-♻RetweetTNR Breaks Silence, Says Nothing, Blames Army
Fri, Oct 26, 2007 at 10:03:47 am PDT
At New Republic “blog” The Plank, the editors have issued another non-statement about the ridiculously false stories of Scott Beauchamp: A Scott Beauchamp Update.
There’s nothing new here; it’s the same line they’ve been using for months, ignoring all the evidence against the Beauchamp fables, and insisting that the Army is frustrating their noble attempts to get to the truth.
The New Republic is deeply frustrated by the Army’s behavior. TNR has endeavored with good faith to discover whether Beauchamp’s article contained inaccuracies and has repeatedly requested that the Army provide us with documentary evidence that it was fabricated or embellished. Instead of doing this, the Army leaked selective parts of the record—including a conversation that Beauchamp had with his lawyer—continuing a months-long pattern by which the Army has leaked information and misinformation to conservative bloggers while failing to help us with simple requests for documents. [The New Republic has no way of knowing that documents were leaked by the Army, of course. It’s possible, but this allegation comes with no proof whatsoever. – ed.]
We have worked hard to re-report this piece and will continue to do so. But this process has involved maddening delays compounded by bad faith on the part of at least some officials in the Army. Our investigation has taken far longer than we would like, but it is our obligation and promise to deliver a full account of our findings.
Notice: they’re demanding that the Army prove a negative—that the stories were fabricated—when it’s TNR’s responsibility to prove that they’re true.
My position all along has been that Beauchamp’s tales were patently, obviously phony, and it shouldn’t take an investigation to set off warning flags. The New Republic swallowed that nonsense uncritically, and now they’re complaining that everyone else is wrong.
UPDATE at 10/26/07 11:23:20 am:
If you haven’t read them yet, here are those internal investigation documents obtained by Drudge Report:



