The New Republic - Mendacity Unlimited (The Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp Affair)

Surprisingly enough, there’s actually something interesting in Howard Kurtz’ characteristically lifeless rundown on the Scott Beauchamp drama. As usual, Kurtz entered the fray days late and with little to add. Nonetheless, he concluded his piece in compelling fashion by quoting GWU journalism professor Mark Feldstein. “There is a cloud over the New Republic, but there's one hanging over the Army, as well,” Feldstein noted. “Each investigated this and cleared themselves, but they both have vested interests.”

Feldstein must not have gotten Franklin Foer’s memo. The Baghdad Diarists were supposed to represent one soldier’s “discrete” impressions of the war and how it affected him. If we’re to believe Our Boy Frank, they weren’t supposed to cast a “cloud” over the Army, especially since all they did was recount “mild practical jokes.” Feldstein, who calls the Army’s defense “suspect”, apparently considers the Diarists’ charges graver than Foer does.

TODAY WAS THE DAY THAT SEEMINGLY the entire mainstream media waddled into the Beauchamp affair. In addition to the Washington Post’s Kurtz, the New York Times and the New York Observer also covered the matter. We should all be grateful that Franklin Foer took time away from his paternity leave to actually talk to the reporters representing these papers.

As always, the key when listening to Franklin Foer is to focus not so much on what he says but rather what he doesn’t say. For instance, in parsing Foer’s original defense of the Beauchamp Diarists, Foer and his fellow New Republic editors said a lot of things, but nowhere did they provide any names or dates to corroborate their story. In short, nothing that they provided could be verified by any nosy people who might question The New Republic’s spin on things.

Foer spoke at some length to The New York Observer regarding the latest mini-controversy within the larger one - whether or not Scott Beauchamp has indeed signed a statement declaring all of his Diarists to be a collection of fabrications and gross exaggerations. That’s what Michael Goldfarb reported, and it’s what Franklin Foer denies.

Or sort of denies. In yesterday’s statement, the TNR editors quoted an Army source (who had previously called Beauchamp a liar, a fact that TNR did not deem fit to print) saying that he knew of no signed statement. But TNR did not deny that such a signed statement existed. In talking to the New York Observer, the New York Times and the Washington Post yesterday, Franklin Foer never explicitly denied that Scott Beauchamp signed a sworn statement that recanted his Diarists.

Mr. Foer said that he has not talked to Mr. Beauchamp since TNR concluded its investigation, but he said the soldier has been in contact with his wife, TNR reporter-researcher Elspeth Reeve, once since then.

From this, we can infer that Beauchamp has had his cell-phone privileges restored since they were interrupted while TNR’s investigation was in full flight. You may remember Our Boy Frank meekly protesting on August 2, “Late last week, the Army began its own investigation, short-circuiting our efforts. Beauchamp had his cell-phone and computer taken away and is currently unable to speak to even his family. “

Since the post-August 2 Beauchamp is once again able to speak with his family, maybe one of his family member’s, specifically the one who works at The New Republic, could ask him, “Honey, there’s a little hubbub going on here about whether or not you signed a sworn statement saying your articles for us were a pack of lies. Did you?”

ONCE AGAIN, TNR’S SILENCE communicates more than anything the magazine says aloud. Clearly, TNR could bring closure to this particular issue and to the story in general if it were of a mind to do so. But TNR’s investigation of the matter has never been forthright or honest as Andrew Sullivan promised it would be. If closure is going to come, it will have to come from a source other than The New Republic.

Howard Kurtz’ Professor Feldstein had it right – the Diarists put a cloud over the Army and the 160,000 members of the military who are serving so honorably in Iraq. That cloud, a cloud that The New Republic deliberately put there, is what so infuriated those of us who support both the troops and the war effort.

The obvious implication of Feldstein’s statement is that the Army brass owes it to the men and women who are serving nobly to dispel that cloud. The Army should release the details of its investigation, or at the very least allow the American public to know what facts made the Army conclude that the Diarists were fabrications and exaggerations.

See, this is my overarching problem with the Bush Administration.

Just like in the case of the "sixteen words,"
just like in the case of the entrapment of Scooter Libby,
just like in the case of Hurricane Katrina,
just like in the case of the fired US Attorneys,
so in this case (and probably others that don't instantly come to mind) Bush and his administration are attacked - and in "defending" themselves, damn themselves with faint praise. It is one thing for Mr. Bush, and for the members of his Administration at his direction, to do the "new tone" thing and accept being unjustly pilloried. It is quite another thing for people who never even met Mr. Bush and yet have supported him - yea, even unto volunteering into the military under Mr. Bush's command - to get tarred with the faint praise of a Bush Administration "defense" of itself.

In the case of the "sixteen words," Bush spokesmen cowered when attacked for having said something which is in context absolutely true.

In the Scooter Libby entrapment, it was known from the start that someone other than Mr. Libby was responsible, and that there was no crime to investigate in the first place.

In the case of Hurricane Katrina, it was patent from before landfall that Bush was urging the people having the authority to act - the elected governor of Louisiana and the elected mayor of New Orleans - to take action to save lives. And that those unworthies did nothing but panic, and then scapegoat the president for their own inaction.

In the case of the fired US Attorneys, those people served at the pleasure of the president and they had no right to any review of the actions of the Attorney General (unless, as was true in the case of the US Attorney fired in Arkansas in 1993, those attorneys were in the midst of an investigation close to members of the administration itself).

In all those cases establishment journalism lies have been allowed to metastasize into "truth." This is Bush Derangement Syndrome, and the trouble is that it is no different from what happened to Joseph McCarthy back in the Eisenhower years. For two succeeding generations, "McCarthyism" has been a smear - a smear simultaneously of whoever is accused of it, and of Senator Joseph McCarthy (rest his soul) himself. The Army had information, whether the Eisenhower Administration knew it or not, which proved that McCarthy was understating the problem for which he was demanding an investigation.
With those facts now known, at some point a Republican administration must take the offensive against the alliance of journalists who call themselves "objective" (thereby proving that they are no such thing) and who call the politicians who hold getting along with journalism as their highest principle "progressives" or "liberals" (as if they actually favored the peoples' liberty, or anything else besides their own perquisites and power).
It actually traces back to the 2000 election, which Gore came within a hair's breadth of stealing in Florida when his allies in broadcast journalism declared him the victor while the polls in Florida were still open in the Republican-leaning Florida Panhandle. Broadcast journalism proved itself tendentious and lacking in any legitimate civic justification for broadcast licenses, and hence for their very existence. The Bush Administration and the Republican Party should have sued them into oblivion. The fact that they didn't do that marked them as weak, and has lead to their being picked on mercilessly ever since.
And it is not just Mr. Bush, and not just his administration, but everyone who voted for him and everyone who serves in the military under him who pays the price. Not to mention the people of Iraq who suffer there from the effects here of the rump government known as "objective journalism."
Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

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