Monday, August 06, 2007

Scott Thomas “Liar” Beauchamp Recants - Updated

What a putz this guy is.

• Beauchamp Recants

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. So as Beauchamp was in Iraq signing an affidavit denying the truth of his stories, the New Republic was publishing a statement from him on its website on July 26, in which Beauchamp said, “I’m willing to stand by the entirety of my articles for the New Republic using my real name.”

[Emphasis added]

And isn’t it convenient that the New Republic is on vacation?

I had to grab this graphic from Gateway Pundit:

RELATED:

Allahpundit at Hot Air comes to a very odd conclusion, in my opinion. He says:

No independent evidence is offered aside from the recantation itself so we’re where I thought we’d be two days ago — with a confirmed liar and no way of proving which side he’s lying to.

There is the recantation and there is the investigation which interviewed everyone in Beauchamp’s unit and no one recalled the things he wrote about, plus we have statements and here and here and here from a variety of PAOs making official statements denying the incidents Scott Beauchamp wrote about. Allah seems to put Franklin Foer’s integrity and dishonorable intentions on an equal footing with those of Army grunts, NCOs and officers at 3 separate commands with no motive to lie or any way to coordinate their statements to investigators. I call that a faulty premise. It only took the coordination of two people at TNR to perpetrate the Scott Beauchamp fantasies, Foer and Beauchamp’s editor wife. Her motive was probably love, Foer’s motive was to make the military look like insane animals.

Ace thinks “Franklin Foer Doesn’t Want To Tell Ellie Reeves Her Husband Is A Liar”

John Hinderaker at Power Line agrees with me about TNR’s motives:

The New Republic didn’t bother to verify Beauchamp’s stories, apparently because it found them to be self-authenticating: a depiction of America’s soldiers that just had to be true. It appears that Beauchamp’s yarns will be another chapter in the sad history of “fake, and not accurate, either” news stories. Whether the New Republic can survive this debacle, in view of its history of falling for hoaxes, remains to be seen.

Jeff Goldstein weighs in to predict the spin. And in comments, Jeff supports my contention that Allah’s premise is wrong and for the same reason, the independent verification. He does not find the independent verification claims of TNR to be credible, whereas I approached it from the view that the independent investigation of others at FOB Falcom and in Kuwait is credible and leaves no doubt in my mind that the lies went from Beauchamp to TNR to the public.

Allah is making the interesting (but I think wrong) argument that by recanting, Beauchamp gives the army what it wants — to clear its name. Further, in recanting, Beauchamp figures such is the best hope for leniency.

Either way he lied to someone. Allah thinks we can’t be sure to whom. But the independent verification of certain incidents by TNR simply don’t strike me as credible.

What is important her is that Beauchamp recanted under oath and signed his name to it. If later he claims that he was forced to do so, he is still a sellout.

Unless, of course, you believe the army executed Pat Tillman, in which case you’ll nod knowingly at Beauchamp’s predicament and continue to think him a hero.

Cadillac Tight via a tip from Instapundit reminds us of all the other screw-ups by The New Republic.

Sweetness and Light reminds us in a very graphic manner what guys like Foer and his ilk really think about our military, so is it any wonder they would gobble up Beauchamp’s accounts as gospel?

Disgusting!

And Ace in a new post concludes: “The media’s new standard of confirmation—“smells good."”

Blackfive sums up in the way only he can do:

So as it turns out US troops are not heartless barbarians and that far too many people on the left can’t accept that. Well from one of those barbarians who just happens to have more humanitarian and disaster assistance work under his belt than any of the smirking elite sitting around the table at Franklin “Which way is the door?” Foer’s editorial meetings, F**k you very much! You finished what Glass started, and may this serve as a lesson to the many other supposed honest media sources, your agenda is pitifully obvious and your tactics so childishly unsophisticated that I almost feel guilty smacking you around. But I will, and I hope it stings.

Hugh Hewitt gives us the bottom line:

Now Mr. Foer is in a no-win situation. Either Beauchamp lied under oath to military investigators, making him a liar and destroying his credibility, and taking down the credibility of the editorial staff of the New Republic, and that of the magazine itself.

Or Beauchamp got caught in a lie by military investigators, and when confronted, agreed to recant, making him a liar and destroying his credibility, and taking down the credibility of the editorial staff of the New Republic, and that of the magazine itself.

...

Transparency is the only thing that can save The New Republic, a trait that is not imbued in Franklin Foer as demonstrated by the way he has handled the Beauchamp affair from the beginning. It is time for him to go.