Monday, August 06, 2007

Not-So-Great Scott   [John Podhoretz]

The New Republic has, in essence, defended the personal essay by U.S. soldier Scott Thomas Beauchamp on all grounds save one: That Beauchamp relocated to Iraq an incident in which he participated in Kuwait. In that incident, he supposedly made fun of a horribly burned woman while others laughed along.

It is now looking like that incident was entirely invented, and that The New Republic had reason to know there were problems with its veracity before it published its defense of Beauchamp. (Hi, Instapundit readers: There's an update to this item you should read .)

Bob Owens, who runs the fine and careful website Confederate Yankee, has received an e-mail from an Army public-affairs officer in Kuwait where Thomas supposedly did the burned-woman-insulting that reads, bluntly: "We have absolutely no record of this. MAJ Russo contacted Buerhing and our Area Support Group and they do not have anything either."

That Major Russo is the same official who was contacted by Jason Zengerle of the New Republic, who was trying to verify the Beauchamp story after its publication. She told Confederate Yankee that she informed Zengerle she had "not been able to find anyone to back it up. There is not a police
report or complaint filed on this incident during that timeframe. Right now it is considered to be a Urban Legend or Myth." Her skepticism is nowhere reflected in TNR's apologia for Beauchamp.

08/06 01:15 PMShare