Thursday, October 25, 2007
Bo-chump* and The New Republic
A few months ago Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp submitted articles describing supposed ugly behavior of American soldiers to the left-leaning New Republic Magazine (TNR). The descriptions reported were absurd to anyone who has a clue about the caliber of our military. Of course, the left is not interested in supporting our military but will eagerly publish anything that is critical, but check facts? Nah. Writers in the blogosphere took one look at the articles and immediately, red flags appeared.
Further research indicated that TNR had done minimal fact checking and ignored the full disclosure practice of identifying relationships with staff. Turns out at the time of Mr. Beauchamp's written submissions, his wife worked at The New Republic.
Over the past 10 weeks, TNR editors have refused to admit their errors, have pulled the articles, and entered the "hide in the cave" zone. Appears they want people to forget their lack of editorial responsibility. TNR accused the Army of stonewalling - yet it's TNR who has been stonewalling the truth. Our Army did its investigation and concluded the stories were false.
Yesterday, Drudge got copies of the Army's investigation and conversations between the TNR edictors and Mr. Beauchamp who now wants the whole thing to go away - I wonder why??? The Drudge documents are now gone but can be accessed through Michelle Malkin's website.
Mr. Beauchamp is the product of an education system that tells everyone they're special without providing grounding in honesty, integrity, and personal responsibility. Because Beauchamp had access to a left-leaning, anti-Bush and anti-US military magazine, by his own admission, he submitted articles based on fantasy and gross extrapolation of facts (one article appears to be an based on the actions of German soldiers in Afghanistan a couple of years ago). He dreamed about being another Hemingway.
When we teach children that everything and anything goes, and they are not accountable for what they say and do, they develop a very warped idea of life and will have major difficulties living on their own. Mr. Beauchamp got caught. Hopefully he'll learn from this experience. On the other hand, TNR does not appear to have learned anything from this experience. A once decent left of center magazine has shown its inability to deal with facts that do not support thier bias, again.
Further research indicated that TNR had done minimal fact checking and ignored the full disclosure practice of identifying relationships with staff. Turns out at the time of Mr. Beauchamp's written submissions, his wife worked at The New Republic.
Over the past 10 weeks, TNR editors have refused to admit their errors, have pulled the articles, and entered the "hide in the cave" zone. Appears they want people to forget their lack of editorial responsibility. TNR accused the Army of stonewalling - yet it's TNR who has been stonewalling the truth. Our Army did its investigation and concluded the stories were false.
Yesterday, Drudge got copies of the Army's investigation and conversations between the TNR edictors and Mr. Beauchamp who now wants the whole thing to go away - I wonder why??? The Drudge documents are now gone but can be accessed through Michelle Malkin's website.
Mr. Beauchamp is the product of an education system that tells everyone they're special without providing grounding in honesty, integrity, and personal responsibility. Because Beauchamp had access to a left-leaning, anti-Bush and anti-US military magazine, by his own admission, he submitted articles based on fantasy and gross extrapolation of facts (one article appears to be an based on the actions of German soldiers in Afghanistan a couple of years ago). He dreamed about being another Hemingway.
When we teach children that everything and anything goes, and they are not accountable for what they say and do, they develop a very warped idea of life and will have major difficulties living on their own. Mr. Beauchamp got caught. Hopefully he'll learn from this experience. On the other hand, TNR does not appear to have learned anything from this experience. A once decent left of center magazine has shown its inability to deal with facts that do not support thier bias, again.
Labels: education, Freedom, soldiers
