In retrospect, I’d change the url, but hindsight….

Yeah, I didn’t click over to your site – I didn’t realize it was yours (dsadevil?).

It’s ALWAYS a bad idea to read my pointers without reading the underlying post in question (even if I was linking to someone else, they deserve to be read in their own words, and unless it’s a pure cross-post the TDL post will be far more fleshed out and expansive).

After reading the entire piece, I agree with the last paragraphs:

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.

In light me actually reading discovering and reading TNR’s latest on the subject, my previous comments are a bit unfair to them. Although there is clearly a bit of self-serving CYA in the piece, I don’t see it as a completely unfair account based on what’s known.

TNR’s independent reporting

Independent – Ha! As if TNR doesn’t have a dog in this fight or its own reputation to protect in its investigation of itself. How can anyone reasonably call an organization investigating itself “independent?”

And, of course, the allegations of coercion by the military are just that -allegations. And such allegations are quite far-fetch when one considers the number of sworn statements and the degree to which they agree in character and content. Additionally, Foer is doing quite a bit of coercion himself in that phone conversation….

It seems to me you give a very large benefit-of-doubt to TNR and almost none to anything that contradicts their story….

At the very least, TNR should retract the story until it can be verified, unless journalistic standards have changed in recent years of course.

On exhibit A, Foer details the tremendous amount of pressure the soldiers were under to repudiate Beauchamp. Prior to this duress, a great many of his fellow men in uniform were backing him up. More importantly, a close read of many of the statements shows the soldiers took pains to try not to contradict their previous statements, while still satisfying their superior officers. Put simply, the official army investigation was done under significant coercion and lacks credibility compared to TNR’s independent reporting.

On exhibit B, Beauchamp gave the words in that transcript while being watched by his commanding officers — not exactly a good environment for candor, particularly since they had already made their displeasure with Beauchamp’s stories quite clear by rendering him incommunicado for weeks after he revealed his name. And even there, Beauchamp refused to repudiate the stories, he just expressed a desire to let the whole thing drop — quite reasonable, given what he was being put through.

This is why Foer’s investigation and context was so important. It is far and away the most complete accounting of the whole ordeal that we have, and it really colors the witch-hunt that groups like the NRO were conducting here. While the evidence in Beauchamp’s favor may not be strong enough to have warranted publication, I still think on balance it weighs more heavily in favor of his truthfulness than against.

First is exhibit A, the official Army investigation. Part of that investigation includes sworn statements by many soldiers, including Beauchamp, that show his claims were false.

Second is the leaked phone transcript (part 1 & part 2) between Foer and Beauchamp himself where Beauchamp refuses to affirm that his stories were accurate.

So what evidence is there the stories were accurate when an official investigation finds them false and the author refuses to stand by them?

Initially, they seem to have been naive or negligent, a la the NYT and the Iraq war. That’s a serious lapse in judgment, and they have eat crow just the NYT has had to.

By now, this has become fodder for the usual political games, and few of the commenters are seriously interested in what happened and how it happened. It’s purely a question of how this can be used in the political wars.

(And I’m not a right-winger, by the way. Good luck making that argument.)

The final word? On what? Beachamp? TNR’s approach? Franklin Foer’s choices in writing this article? Etc.?

You’ve gotta be kidding.