posted on July 24, 2007 11:26:16 AM new
It\'s funny, in an extremely sad way, that the NYT is reporting on ANOTHER liberal organization that is currently being \'called\' on their sources. Anonymous sources they, themselves, use all the time to smear our troops. Use to tell the American public how terrible our troops are/act.
Yep, that\'s how THEY support our troops. So ready to accept ANY reports of improper actions by our troops without needing/requiring ANY verification.
But even after the NYT promising to stop using so many anonymous sources in THEIR supposed \'news\' articles....at least they\'re reporting on The New Republic\'s questionable liberal reporting. And their use of annoymous sources.
I find it odd how the left media NEVER uses anonymous sources for anything expect that is against the war, against this administration or against our troops.
They\'re the party of SURRENDER....and LIES.
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July 24, 2007
Doubts Raised on Magazine’s ‘Baghdad Diarist’
By LOUISE STORY
NYT
Just who is the “Baghdad Diarist”?
It is a question that many people are asking The New Republic, the Washington political magazine that has been running articles attributed to an American soldier in Baghdad.
The author, who used the pen name Scott Thomas, has written three articles for the magazine since February, describing gruesome incidents in Iraq. Last week, The Weekly Standard questioned the veracity of the New Republic articles and invited readers with knowledge about the military or Baghdad to comment.
Since then, several readers and a spokesman for the base where the soldier is supposedly based have written in, raising more questions.
“Absolutely every piece of information that’s come out since we put that call up has cast further doubt on that story,” said Michael Goldfarb, the online editor of The Weekly Standard. “There’s not a single person that has come forward and said, ‘It sounds plausible.’ ”
Franklin Foer, the editor of The New Republic, will not reveal the author’s identity but says the magazine is investigating the accuracy of his articles. In the late 1990s, under different editors, the magazine fired an associate editor, Stephen Glass, for fabrications.
“Now that these questions have been raised, we’ve launched an inquiry. We’re putting the full resources of the magazine to look into the story,” Mr. Foer said. “It’s taking me a little bit longer than I wish it did. The author, not to mention some of the participants in the anecdotes he described, are active duty soldiers and they’re on 20-hour active combat missions sometimes, and it’s very difficult for me to get them all on the phone to ask them the questions that I’d like to ask.”
The diaries have described some shocking incidents of military life, including soldiers openly mocking a disfigured woman on their base and a private wearing a found piece of a child’s skull under his helmet.
The magazine granted anonymity to the writer to keep him from being punished by his military superiors and to allow him to write candidly, Mr. Foer said. He said that he had met the writer and that he knows that he is, in fact, a soldier.
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Ever notice how the MSM leaves OUT the fact that The New Republic is a LIBERAL online agency? But if it were a conservative one....they never FAIL to mention that.
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"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on July 24, 2007 01:03:12 PM new
from RealClearPolitics
July 24, 2007
Two More Tales of Journalistic Dishonesty?
By Jack Kelly
Jennifer Hunter is married to Chicago Sun-Times publisher John Cruickshank, which explains why Ms. Hunter writes a column for the Chicago Sun-Times. Here is why she should not.
On July 16, Ms. Hunter wrote a column which began: "After watching the top five Democratic candidates for president speak before a trial lawyers' group Sunday, attorney Jim Ronca of Philadelphia, a staunch Republican, became certain of one thing: He is not going to vote for a Republican in the 2008 presidential election."
A suspicious reader checked out Mr. Ronca's political contributions. Mr. Ronca had made 14 since 1994 -- 12 to Democrats. The Democratic candidates received $7,000; the GOP candidates $750.
Mr. Ronca's contribution record was posted on several Web sites, whose readers flooded Ms. Hunter with demands for a correction.
If Ms. Hunter had fessed up, I wouldn't be writing about her. But she responded by attacking Web loggers for doing the research she should have done, and blaming her error on her editor.
"The grumbling arose partially because my editor took a small part of my story and made it into a headline: 'GOP lawyer sold on Dems,'" Ms. Hunter wrote in her July 19 column.
But what her readers objected to was the description of Mr. Ronca as a "staunch Republican," which was Ms. Hunter's own, and which appeared in her lede. To blame the headline writer for the mistake is as dishonest as it is lame.
The New Republic was shamed when two high profile writers (Ruth Shalit and Stephen Glass) were discovered to have made up stories. The venerable liberal magazine apparently has another scandal on its hands.
In last week's issue the New Republic ran an article by "Scott Thomas," who -- the editors tell us -- is a pseudonym for a soldier currently serving in Iraq.
"Thomas" describes three instances of shocking behavior by U.S. troops. In the first, his buddies humiliate a woman in the chow hall who was disfigured by an IED. In the second, a soldier excavating a mass grave puts a portion of a child's skull on his head and wears it like a helmet for an entire day. In the third, the driver of a Bradley fighting vehicle deliberately runs over a dog in the street.
The New Republic's editors told a skeptical Michael Goldfarb of the Weekly Standard the chow hall incident took place at FOB Falcon near Baghdad, and the mass grave was uncovered in farmland south of the Baghdad airport.
But soldiers currently serving at FOB Falcon say they've never seen a woman there fitting Scott Thomas' description. (There are only a handful of women, and just one small mess hall on the base.) They also find incredible Thomas' claim he couldn't tell whether the woman was a soldier or a civilian. (Soldiers in Iraq wear their uniforms -- and carry their weapons -- at all times.) "There was no mass grave found during the construction of our Coalition outposts at any time," Major Kirk Luedeke, the public affairs officer at FOB Falcon, emailed milblogger Matt Sanchez.
The story about the Bradley driver running over the dog couldn't possibly have happened, people familiar with the Bradley say.
According to Thomas' story, the dog was on the right side of the vehicle, because the driver turned right to strike it. The driver's hatch is on the left side of the Bradley. Immediately to the driver's right is the cooling grill of the engine compartment, which rises above the driver's hatch, making it impossible for him to see anything on the right side of the vehicle.
"Even if the driver was head out, he still couldn't see anything to his right below the level of the top deck (all armored vehicles have significant blind spots close in, which is why they need dismounts to protect them from RPG guys in foxholes)," Stuart Koehl emailed Mr. Goldfarb. "So if the driver 'twitched' the Bradley to the right, he must have used extrasensory perception in order to catch the dog, because there is no way he knew the dog was even there."
That the New Republic would publish this drivel indicates how little its editors know about the military, and how eager they are to believe bad things about American soldiers.
If the editors cannot tell us precisely when the incident with the woman with the burned face took place, or precisely where and when the mass grave was found, they should admit to being victims of fraud, or perpetrators of one.
The Web makes it harder for journalists to lie and get away with it. This is a lesson Jennifer Hunter and the editors of the New Republic evidently haven't learned.
posted on July 26, 2007 12:09:03 PM newDoubts Raised on Magazine’s ‘Baghdad Diarist’
It turns out this "Baghdad Diarist" is a soldier.
So it would appear that Linda does not want to take the word of a soldier who is actualy in Iraq, instead she chose to blame this on the liberal media.
Linda do you need a towel to wipe that egg off your face?
A STATEMENT FROM SCOTT THOMAS BEAUCHAMP:
As we've noted in this space, some have questioned details that appeared in the Diarist "Shock Troops," published under the pseudonym Scott Thomas. According to Major Kirk Luedeke, a public affairs officer at Forward Operating Base Falcon, a formal military investigation has also been launched into the incidents described in the piece.
Although the article was rigorously edited and fact-checked before it was published, we have decided to go back and, to the extent possible, re-report every detail. This process takes considerable time, as the primary subjects are on another continent, with intermittent access to phones and email. Thus far we've found nothing to disprove the facts in the article; we will release the full results of our search when it is completed.
In the meantime, the author has requested that we publish the statement below. --The Editors
My Diarist, "Shock Troops," and the two other pieces I wrote for the New Republic have stirred more controversy than I could ever have anticipated. They were written under a pseudonym, because I wanted to write honestly about my experiences, without fear of reprisal. Unfortunately, my pseudonym has caused confusion. And there seems to be one major way in which I can clarify the debate over my pieces: I'm willing to stand by the entirety of my articles for the New Republic using my real name.
I am Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp, a member of Alpha Company, 1/18 Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division.
My pieces were always intended to provide my discrete view of the war; they were never intended as a reflection of the entire U.S. Military. I wanted Americans to have one soldier's view of events in Iraq.
It's been maddening, to say the least, to see the plausibility of events that I witnessed questioned by people who have never served in Iraq. I was initially reluctant to take the time out of my already insane schedule fighting an actual war in order to play some role in an ideological battle that I never wanted to join. That being said, my character, my experiences, and those of my comrades in arms have been called into question, and I believe that it is important to stand by my writing under my real name.
--Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
