Doubting the Thomas Story

The editor of The New Republic (TNR), Franklin Foer, continues to sidestep serious questions over the veracity of stories it has been publishing under the name of Scott Thomas. Thomas claims to be a soldier, and yet mibloggers from around the blogosphere have taken his stories apart for discrepancies large and small. The military has taken his comments to task for going outside the chain of command if such incident had indeed occurred - so that those responsible for the violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice would face the music.

Confederate Yankee's questions remain unanswered.

Bill Kristol notes that the Left really doesn't support the troops. Their actions speak far louder than their words.

Publishing the statements and reports without assuring their validity? That's par for the course at TNR, which should have learned its lesson after being burned by Stephen Glass. Apparently that incident didn't do the trick.

UPDATE:
Now this is where things get interesting. Yesterday, I cited a New York Times piece, and noted how curious it was that Foer was nearly certain of the identity of Thomas as a soldier. Here's how the original last paragraph of the story ran:

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 with “near certainty” that he is, in fact, a soldier.

Here's the current version, pulled on July 24:

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.

What's missing? It's that near certainty. As Ace notes, someone better have a damned good explanation for this and the stories offered by both TNR and NYT better match up. What's with the revision without attribution of correction as per company policy? After all, it would seem that the Times has revised the story to eliminate a direct quote from Foer that changes the context and strength of Foer's argument that he vetted Thomas' background (see here for problems with the NYT corrections policy - the failure to append corrections to the original story for completeness of the record). Did the NYT incorrectly quote Foer, or did Foer request a retraction of the comment? Either way, someone better explain why the change was made.

UPDATE:
It's now reverted to the way it was originally posted yesterday. What is going on over at the NYT and where are the correction notifications?

UPDATE:
Change that. They've added a line:

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 with "near certainty" that he is, in fact, a soldier.

After this article appeared, Mr. Foer said he was "absolutely certain" that the author is a soldier.

Gee, that clears things up, doesn't it?