Delicious, delicious irony

The Weekly Standard tries its hand at reporting:

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."

So the guy admits the whole thing was a lie and we're supposed to believe that, instead of announcing this in any official capacity, the military dispatched one "source" to anonymously leak the information to ... Michael Goldfarb of the The Weekly Standard. Seems to me as if there are smarter ways to advance exculpatory information than that. 

Also, am I the only one who noticed that the actual official explanation ("no one could substantiate") is quite different from the Standard's explanation ("author...signed a sworn statement admitting...exaggerations and false hoods")? How nice it would be to ultimately find that the only erroneous reporting in this giant imbroglio was published by the overzealous pundits at The Weekly Standard.

Comments

[daveinboca]

You are as gullible and naive as Barack. Pathetic degenerates like yourself simply don't get the fact that systematic lying as practiced by the Left & its pilot-fish losers like you will eventually be outted.

Franklin Foer should go because of this Steven Glass follow-up. Someone called the Beauchamp folderol "pre-traumatic stress disorder," and it went right into Foer's left-wing frontal-lobe circuitry without a single limbic fact-check. TNR rivals the New Yorker for its witless commentary & lack of fact-checking. Serial hack Hendrick Hertzberg mis-spelled "Saudia Arabia[sic]" and got away with it in TNY. Hertzberg e-mailed me to dispute an earlier factual mis-statement of his in TNY, then did the "Saudia Arabia" dodo-move.

Not in itself a big deal, but symbolic of how the Kool-Ade drinking nutroots like this Beutler dude simply get it wrong as an entitlement of their Bolshevik heritage.

[gordon]

Yes, the U.S. military and The Weekly Standard: two of the most credible sources on earth...

[Confederate Yankee]

Nice cherry-picking. Col Steven Boylan said flat out that the claims made by Beauchamp were false.

And as there was not "offical" statement released by the military (they in fact said there would not be an offical release), I'd like to know where you grabbed that from.

[what a douchebag]

I heard from an anonymous sources that Johnny Yank was arrested for solicitation of minors (boys and girls) and subsequently left the state of New York. There was no an "official" statement released by the state police.

[Brian]

One anonymous source.

[CosmoReaxer]

"the only erroneous reporting"

What, so now the woman with the disfigured face WAS in Iraq?

I think Foer gave away the game with that one. It's hard not to look at that "oversight" as a lie. If he made up that part, it's not unreasonable to expect he would have made up more.

[Col Bat Guano]

It's hard not to look at that "oversight" as a lie.

True, if you're dishonest hack with an agenda.