The New Republic Sort of Retracts the Scott Thomas Bullcrap Stories

TNR editor Franklin Foer makes readers wade through 13 pages of self-pitying crap, eventually to reach this pseudo mea culpa regarding the Scott Thomas Beauchamp stories* on page 14:

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.

Foer blames everyone in sight, from conservative bloggers to Scott Thomas Beauchamp to military PR folks (oddly, neither President Bush nor Global Warming are mentioned), until finally coming out and implying that TNR became so enamored of the truthiness of the tales that they failed to verify anything before going to print. The hope seems to be that most readers will give up long before page 14, and be left with vague impressions of Foer's earnestness.

Bob Owens, who has been on top of this story from the beginning, and whose blog Confederate Yankee is mentioned by Foer, explains at Pajamas Media why Foer should be fired.

* Beauchamp wrote stories for The New Republic, under a pseudonym, saying that US troops mocked a disfigured woman in uniform, wore a piece of a child's skull on their heads, and deliberately ran over dogs with Bradley fighting vehicles.