Bryan points out, today, that TNR has been back from vacation for 4 days. Somebody should make sure they’re ok. I mean, back from vaca for four days, and yet they remain silent on the fact that the stories Beauchamp wrote in their paper, with them backing him, have been found to be false.

When we last left TNR, they had posted this, among other parts:

Unfortunately, our efforts have been severely hampered by the U.S. Army. Although the Army says it has investigated Beauchamp’s article and has found it to be false, it has refused our–and others’–requests to share any information or evidence from its investigation. What’s more, the Army has rejected our requests to speak to Beauchamp himself, on the grounds that it wants “to protect his privacy.”

Essentially, they’re posting said “Until the Army releases details of the investigation, we stand by Beauchamp’s stories”. Why? Because the Army’s policy says it doesn’t release the details of investigations to the general public. The Army sticks by its policy, and TNR can save some of whatever face it has left.

Bryan points out the questions yet to be answered by TNR:

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?

The Army never received a report of a mass grave, but Beauchamp claimed the soldiers were working around it when one put the child’s scull on his head. No one on the base seems to have ever seen the woman with the burned face. Beauchamp later claimed she was actually in Kuwait, and he wasn’t actually there. The country is swarmed with weapons dealers, from whom anyone could purchase a Glock – not just the police.

Bob Owens contacted the spokesman for the company who makes the Bradley IFV, which Beauchamp claimed was used to suddenly jerk and run over dogs. The spokesman acknowledges having been contacted by a TNR staffer, but was only asked vague questions, and was not sent a copy of the stories Beauchamp was spewing:

The driver’s vision, even if sitting in an open hatch is severely restricted along the sides. He sits forward on the left side of the vehicle. His vision is significantly impaired along the right side of the vehicle which makes the account to “suddenly swerve to the right” and actually catch an animal suspect. If you were to attempt the same feat in your car, it would be very difficult and you have the benefit of side mirrors.

While TNR claims the Army has silenced Beauchamp, the Army says he is free to speak at any time. TNR itself had said that Beauchamp continued to stand by his stories, however they also claim he’s been silenced. Hmm.

Finally, even fellow journalists say hiring a family member of a staffer, and not fully fact-checking, is unethical. Bob Steele, Nelson Poynter Scholar for Journalism Values at The Poynter Institute school for journalists in St. Petersburg, Fla, had this to say in the Left-leaning Washington Post:

“Anonymity allows an individual to make accusations against others with impunity,” Steele said. “In this case, the anonymous diarist was accusing other soldiers of various levels of wrongdoing that were, at the least, moral failures, if not violations of military conduct. The anonymity further allows the writer to sidestep essential accountability that would exist, were he identified.”

Steele said he was troubled by the fact that the magazine did not catch the scene-shifting from Kuwait to Iraq of the incident Beauchamp described involving the disfigured woman.

“If they were doing any kind of fact-checking, with multiple sources, that error _ or potential deception _ would have emerged,” Steele said.

He added that he was also troubled by the relationship between Beauchamp and Reeve, his wife, who works at The New Republic. “It raises the possible specter of competing loyalties, which could undermine the credibility of the journalism,” he said.

Knock knock, TNR! Vacation’s over. So far, all you’ve managed to do, is slander the military, point out that many of your critics have “idealogical agendas”, make yourselves look like idiots, demand the military do something that violates its policy, and called The Weekly Standard a liar. Oh, and continue to attack Republicans at the same time.