Fascinating stuff involving The New Republic
UPDATE V (which deserves to be at the top): It’s been more than two hours since Drudge broke the story and TNR has not come up with any response. It’s web page is completely static, and its blogs seem to have gone into hibernation. I would have thought that smart damage control would dictate an immediate response. TNR’s silence is as telling as anything it could say at this point.
UPDATE VI: Backdoor media channels indicate that TNR is planning on coming out with a public statement downplaying the documents Drudge made public.
UPDATE VII: Almost four hours and still no word from TNR. By the way, the original post has disappeared from Drudge, with good authority telling me it’s because of bandwidth troubles. However, other sites, such as the ones linked to below (i.e.g, Michelle Malkin, Hot Air) have them. The Jawa Report also saved them for internet posterity: Document 1, Document 2, and Document 3.
Kathryn Jean Lopez, at The Corner, indicates that TNR, when it does talk, is going to go for denial, but I just don’t see how. Think about it. The Dan Rather documents, which didn’t actually exist (being forgeries), were repeatedly cited to in the MSM as gospel truth on the ground that they were “fake but accurate.” How is TNR going to characterize these real documents, which are not merely summaries of things they said (as to which subjective interpretation could creep in), but are actually things they said: “true but meaningless?” “authentic but inarticulate?” “accurate but false?” “real but ridiculous?”
I breathlessly await TNR’s spin.
UPDATE VIII: The Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb has a nice, neat summary of TNR’s failings. Incidentally, much as I’m glad to seeing a lying media take a deserved fall, I’m really sorry that it’s TNR. It used to be one of the less rabid political magazines, falling comfortably left of center, without ever getting hysterical about it. I’d hoped the Stephen Glass episode was anomalous, not symptomatic.
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ORIGINAL POST (which is vanishing amongst all the updates): I’ve mentioned briefly over the past few months the Scott Beauchamp affair over at The New Republic, although the really strong coverage has come from the Confederate Yankee. The story has suddenly broken at the national level, though, because Drudge is on it, making available transcripts that show, not the fakery behind the original “Shock Troops” stories, but the TNR cover-up that followed the fakery.
Now, things are getting even more interesting. The American Pundit has discovered that TNR has completely erased any reference to Shock Troops, Scott Beauchamp, and Scott Thomas from its records.
I don’t know about you, but three things instantly popped into my mind. First, Winston Smith, whose job in 1984 involved constantly destroying unpleasant history; Sandy Berger, sneaking documents out in his socks and undies; and myriad financial scandals during the 1990s, during which accountants and executives shredded wildly.
Much badness in the media world today.
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UPDATE I: Would it surprise you that Michelle Malkin has incredibly complete coverage? By the way, reading Foer in the revealed transcript, one is struck by how extraordinarily inarticulate he is. Perhaps it’s because he’s in a very unpleasant telephone conversation, but it may also be because these self-styled intellectuals often aren’t as smart as they think they are, and when you remove them from their comfortable tropes, they have very little to say.
UPDATE II: Since Bob Owens, at Confederate Yankee, probably deserves the lion’s share of credit for keeping this story alive, it’s only appropriate that I link to his take on the information Drudge made public.
UPDATE III: And good info and insight from Hot Air.
UPDATE IV: And still more good stuff at Wizbang.
