Snorting at The New Republic, take two: Scott Thomas Beauchamp is not incommunicado

Sinking ship
Paging Franklin Foer, paging Franklin Foer….
Contrary to The New Republic’s claim that fabulist Scott Thomas Beauchamp is forbidden by the military from contacting the magazine or any other media or anyone else in the outside world, Blackfive blogger Laughing Wolf, embedded in Iraq, met face-to-face with him. LW writes that “he is not being held incommunicado in an undisclosed location with Dick Cheney.”
Bob Owens is waiting, waiting,waiting:
Just how long does it take to pen a retraction?
I only ask because it’s been roughly a month since The New Republic had their first solid chance to interview Scott Thomas Beauchamp since he returned from duty at COP Ellis.
Since then, he’s been online–hence, available–at least several days every week, including today. Beauchamp even had time to talk with Laughing Wolf from Blackfive as recently as September 30. Why not TNR?
Is Scott not talking to Franklin Foer, or is Franklin Foer simply unwilling to print what Scott has to say?
Or is Foer hiding under his desk, praying for all this to just go away and hoping his advertisers don’t get wind?
***
Earlier this week: Snorting at The New Republic.
Flashback: Franklin The Duck…
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- Never Mind The Phony Soldiers, I'm Worried About The Phony Journalists. | The Pungo Picayune
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Trying to get included on Rush’s Senate Condemnation Michelle?
No. I’m trying to help prevent The New Republic from getting away with its cover-up.
Just out of curiosity, why does the Senate waste time discussing statements made by private citizens, whether they are conservative radio talk show hosts or left wing dot orgers? My boss would be pissed if I sat around and did nothing but discuss Rush and/or MoveOn, since it has nothing to do with my job.
and doing well,
I see blog T.V. someday and more U.S citizens will be aware of what the hell is going on and how transparent the Dems are especially.
LOL Kevin. You are the boss so you should be upset with this!
Jones - you took the words right out of my mouth. My first thought was Michelle was on her way to a Senate Condemnation of her own (intentional or otherwise).
The obvious answer Keven, is that because the Democrats want to, which is because they think they can:
A) divert attention away from MoveOn’s attack ad which has backfired.
B) begin a campaign of intimidating non-liberal speakers and/or their infrastructure organizations into silence. It was so much easier when the MSM had a monopoly.
All about political advantage, nothing about doing their job.
Michelle, I think that first post was more along the lines of “if you keep making good, solid points against liberal publications, they’ll be coming for you next”.
Which I welcome. They think Rush is a tough one to go after? I dare them to come here and try it…
M6-4 out
It amazes me how the folks on the left can’t admit they are wrong even when offered irrefutable facts. I found it much easier to raise my hand and take responsibility (oops there I go thinking like an adult again) for my actions. Usually I have learned in life from my mistakes to modify my behavior instead of continuing down the path to keep repeating them. Keep on them Michelle maybe you might make the censure list too. That should keep Congress from doing any real harm this year.
Michelle, you guys had way to much fun yesterday, any chance you can leave us something for Saturday morning or some Friday fun?
The left are very adept at plausible deniability. It’s one of the benefits of selling one’s soul to the devil.
That’s too bad, maybe Dick could take him hunting!!!!
I apologize for interrupting this blog post with unrelated news, but…
GET THOSE TIVOS READY FELLOW MALKINITES!!
You won’t want to miss this one!!
Gerallllldo is on O’Reilly tonight, talking about BRITNEY!! Can you believe it!!
Fox News in it’s finest hour!!
Call your friends and family grab the popcorn and get ready for the must see TV event of the year!!
I’d rather be hung, schweggie. thank goodness Baseball is on.
Boomer
Gotta agree with you. Every minute they waste on this stuff is a minute they don’t work on taking away my money with new taxes, or take away my choice in Dr’s or make new rules deciding what kind of car I can drive. The best thing they can do is NOTHING.
Better to go hunting with Dick Cheney then to drive with Teddy Kennedy!
Must see, or must miss?
I get those two confused.
I seriously could not care less about Brit and K-fed, or anything else dealing with them. If they all just magically ceased to be, disappeared from creation, I wouldn’t care, and would only notice because teh god damn news would be covering it for a decade…
I’d like to call it “September 10th” news stories. And maybe I’m being a little unfair to O’Reilly because of everything he does do…but I can tell you, if we take another catastrophic terrorist attack…the number of pap tabloid news stories that Fox cranks out these days…verrrrry September 10th.
I think Michelle could pull a Mother Angelica and get her own cable channel up and running! She could count on my continued financial support and who knows how many COUNTLESS others.
She could get MKH, and some other conservitive women, and creat CBTV (Conservitive Babe TV).
Eric and I would watch.
Better yet SCHWEGGIE,she could move to the Houston area and run for Congress in Delays dist22,talk about a stolen election,a judge allows only a Dem on the ballot and the Rep was a write in only,but thats another story,I think she would win hands down here,there is time for resident status if she will move quickly,here’s wishing.
I think MM got the story wrong. Nobody said Beauchamp was detained or kidnapped. What they said was that he was forbidden from talking to the press.
As or credibility, many people reporting on Iraq could use more, starting with General Petraeus. While much of what he said may be true, many details are wrong. One significant example is whether the “surge” caused Anbar province to calm down. This is not correct. The tactic in Anbar is arming Sunni militias to fight the even less desirable Al Qaida in Iraq (as opposed to the true Al Qaida in Pakistan).
lgm…..I’m sure glad that you who are not there know more about it than the general who is/was there. Last I checked, he has many thousands of people he’s responsible for there every day and every night. I’ll take his word over yours. Amazingly ignorant and arrogant of you to spout like that.
You need to re-read my post. You also need to adjust your sarcasm radar. Laughing Wolf was being sarcastic.
Maybe they’re waiting for the facts to change.
Igm said:
General Petraeus is one of the most creditable Generals this nation has had ever. All you have to do is look at his Medals, Ribbons and Badges. That combination he has is rarely seen on any high-ranking officer, let alone Generals. His Uniform speaks for it self.
Combat Action Badge
CIB
Master parachutist badge
Air assault Badge
Joint Chiefs Badge
Ranger Tab
101 Airborne Division Patch
Defense Distinguished Service Medal
Legion of Merit
Bronze Star
Defense Meritorious
Army Commendation Medal
Army Achievement Medal
National Defense Medal At least 2 stars
GWTSM
GWTEM
Expeditionary Medal
This is looking at his uniform Pic, I’m sure I’m missing half of them. Most Generals in the History of our Nation do not have this combination. A General like this would speak his mind.
The problem with liberals like yourself, LGM, is that they were immediately inclined to believe Scott Beauchamp - even THIRSTING to believe him - but brand General Petraeus as a stooge, political pawn, or even a liar.
You can have your Beauchamps - I’ll take my chances with the General, at least I’d never have to worry about ‘watching my six’….
No. The Marines are kicking A$$. Who do you think Convinced Sunni militias? Santa Claus?
M-A-R-I-N-E-S!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Either, you’re pregnant or not pregnant. Al Qaida in Iraq can kill people just like Al Qaida in Pakistan. Maybe in your mind the terrorist in Iraq are the like the regular democrats, and the Al Qaida in Pakistan are like the moveon.org types.
Liberals seem to think that Al Qaida in Iraq wants us dead for different reasons than Al Qaida in Afghanistan / Pakistan.
Same reasons - same ultimate leadership - different battle fronts.
When will they understand????
( Rhetorical question )
Which is it? One or the other. It can not, in fact, be fake but accurate.
Either he is a traitorous liar, or he is an honest man of integrity.
Pick your descriptives now, bubba…
And that was, in fact, a lie. He was not forbidden. He just chose not to. Amazing that you can’t see that.
TNR just chose to claim he was being silenced because they knew they would be unable to defend neither him nor the story they ran.
They lied, so the wouldn’t have to show their inept actions. Not that it helps. We know what happened, and we know what didn’t happen. I might have, back when this started, gained some measure of respect for TNR had they just up and retracted/appologized, but they did not.
They decided to act like liberals.
I can’t imagine why.
I just spoke with Dan Rather and he said you’re wrong.
I hope you entended unto him my invitation for Danny-boy to - ahem - kiss my white ass.
Not that I have a problem with Mr Rather. Oh no. Perish the thought…
Stop the madness…
If you are of the mind that our military presence and not just our presence but the fact that we kicking Al-Qaida’s @ss has nothing to do with these people fighting back, well, I am not sure we can have an honest discussion. As we are simply not operating from the same premise.
M6-M16 Out
Responding to lgm’s posts is a huge waste of time. If you point out his many factual and logical errors, or ask him to provide facts to support his assertions, he just moves on to something else. He’s either a flake or a troll — and most likely both.
I’m sorry, but how in God’s name did we end up with a Patraeus discussion?
Isn’t this thread supposed to be about how TNR is a bunch of sleazy losers? How did we end up talking about the effectiveness of the surge?
You let one lib post a comment….
Beauchamp went to the Oliver Stone boot camp school of wannabe writers who wannabe (and expectto!) be taken seriously based on their wartime experience… The fact that he admits this HIMSELF is particulalry irksome to me…His TNR enablers are beneath contempt as well…
It’s fairly simple: Think of a garment with a hanging thread. Pull on it, and the whole thing eventually unravels. Think of an onion: peel away the layers, and it doesn’t emerge but vanishes.
That’s the Left. They don’t dare admit that they could be wrong in one instance, because that’d raise the question of, “…and what else might I be wrong about?”
My moonbat sister is a classic case. At one point, when her libertine lifestyle was threatening not only her but the rest of the family, we did an intervention - part of which was to arrange for counseling. She only went to one session. When I asked why, she said, “But what if I find out that I really am a bad person?”
It’s just easier for them to erect avoidance mechanisms than it is to undertake the strong medicine of an honest self-appraisal. That’s why TNR and Foer are so tenaciously clinging to their defense of Beauchamp’s fabulations. They fear not only the short-term consequences but also the long-term implications.
MM wrote (#22):
OK, maybe I missed by Wheaties this morning, but I don’t see anything in MM’s post or the links she provided that contradicts the claim that Beauchamp is forbidden to contact the press. To be sure, he is allowed to sound off to his fellow soldiers, but we do not know what sounds he made (add snark here).
If you have any reason to think Beauchamp is allowed to contact the press (other than your feelings), what is it?
josetheguerilla said (#26):
Where did you get this? Even General Petraeus doesn’t say this.
While I can understand the lack of enthusiasm the Treason Media has about shining the light on their fellow travelers - the same reason why sharks don’t eat lawyers (A: professional courtesy) - what I don’t understand is why they choose to let the stigma of bias and fabulism waft collaterally onto them.
With every Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, Dan Rather, and Scott Beauchamp incident, the inconvenient truth that the Treason Media is irreparably biased and dishonest spreads a little more. Didn’t these twits read “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” in school and learn its lessons?
When the DVD of “All The President’s Men” came out last year, many reviewers took the opportunity to fawn over how it was great to see brave reporters “speak truth to power” (read: take down Republicans) and blah-blah-woof-woof. In the extras, they had Treason Media stalwarts poo-pooing the Blogosphere as being inferior to their vaunted elite cadre. Yeah, right.
The actual lesson they should’ve taken is that there was once a time when reporters REPORTED the news; not worked to “make a difference” or “set the agenda.” After the movie came out, hordes of liberal axe-grinders flooded the newsrooms with the hopes of being able to get their own GOP head on the wall and have themselves played in the movie by George Clooney or Julia Roberts. So, they marry government officials, cultivate leakers of secrets, and generally seek evidence that fits their agenda to destroy conservatives while ignoring actual malfeasance in plain sight. “Sorry, but I don’t have time to look into the New Republic because I’m trying to get proof that Bush knew 9/11 was going to happen.”
But, look at the bright side: When Hillary! is elected, it will bring an end to the leaking of government secrets in the Treason Media. Perhaps the war will start succeeding because proper control of the military is in place. The half-empty glass will become half-full overnight and it will be Morning in America now that the dark night of Republican fascism as passed.
Yeesh. I hate being right.
Apparently lgm, you missed more than your wheaties… You apparently forgot to turn on your brain today…
Right there. Not even from a link, right there in Michelle’s main article. He is not unable to talk. TNR is just not talking to him.
Care to try again, moonbat?
The reason is that the military have said that he is allowed to speak to the press.
If you have any reason to think Beauchamp is NOT allowed to contact the press (other than your feelings), what is it?
And the words of proven liars such as TNR do not constitute a reason.
The New Republic at this point is like a corporation that alters a wrongful activity without admitting to wrongdoing. As far as I can tell, the Beauchamp article goes against the grain of everything TNR has written so far on troop-level military conduct in Iraq, except for Abu Ghraib, where the editors ascribed the abuses to deficient command. TNR has not defended Murtha in that congressman’s accusations and I don’t expect to see Beauchamp again in print unless he issues a retraction.
There once was a man named Foer,
That no one could believe anymore,
Since his favorite Baghdad Diarist,
Proved to be a Baghdad Liarist,
Making up stories of war.
Thanks, Michelle, for your boldness and determination.
If this nation can still be salvaged, maybe this “phony soldier” thingy will open the eyes of those who are still capable of recognizing truth…and common-sense!
Fingers crossed!
Endurance - thanks for demonstrating it, Michelle, because it is a strength that the MSM does not have.