Constitution Club

The Final Word on Beauchamp?

Posted in Iraq, Liberals, News media, The Iraq War, blogging by Dave - the Infidel Sage on October 24th, 2007

That Took Foerever: Beauchamp Story Collapses

The documents posted by Drudge reveal that the New Republic’seditors 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.

The truth should always be demanded, and in this case as well as with the Rathergate forgeries and the like, the blogosphere has spawned a host of amateur and semi-professional sleuths that have been able to expose the lies and deceptions that twenty years ago would have been easily pawned off on the public as truth. We have entered the age of the citizen journalist and the amateur sleuth, and while these can often be hazardous as well as  intellectually and factually sloppy  (the 9-11 ‘truth’ movement is perhaps the best example) overall the blogosphere has become yet another ‘check and balance’ not only to the three branches of government but to the mainstream press as well. The question used to be asked  ”Who will watch the watchers?”. The answer to that has now become the simple but effective “We will”.  I still remember Andres fervent and emotional post (though I am having a bit of trouble locating it) about how we have somehow created a generation of barbaric monsters because of the Iraq War. One should not be so quick to buy into every hysterical pontification of the peace at any cost crowd. To often this is where it leads too.

 

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7 Responses to 'The Final Word on Beauchamp?'

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  1. Andre the Defiant said, on October 25th, 2007 at 3:35 pm

    Are we still talking about this? BTW, I think this is the post you are refering to. I stand by it, though I don’t see anything about barbaric monsters, and the only emotional aspect to it is that it depressed the hell out of me (and still does).

    BTW, hopefully the last fire update. Today was the first day back at work, and I found out that two people I know lost their homes, including the head of our entire engineering department (yet he still came in, wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops).

    There were about 25 RVs parked in the lot, but officials are saying people can start going back now.

    I think it’s over.

  2. Andre the Defiant said, on October 25th, 2007 at 3:48 pm

    Personally, I never paid much attention to the right-wing’s freak out over the soldier in Iraq, but John Cole posted about 10,000 times on it (probably because he realized two years ago he might have joined in on it). Since he’s following it, and I’m not, I’ll let him respond.

  3. pgwarner said, on October 25th, 2007 at 6:40 pm

    Thanks for the heads-up that your link was to John Cole, it saved me from clicking on it. Sorry, the guy is not worth reading.

  4. gurusteve said, on October 25th, 2007 at 9:35 pm

    Michael Yon on Beauchamp

    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.

  5. Andre the Defiant said, on October 25th, 2007 at 10:12 pm

    PG- #2 in his post is worth the click.

    BTW, I said the previous one would be the last, but if Lt Gov. Garamendi shows up on my teevee to blame these fires on Bush and Iraq one more time, I swear I will hunt him down and beat him to death with my shoe.

    It’s obvious he’s already running for gov in 2010, and I can promise him one thing: This leftie will vote for Ah-nold over him.

    What a disgrace.

  6. pgwarner said, on October 26th, 2007 at 9:32 am

    Andre, his post is a rant. If you read Steve’s link, the Wolf at Blackfive has met him also and says the same thing, Beauchamp regrets what he did. There are numerous sources (fact checked this time) that report he signed a document that his posts were lies.

    This is BS, believe what you want. The facts are out there. Just how full of crap does somebody have to be to believe somebody became battle hardened BEFORE he got to the battle field?

    I HAVE followed this story. Beauchamp was an immature and misguided young man who, with the active and knowledgeable help from people at the New Republic (including his fact checking wife), perpetrated a lie on the American public.

    The crazy right-wingers would not have been able to complain about this if the left had not run with it.

  7. pgwarner said, on October 26th, 2007 at 12:03 pm

    Just to follow up Challenge To Foer/TNR by Laughing Wolf.

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