiar with the military.  I don’t know about you but I won’t shed a tear.  He has disgraced our military and our country by making up stories about our troops to further his grandiose visions of knighthood.

In other words he is a selfish son of a bitch who sold out his country for his own benefit.

He can rot in hell for all I care.