Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard [1] is reporting:
THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned from a military source close to the investigation that Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp–author of the much-disputed “Shock Troops” article in the New Republic’s July 23 issue as well as two previous “Baghdad Diarist” columns–signed a sworn statement admitting that all three articles he published in the New Republic were exaggerations and falsehoods–fabrications containing only “a smidgen of truth,” in the words of our source.
Separately, we received this statement from Major Steven F. Lamb, the deputy Public Affairs Officer for Multi National Division-Baghdad:
An investigation has been completed and the allegations made by PVT Beauchamp were found to be false. His platoon and company were interviewed and no one could substantiate the claims.
According to the military source, Beauchamp’s recantation was volunteered on the first day of the military’s investigation. So as Beauchamp was in Iraq signing an affidavit denying the truth of his stories, the New Republic was publishing a statement from him on its website on July 26, in which Beauchamp said, “I’m willing to stand by the entirety of my articles for the New Republic using my real name.”
I can’t help but wonder what we have here is TNR leaping to this slime ball’s defense, without bothering to check the facts, because it fits with their myopic worldview. So much for their credibility. Personally, I can’t wait to see what they come up with as an excuse. I can’t imagine that it’s going to make much of a difference to their hardcore leftist readers, to whom truth doesn’t matter much anyway.
Says McQ at Q&O [2]:
I’ll be rather interested to hear what Shakespeare’s Sister [3] and John Cole think of this development. I can pretty well predict the reaction, but let’s just watch it develop true to form, shall we?
Yeah, well, personally I was interested to see that Scott Erb is still defending the guy. And interestingly enough, as of 2330 eastern, not one of the usual suspects from the lefty blogs have said the word one about the subject. I guess that shouldn’t be surprising.
Others on it:
protein wisdom [4], Power Line [5], The Corner [6], Hot Air [7], The Jawa Report [8], Wizbang [9], Confederate Yankee [10], Flopping Aces [11], JunkYardBlog [12], Gateway Pundit [13] and A Blog For All [14]