It's the coverup that kills you: A case study
"The editors" of the New Republic have managed to turn an embarassment -- the publication of an egregiously false and defamatory column by its Baghdad Fabulist -- into an institutional debacle. "The editors" have destroyed their own credibility by their faux investigative efforts and long silence. As Bob Owens has demonstrated, TNR's purported re-reporting of the Scott Thomas Beauchamp "Shock troops" column is a pretense if not a joke.
Yet "the editors" continue the pretense that they are still in the midst of their investigation of Beauchamp. It is now two months since "the editors" last weighed in on the ongoing controversy over Beauchamp. At that time, Franklin Foer and his colleagues had already conceded, and apologized to their readers, for a significant factual inaccuracy in Beauchamp's story -- that the incident involving the disfigured woman had taken place in Kuwait rather than Iraq, though they've offered no evidence for this claim either, and the PAO at Camp Buehring, the scene of the alleged crime, has said on the record that the tale is nothing more than "an urban legend." Although the factual inaccuracy, if that is what it was, destroyed the point of Beauchamp's anecdote, TNR nonsensically offered up the purported factual inaccuracy as a "correction."
But on August 10 TNR declared that it was still standing by its author despite a report from the Weekly Standard that Beauchamp himself was no longer standing by the stories. "The editors" claimed that the Army was "stonewalling" their investigation into the matter by preventing them from speaking with Beauchamp, and assured their readers that as soon as they could speak with their man in Baghdad they would report the results.
Since then TNR has said not a word about Beauchamp, and the Weekly Standard's report that Beauchamp had recanted has not been challenged. Further, Beauchamp's commanding officer, Col. Ricky Gibbs, told bloggers last week that Beauchamp "no longer stands by the stories." And yesterday Bob Owens reported that TNR had, in fact, spoken to Beauchamp…more than a month ago, on September 7. This according to Major Kirk Ludeke, whom Owens interviewed for his post.
Why would Beauchamp go silent and TNR along with him? Well, there can really only be one reason: the Army isn't stonewalling, its investigation isn't a whitewash, and Beauchamp's commanding officer isn't a liar. We already knew Beauchamp's stories weren't true, but now we must conclude that Beauchamp has told his editors at TNR that he no longer stands by his tales of petty cruelty and serious misconduct by himself and the men in his unit.
TNR has remained silent about this for a month, and "the editors" have miscalculated from the start in standing by an author who lashed out at those questioning his work only to turn around 48 hours later and concede that the most troubling anecdote he related did not happen as described, if it happened at all. If TNR editor Frankliln Foer thinks that the substance of the conversation with Scott Beauchamp can be permanently hidden from the public, he has made one more in what is now a long line of serious miscalculations.
"The editors" should know that the truth will out at some point, probably sooner rather than later -- that Beauchamp's stories are not true, that even Beauchamp no longer stands by them, and that "the editors" have made Beauchamp's disgrace their own.
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