The New Republic Gets Drudged

Once The New Republic began its stonewalling on the Scott Thomas Beauchamp Shock Troops affair, it would take someone with the goods to move things forward.

That someone happened to be Matt Drudge, who apparently obtained key documents showing the malfeasance at TNR. While he wasn't the first on this story, or most dogged in pursuit of the truth, Matt's contribution may be the coup de gras for TNR's editors.

Namely, he's obtained various military documents relating to the Army's investigation of Beauchamp's claims as written in his Shock Troops diaries.

The third document obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT is the Army's official report on the investigation into the allegations made by Private Beauchamp. The Army concluded that Beauchamp had "completely fabricated" the story of mocking a disfigured woman, that his description of a "Saddam-era dumping ground" was false, and that claims that he and his men had deliberately targeted dogs with their armored vehicles was "completely unfounded." Further the report stated "that Private Beauchamp desired to use his experiences to enhance his writing and provide legitimacy to his work possibly becoming the next Hemingway."

The report concludes that "Private Beauchamp takes small bits of truth and twists and exaggerates them into fictional accounts that he puts forth as the whole truth for public consumption."

I don't expect TNR's editors, specifically Franklin Foer, to admit to his failures, or step down in the face of the evidence. It hasn't been his MO throughout this sordid affair.

Much of the credit for shedding light on this story has to go to Bob Owens and Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard and various milbloggers who thought the stories smelled something fierce. All those involved in debunking the story spent far more time on fact checking than TNR ever did - either before publication or in a hasty CYA operation that omitted key details that would have shown just how poorly TNR did in the first instance.

Indeed, the omissions, lies, and misstatements in the follow up fact checking are far more damning - ignoring key statements from US military officials who stated that no one was preventing Pvt. Beauchamp from talking to the media, show that TNR's editorial board must consider a serious housecleaning - starting with Foer.

HT: Yankee Division Son at LGF.

UPDATE:
Also among the documents is a conversation between TNR and Beauchamp, a conversation that shows just how far down the rabbit hole TNR went with the Shock Troop stories after things began to implode.

Hot Air has more, including questions over how Drudge got the docs. Several had to have military sources, but what about the TNR-Beauchamp conversation.

UPDATE:
As expected, don't expect a swift response from TNR editors on this. They'll take their time in trying to parse their way through this mess of their own creation. When all is said and done, this will have to change. Those in charge have done too much damage to their reputation to stay on.

UPDATE:
Instapundit is reporting that TNR has made it impossible to find Beauchamp's work on their site. That's true using the TNR search engine, but the items are still there, if you use Google's search of the tnr.com domain (link works for Beauchamp).

References to Shock Troops is also unavailable using the TNR search, but found with Google.

UPDATE:
You have to use the cached versions using the Google search, because they've been busy trying to scrub the site of any Beauchamp stink. Too bad, the only thing that will truly remove the hideous stain is to have Foer, Zengerle, and others involved in publication of the Beauchamp pieces walk the plank.

UPDATE:
Ace, who has been at the forefront of the Scottscam since the outset, wonders about who leaked the documents to Drudge. He muses that it might be someone inside TNR who covets Foer's job. Possibly. Considering how TNR has been in possession of all these facts and information about Beauchamp's malfeasance and stonewalled nonetheless, someone might have gotten sick and tired of this and decided to leak to Drudge, knowing that the resulting malestrom would shake things up.

UPDATE:
Things have gone surreal. Drudge has taken down the pdfs and the page is gone. Hot Air follows:

Update: Hmmm. The Drudge link still exists but the links to the documents don’t, and he’s removed the item from the front page. The Army documents look too real to have been forged but did he get snookered on the transcript?

Update: A cryptic post from K-Lo at the Corner: “We’re hearing from The New Republic that the Drudge story isn’t the damning evidence it suggests to be … stay tuned.” They flipped the script!

Update (Bryan): I just rang up TNR’s offices and asked for Franklin Foer. He’s in a meeting at the moment. I wonder what it might be about.

Curiouser and curiouser. Were the documents too good to be true? Was Drudge snookered by a source? Is TNR holding out exculpatory information?

Well, considering that TNR's Foer is in a meeting (and you can certainly bet big money on what the topic is about), it may be some time before a response is crafted.

In the meantime, we've got Drudge's strangely silent retraction to deal with.

UPDATE:
Ace councils patience, and suggests that the documents are indeed legit. Ace had a number of sources inside TNR, including Throbert McGee (the only person to be fired in the whole mess), so I'll wait and see as well.

UPDATE:
Jonathan Chait at TNR notes to KLo that no one is disputing the legitimacy of the documents, only the way that Drudge characterized them. Interesting.

UPDATE:
Fixed a typo in Throbert's name (thanks to Siddhartha in the comments). TNR's response thus far seems to be attacking the messenger and the Army for leaking these documents to right wing bloggers. Strange. TNR was a party to these conversations, so they knew the content of the conversation between Beauchamp and Foer/TNR. They knew what was going on six weeks ago, and yet they sat on it.

They may whine all they like, but these documents released by Drudge only shows just how poorly TNR acted in all this. They refused to retract the story, even as the facts dried up around them. Beauchamp was no help to them, and yet they stood behind the story.

Now that everything blew up in their face, they're lashing out at the Army and right wing bloggers, as though they're to blame for publishing Beauchamp's fiction in the first place.

All this reveals is Foer's incessant need to try and control and shape the story, even as it was coming apart at the seams.