Michael Goldfarb writes for the Weekly Standard:
In case you missed it, the Scott Thomas Beauchamp saga finally came to an end over the weekend. Four and a half months after the WWS first raised questions about the New Republic‘s pseudonymous Baghdad Diarist, TNR editor Franklin Foer retracted the soldier’s three pieces in a 7,000 word apologia (in which he never apologizes!–not to his readers, nor to his critics, whom he attacked and derided, but who were right, nor to the troops) culminating in this definitive conclusion:
In retrospect, we never should have put Beauchamp in this situation. He was a young soldier in a war zone, an untried writer without journalistic training. We published his accounts of sensitive events while granting him the shield of anonymity–which, in the wrong hands, can become license to exaggerate, if not fabricate.
When I last spoke with Beauchamp in early November, he continued to stand by his stories. Unfortunately, the standards of this magazine require more than that. And, in light of the evidence available to us, after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described them. Without that essential confidence, we cannot stand by these stories.
There’s been a lot of interesting, and amusing, commentary about Foer’s piece, but first read should go to Bob Owens over at Pajamas Media. Owens has been dogged in investigating this story, and even managed to expose MoveOn’s sweetheart deal with the New York Times in his spare time.
The guys at Hot Air read the piece so you don’t have to, and there’s more from Michelle including some of the best reactions from TNR’s own readers. Jules Crittenden hopes that something good might come from all this for the editors at TNR, and Powerline offers an excellent response in just under 80 words (the latest Beauchamp inspired parody can be found here).
Update: Gawker picks apart TNR’s retraction and ends with what I think is a striking comparison to the apology offered at the end of the Glass scandal:
Foer ought to have taken a page from the Chuck Lane School of Apologia. In 1998, when addressing TNR readers in the wake of the Stephen Glass scandal, the magazine’s 500-word piece concluded simply: "We offer no excuses for any of this. Only our deepest apologies to all concerned."
Update II: The Observer lands an exclusive interview with Foer:
Mr. Foer said he has no plans to resign from the magazine, and that no one at TNR has asked him to.
