July 26, 2007
Source: TNR Is A Lot More Worried Than They're Letting On; Scott Thomas Got His Job For Plame-ish Reasons: "Frankln Foer Doesn't Want To Tell TNR Staffer Elspeth Reeve Her Husband Is A Liar"
Reorganized, Re-edited, Corrected Post. The actual quote was "Frank doesn't want to tell ___ her husband is a liar," offered up not by my source but by someone else. The blank has now been confirmed as TNR staffer Elspeth Reeve, and even though the quote was "husband," there's some question about that: Via the weddingchannel.coml says their wedding is coming in October. Though perhaps they had a quickie civil ceremony before his last deployment or something, with the ceremony to occur later.
Look, husband/fiancee, not sure it matters. It certainly seems that everyone in the TNR offices were under the impression they'd already been married.
I was going to let this slide and not report it but then TNR played the hard guys and fired the guy actually sharing information about this with people. Meanwhile Foer and Beuchamp are still drawing paychecks.
Needless to say, Elspeth Reeve has nothing in particular to do with this, other than, I guess, some guy who walked by in the hallway suggesting her husband for the Niger Iraq mission. Gracie's pretty firm on her innocence, and, even if he weren't, this was Foer's call, not hers.
Scott Thomas Beauchamp was not chosen for this job because he had some terrific amount of experience or credentials or integrity. He was picked for Plame-type reasons: He's married or engaged to someone at TNR.
As Gracie reported to me, this is openly discussed in the TNR offices. One representative quote: "Frank[lin Foer] doesn't want to call [woman's] husband a liar." That wasn't Gracie saying that, that was someone else in the office, explaining the inter-office politics of this.
Gracie: Okay: Although I'm 100% certain that the husband of a staff member is central to this, I'm only about 90% certain that the husband IS Scott Thomas -- the alternative possibility is that the husband is one of the soldiers vouching for Scott Thomas
me: okay. well I was going to stay off of that anyway. I was more asking about: 1) The fact it's an open secret in the office 2:30 AM 2) your opinion that "Scott Thomas" was chosen for poor reasons, having to do with personal familiarity, rather than obvious journalistic credentials 3) that it's your opinion foer is the real screw-up here.
Note: I'm including that to prove I wasn't super-eager to mention that Beauchamp only got the job through his engagement to a staffer. I was going to say merely that he got the job due more to personal familiarity and connections than any obvious qualifications.
I was going to hold off on that. Until they pissed me off.
It's all so Plame-ish. As Gracie wrote to me, of all the embeds and milbloggers and real journalists they could have picked for the job, they instead chose to go with a very partisan, very inexperienced blogger just out of "laziness." Just because they knew him. Just because it was easy.
I actually think part of the reason was that they knew Beauchamp's politics -- he having put them on display on his goofy blog -- and so, just like with Valerie Plame, they knew the report was going to come back the way they wanted it when they sent him. But Gracie says it's just Occam's razor: Laziness.
Still, he's just speculating on the reason (as am I).
BTW, I have long kinda-sorta wanted to embed in Iraq... if TNR wants to sponsor me, I am more than willing to do some light petting with Michelle Cottle, if need be.
Thanks to Libberlocky for nailing down confirmation of the marriage/engagement angle. I was up half the night googling that.
I really want to stress that I wasn't particularly psyched about reporting this part of the story. But honestly, the name's already out there anyway; I'm just the first to run with it. There would have been someone right behind me.
Plus, like I said, I think TNR is playing very dirty pool here.
Allah's Always Gotta Be A Dick Update: Allah is questioning whether my suggested timeline is right -- that Elspeth got Beauchamp the gig because they were engaged/married. Instead, he wonders: Did Beauchamp already get the gig, and then had a whirlwind courtship with Elspeth?
All I can say is that this would have had to have been a very quick courtship. The guy starts posting for TNR a couple of months ago and then he's married or engaged to a woman he couldn't possibly have met more than once or twice, owing to his overseas deployment?
Further, my information tells me they went to the same college together.
... Fired: I knew this, but wasn't sure if I was supposed to say anything about it.
TNR fired Gracie at 7:25 this morning with the non-explanation, "Your services are no longer required." This information is offered up by one of Gracie's psuedonyms ("near certainty" on that) at discarded lies.
As usual, the SCUM of the left hate any “whistleblower” who might be inconvenient to them. They worship leftist so-called whistleblowers who are (so often) merely rabid socialist hacks, but let a real whistleblower get onto their wrongdoings and all interest in “whistleblower protection” goes right out the window.
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2007/07/private-beaucha.html
Every morning I get up and say I’m Scott Beauchamp, in the army, living in Germany, and this is my life, and I’m going to be treated like shit today and do landscaping and janitorial work and practice killing people and there could be no other way to appreciate what I had or what I’m going to have once I get out other than enduring this now when all I really want to do is teach history and lay around and read and hustle around and repair the world (tikkun olam) and sift through knowledge and improve culture and learn how to sail and work in soup kitchens and start a family and really, I mean REALLY study the best the western civilization has to offer and facilitiate the mystery and power through everything I do, but I cant do it without getting through this army experience first, which will add a legitimacy to EVERYTHING i do afterwards, and totally bolster my opinions on defense, etc, and of course its making me a lot less lazy, just because im not use to being lazy any more, etc.
And there is a picture of this lazy ass too!