TNR Update On Beauchamp?

Update2: After looking at it, I'm not sure that's a new item - anyone else? I found it today via Memeorandum and just assumed it was current?

Update: Bypass TNR's subscription here via Google cache. h/t Charles Johnson

Josh Marshall links to a TNR update on Scott Beauchamp. I haven't read it. Based upon the link, it might have been nice to have made it public under the circumstances. Even Marshall has to admit to TNR's credibility problems, past and present. It isn't like I'd want to subscribe under the circumstances just to access more potential spin.

If you've been following the Scott Thomas Beauchamp Affair, I strongly recommend reading the latest update from The New Republic. The short version is that the Army's investigation of the case appears to be confined to a) releasing no information about their investigation or details of its findings, b) leaking alleged details to the Weekly Standard, which no one will confirm on the record and c) keeping Beauchamp himself in communications lockdown where no one but family members in monitored conversations can communicate with him.

Perhaps Beauchamp made this stuff up. And that's not a throwaway line; I freely concede it may turn out to be the case. There's no getting around the fact that the legacy of the Glass Affair puts an extra hurdle of credibility in TNR's way.

But the behavior of the Army Public Affairs Office suggests that what they are pushing is not an investigation that would pass any muster in the light of day but a war against a particular article and publication.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but going back over recent years -- the WMD stories, al Qaeda link, the Iraq War and more -- when you've got the goods, you take it to a real press outlet. When you're blowing smoke, you take it to the Standard.

Comments

[Purple Avenger]

Why does Marshall feel the need to prevaricate and claim the Army is placing STB in a comms lockdown. This is a baldfaced lie.

[Lala]

http://www.conservablogs.com/publiusforum/

Warner Todd Huston
Bill Clinton and Al Gore’s ‘Phony Soldiers’

and

Warner Todd Huston
Atlantic City Mayor, Phony Soldier, Under Investigation… but a Democrat?

What's up with people telling tall tales about their military service?

I worked with a guy who took two weeks off (paid) from work every year to attend his National Guard commitment. Things went swimmingly until he started to tell people he was a Colonel or something. He just wasn't officer material in the minds of a lot of people and so management checked his claim out. Turns out he wasn't in the National Guard at all and was therefore promptly fired.

[Dusty]

I'd say it was old and dated August 10 2007 (8.10.07) because their current articles fron the front page read, for example, 10.05.07.

I had to check when reading it through and seeing that, approximating, 'Beauchamp had been held incommunicado for the last 15 days'. That would make it an old story.

Personally I'd have a higher regard for TNR if they responded and appear to be totally delusional like this, than stay in their current head-in-the-sand mode. Cheers.

[Rix]

The Weekly Standard isn't getting leaks. They are just doing better journalism. If TNR did decent fact checking and investigations they wouldn't be in this mess to begin with. However, their sloppy reportage is not serving them well and they just look worse and worse. Rule number one of being in a hole: Stop digging. TNR just keeps shoveling the BS.

[jj]

Yeah, now we should blame the lies of Scott Beauchamp on the military? Blah..blah..blah. Let me see, the scarred lady in Iraq...I mean Kuwait, didn't exist. The Bradley is incapable of performing the acrobatics described by Beauchamp, no one could remember doing these things, and no officers or NCO's were ever around to stop Scott's moronic tendencies. Yeah, now that's believable.