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So this requires a bit of explanation.
Last year, you’ll recall, a soldier named Scott Thomas Beauchamp wrote some disturbing things about his experiences in Iraq for The New Republic, and set off a media firestorm. At the time, without the benefit of any reporting, I was convinced that Beauchamp was a liar and TNR was being unfairly slimed by the right as part of a cynical attempt to discredit anyone to the left of the Weekly Standard on the war. Around then I was asked to write a reported piece about Beauchamp and the slander, since I could hardly be considered a TNR shill after the magazine fired me. Figuring that doing so would both set the record straight and would help me draw a line under an unpleasant period in my life, I agreed.
I ended up interviewing Beauchamp a couple times — once in person and over email a couple times — and did a bunch of follow-up reporting. And I came to a much different conclusion than I started out suspecting: Scott Thomas Beauchamp did not lie and did not misrepresent his service. The New Republic‘s investigation did not uncover any such misrepresentation, and yet the magazine threw him under the bus to spare itself the controversy. Yet it was also true that TNR was the victim of cynical misportrayal from conservatives.
For a variety of reasons, the first publication I was going to write the story for ended up unable to publish it. Given what Scott endured, getting him to trust a reporter was not an easy task, and I felt as if letting the story die — which would entail allowing an portrait of him as a liar to persist unchallenged — would be a betrayal. So, today, it’s out, in the September issue of Radar. I hope you find it thorough, fair and informative.
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Nice piece, Spencer. Reeve and Beauchamp have both been through quite a bit, and perhaps this will help them take those “next moves,” whatever they may be.
It’s funny what actually reviewing the documents, checking the emails, and interviewing witnesses will actually produce. Good for you, Spencer, in not letting that portrait of him as a liar stand.
But I am curious about one thing . . .
TNR? The Weekly Standard? *g*
Well-written. Beauchamp finally regretted his whistleblowing, unfortunately all too common. The discussion of memory was also good, it really is a tricky thing.
“Stabbed In The Back“
What do expect from the post-partisan march forward?
Thanks, Spencer. Great article.
I liked the story very much.
Perhaps you could clarify one thing for me. You say that you suspect Michael — Goldfarb of either “shoddy journalism or plain dishonesty.”
By plain dishonesty are you implying that it one of his lesser efforts?
Send her what now ?
kilo -
I think Spencer Ackerman forgot to put the words “to the” before galleys in writing “he offered to send her galleys.”
I agree with those who thought it was a good article.
Dude, you’re thinking of the gallows, or the kitchen on a ship. Both scenarios would be more interesting than the actual meaning, which is apparently nerdspeak for a type of pre-print proof copy. ie Give her the pre-press draft to edit.
Sorry, yes, that was jargon-y. Galleys are pre-printed pages.
Great piece, but I have to take one small exception. You write in your article, “Ironically, the only people besides [wife Elspeth] Reeve who have consistently stood by Beauchamp are his buddies in the army.”
Not entirely true. I’ve been consistently blogging about the Goldfarb machinations in this affair for over a year, including about 12,000 words this month:
• The Scum Also Rises (August 4), and
• The Old Man and the Sleaze (August 6).
Rhetorical flourishes are fun but ofttimes not entirely accurate.
Thanks for putting this abomination of Rightie libel back in the public eye.
My apologies. I wasn’t aware of your blog.
kilo – my reference was actually to the old punishment of sending someone “to the galleys” – as in penal servitude on a ship.
No problem. (No one else seems to have seen it, either.) But my purpose wasn’t self-aggrandizement: recently, the New York Review of Magazines (published by Columbia University’s Journalism Department) published an “insider’s look” at what took place inside The Weekly Standard when they decided to declare “war” on The New Republic. It hasn’t been much seen, either. You might like to take a look at it.
There’s also quite lot of questionable inter-linkage between the Weekly Standard’s blog swarm and General Petraeus’ Public Affairs officer, Col. Steven Boylan.
And, if I didn’t make it clear, kudos for finally telling “the other side of the story,” which Goldfarb and his milblogging minions exploited to pretend (in typical one-sided debate fashion) that they had the “truth” of the matter, without a clue as to what that truth might be. There’s a cache on the blow-by-blow here.