Why Did The New Republic Pick Scott Thomas Beauchamp?
Bryan Preston brings up a good point about the latest New Republic scandal:
Somewhere in all those descriptions, you’ll find the motivations that led TNR to publish the writings of Scott Thomas Beauchamp but not J. D. Johannes, Pat Dollard, Michael Yon, Michael Totten or any of the writings published by those of us who have been to Iraq for whatever length of time and have things to say about the troops and the war. TNR sought out a war critic, but not any war critic: TNR sought out a war critic whose writings either smeared the troops or exposed serious discipline problems among the troops.
There are a number of people who have paid their way to Iraq and embedded themselves openly with our troops to bring us the good, bad and ugly of the Iraq war. Most of those fine people have proven, time and again, that they can bring us timely and accurate stories from the conflict. But The New Republic didn’t choose someone like that. Instead they chose Scott Thomas Beauchamp, who in turn chose to write absurdly juvenile (and not quite believable) stories about our troops mocking a disfigured woman and playing smash-up with Bradley vehicles.
Why was this decision made? It was made, I think, because TNR didn’t want open and honest reporting out of Iraq. They wanted “reporting” (if you can even call it that) which fit their political agenda.
