The New Republic Still Holding Line on ScottScam

TNR is back from vacation, but has been reluctant to address all the factual errors, misstatements, lies, and omissions made by TNR and Beauchamp in the course of this kerfuffle.

Bryan at Hot Air notes the latest video of Peter Beinart (via NRO) trying to defend the indefensible, and muddling his way through a pathetic defense.

Indeed, much of what Beinart suggests is along the lines of fake but accurate.

Sorry, but that doesn't wash as Beauchamp wasn't even in Iraq and hadn't even sniffed war when he wrote the most disturbing parts of his story about the dining hall incident.

Beauchamp's grasp of facts are questionable, and the US Army investigation found no truth to the matters asserted. That Beauchamp refuses to talk to the media or TNR to confirm or deny the story at this point is TNR's problem. They've got a writer who refuses to address all the issues swirling around the publications, the US Army has investigated matters and found them to be false.

Unless TNR is going to reveal who their other sources are who corroborated Beauchamp's pieces - and precisely what they stated and how they fact checked the pieces, TNR has to do more than simply offer up half-baked statements asserting that this is all some kind of ideological campaign to undermine the magazine.

Bryan notes:

Beinart does nothing so much as continue the obfuscation and cover-up concerning Beauchamp, and is never really challenged on the hard facts of the case, such as:

1. Where’s the stratified mass grave?
2. Does the melted woman exist, and why couldn’t Pvt Beauchamp recognize her uniform as either civilian or military, and why did he intially report that his mocking her occurred in Iraq and then move the incident to Kuwait? What does that do to the overall narrative of Beauchamp’s being turned into a monster by Bush’s war? TNR “confirming the woman” doesn’t cut it, guys.
3. Are the Iraqi police the only ones using Glocks in all of Iraq?
4. Did TNR really put softball, vague questions to the Bradley expert in an attempt to lead him to offer vague support for Beauchamp’s dog story?
5. Why did TNR report that the Army was stonewalling its investigation, when Beauchamp has been free to speak all along?
6. Does TNR plan to continue to hire relatives of staffers to write reports from Iraq, and only fact-check those reports when criticized after publication?

And while Beinart delivers the magazine’s tapdancing defense on NRO, TNR itself remains silent four days after returning from vacation.

The vacation has done nothing to hide the stink swirling around TNR as a result of this mess. Ignoring the problem is not going to make it go away. Dealing with the problem forthrightly will. Sadly, TNR has chosen to stonewall and ignore the festering mess.

American Thinker takes Beauchamp and TNR to task.

Others questioning where TNR is now that the vacation is over: Michelle Malkin.