Burning Another Beauchamp

At Confederate Yankee, a lively and fascinating discussion is taking place over an accusation of conservative media dishonesty by Harper's Scott Horton. Horton accuses a prominent conservative commentator of creating "pure fabrications," and cites as evidence his direct experience at the location in question:

I have no idea whether Beauchamp's story was accurate. But at this point I have seen enough of the Neocon corner's war fables to immediately discount anything that emerges from it. One example: back last spring, when I was living in Baghdad, on Haifa Street, I sat in the evening reading a report by one of the core Neocon pack. He was reporting from Baghdad, and recounted a day he had spent out on a patrol with U.S. troops on Haifa Street. He described a peaceful, pleasant, upscale community. Children were out playing on the street. Men and women were out going about their daily business. Well, in fact I had been forced to spend the day "in the submarine," as they say, missing appointments I had in town. Why? This bucolic, marvelous Haifa Street that he described had erupted in gun battles the entire day. In the view of my security guards, with which I readily concurred, it was too unsafe. And yes, I could hear the gunfire and watch some of the exchanges from my position. No American patrol had passed by and there were certainly no children playing in the street. This was the point when I realized that many of these accounts were pure fabrications.

CY denizens respond by demonstrating that Horton was probably not in the area at the time the alleged "fabrication" was written. There is a good chance that the piece Horton refers to is either this NYSun Op/Ed by Fred Kagen:

It is true that the overall level of violence in Iraq remains high, and American soldiers are still dying. Scores of terrorists flow into Iraq every month, detonating suicide car bombs against civilians, Iraqi security forces and American troops. This is the core of the security problem faced by our troops and by innocent Iraqis.

But looking at these casualty numbers alone distorts reality. Security is improving across Baghdad, even in traditionally bad areas. In early May, I walked and drove through these neighborhoods. Haifa St., scene of day-long gunfights between Al Qaeda terrorists and coalition forces in January, is calm and starting to revive. Its market is open and flourishing.

Or, it could be this Weekly Standard Op/Ed by feared and hated William Kristol:

"We went through two of the worst Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad... heavily infested with al Qaeda and other terrorists who terrorize the population and drive them to support or at least tolerate attacks against us. But the kids on the streets--and there were many--waved, smiled, asked for candy. The locals give us tips and ask us to get the terrorists out of the area and, above all, to protect them. We walked through a market off of Haifa Street--remember, the site of that long-running gun-battle back in January that made so much news? The market was thriving, flourishing, the local U.S. commander knew everyone and everyone knew him. The kids thronged around us, laughing, asking for candy... .

Both of these items describe conditions as seen by the scribe in May of this year. However, there is no evidence at all that Horton was even in Iraq in May, 2007. In fact, Horton has apparently not been in Iraq since Spring 2006.

Meanwhile, kat-missouri of Middleground painstakingly documents how Haifa Street has been in a state of flux almost since the beginning of the insurgency, with the most recent reports indicating that Kagen and Kristol's accounts were accurate. Given their professional relationship and Kristol stating that he was relating the observations of a friend, the two accounts could be of the same events.

We have no journalistic accounts of Haifa Street by Horton in 2007.

What fascinates me about CY's discussion is that Bob originally started out with an intellectually honest question about whether a conservative writer was "Beauchamping" his story. Instead, it appears the worm has turned and it is the liberal who gets burned for dishonesty.

The Real Lesson From The Beachamp Affair

For former President Richard Nixon, it was not the Watergate break-in that toppled his Presidency. It was the web of lies, secrecy and deceit that followed. Nixon learned the hard way that it's not the crime; it's the coverup that counts.

For former President Bill Clinton, it was not the blue dress or the act that stained it. It was the perjury, the wagon-circling and subornation of perjury that led to his historic impeachment trial and forever soiled his legacy. Mr. Clinton learned a lesson that his mother should have taught him by age 4: If you've done something wrong, fess up to it and take your medicine. If you lie about it and get caught, you'll get a dose you'll not soon forget. The mythical "father, I cannot tell a lie" anecdote about George Washington and the Cherry Tree sends a message that rings true whether the incident took place or not: Tell the truth about your missteps and you will be forgiven. Catholics, through the Sacrament of Confession, are allowed opportunities to confess their sins, do Penance and receive Absolution. Our society's fabric is woven with the thread of truth because the ability to trust and believe one another is so important to the social contract.

Journalists enjoy no immunity to the terms of that contract. We expect journalists to tell us the truth when reporting straight news stories, acknowledge bias in opinion pieces, correct errors when they are discovered and rid themselves of those whose only intent is to deceive. Hence the storm of criticism of The New Republic over the alleged "Baghdad Diarist" stories, written by PVT Scott Beachamp. As soon as the factual basis for the anecdotes disintegrated, TNR should have printed a retraction and ceased any further relationships with PVT Beauchamp.

Instead, TNR Editor Franklin Foer donned the ideological blinders and circled the wagons. As The Weekly Standard, Confederate Yankee, Ace of Spades HQ and Little Green Footballs peeled away the last husks of credibility from the anecdotes, it became clear to all but the staunchest defenders of TNR that a serious fraud had been perpetrated against the publication.

Thirty-three years ago this month, Senator Barry Goldwater led a group of courageous GOP lawmakers to a meeting at the White House. There, Senator Goldwater famously informed Nixon that the votes to convict were there and that he must either resign or be forced from office.

While the Beauchamp affair is in no fashion as earthshaking as the resignation of the President of the United States, one has to ponder the gravity of a news media that has become more interested in protecting its image than it is in finding the truth. Very recently, scandals associated with faulty reporting and outright deceipt have been hung on The Associated Press and Agence France Presse. AP has published factually decrepit stories on civilian casualties and ammunition shortages. AFP has been caught three times in photographic journalism deceipt. As with the TNR "Baghdad Diarist" affair, it took extraordinary journalism on the part of the bloggers to root out the truth. While no single blogger can compete with an army of stringers, researchers, reporters and fact-checkers, the blogging community as a whole most certainly can.

It most certainly will, too. The mainstream media must be put on notice: We expect you to fess up and take your medicine when you've screwed up. Your sins will be forgiven, but only after an appropriate penance. If you lie to us though, and try to conceal your wrongdoing, and there will be HELL TO PAY.

Pajamas Media: How The New Republic Got Suckered

Pajamas Media: How The New Republic Got Suckered

When Pajamas Media heard the authenticity questions surrounding the “Baghdad Diarist” articles by Scott Thomas Beauchamp in The New Republic, we asked our Washington Editor Richard Miniter to look into how the respected opinion magazine could once again be the locus of such a scandal.

Miniter spoke with several people involved in the extraordinary story, including the whistle-blower and a German woman who was Beauchamp’s fiancée until just before he married, of all people, Miniter discovered, a fact-checker at The New Republic. That fiancée said of her former boyfriend, the soldier/reporter: “He hates the army. The only reason he joined was because he wanted to have more experience to write about.”

Pajamas Media says they welcome a response from The New Republic. I won't be holding my breath.

Beauchamp, The Weekly Standard, EXPOSED

Micheal Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard publishes a summary of telephone and email conversations with TNR's Editor. TNR has completed their "investigation" of the story and found only one little detail to be disfactual: That the "melted woman" incident actually occurred at Camp Buehring in Kuwait before Beauchamp's unit deployed to Iraq.

Title: Foer the Record

UPDATE (09:44 CDT): Matt Sanchez has broken the story: Beachamp Investigation Concluded.

Complete fabrication.

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UPDATE: (11:18 CDT): Confederal Yankee reports contact from Third Army USARCENT PAO in Kuwait. Melted Woman is "Urban Myth" at Camp Buehring.

Read that here.

Meanwhile, the leftwing is in a tizzy, with apparent homophobe Max Blumenthal whining about Matt Sanchez' past (as if it could somehow change the fact that Beauchamp is a liar and TNR is a rag).

Developing...

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