Did TNR Burn Beauchamp?

TNR has finally gotten around to updating re the Scott Beauchamp controversy and they're making matters worse, for Beauchamp, anyway. I wonder, did Beauchamp go on the record with the alleged call to Foer? If not, than they've completely sold him out. If the call was on the record, than Beauchamp just bought himself a world of trouble. My gut says Beauchamp is telling everyone what they want to hear, but who knows?

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.

Implicit is an imprecise word, particularly given that we're dealing with a potential fabulist. Was Beauchamp under threat, or did he perceive one just as he perceived being in Iraq when he was actually in Kuwait, assuming the disfigured woman story ever happened at all? And given that he has  a lawyer, Beauchamp is being dumb if he talked without first seeking out some good advice that prompted him to do so.

TNR is also being too kind to itself:

Since this controversy began, The New Republic’s sole objective has been to uncover the truth.

For the above to be true, must we then assume that Newsweek and the Washington Post are incapable of performing that role? After all, TNR aggressively sought to discourage Beauchamp from talking to them. TNR's primary mission has been to control this story all along, that's a different thing from simply seeking the truth.

What this all ensures is that the story is not going away and that's hardly in the best interest of TNR. In hindsight, I wonder if they don't wish they had simply retracted and called it a day early on. Michelle has more. Charles at lgf is unimpressed.

Comments

[Kaitain]

Sorry but I really have to call bullshit on Foer claiming that Beauchamp called him at home. For a guy that only wrote 3 posts in a diary section set aside for Beauchamp, that's pretty amazing to get his personal home phone number. Especially when no one can corroborate that he did indeed call Foer at home. I'm sure the military monitors calls that goes out of the country as long they're checked and approved which I really sincerely doubt Foer was on Beauchamp's approved contact list but his wife being on there is definitely one of them though.

Foer's lying to us even more and he's willing to end up sinking the entire magazine's credibility over the claim that Beauchamp called him at home.

[Terry]

Well, Andrew Sullivan was mightily impressed with this latest nonsense from TNR. He goes so far as to suggest that what Beauchamp initially described were mere typical troop shenanigans, in other words, no big deal.

[Kaitain]

We all know what Sullivan has become, Terry. A lying sack of shit who claims to be a true conservative but he isn't. He's just a nothing that's been devoid of any sign of intelligence a long time ago. I'd be surprised if anyone thought he was still relevant nowadays although that is possible.

[Terry Gain]

Sullivan lost his mind when Bush came out in favout of a traditional marriage amendment to the Constitution. He's never recovered it.

"Your wife says the most important thing in the world for her is that you not recant". (She want's to keep her job and if you know what's good for you, you'll zip it.)