In the continuing saga of TNR’s “Scott Thomas” fiasco, earlier today I had posted about an interesting line in a New York Times story which quoted TNR editor Franklin Foer as saying he was “nearly certain” that “Scott Thomas” was a real soldier (which raises all sorts of questions about why TNR was running inflammatory stories supposedly from Baghdad written by someone they weren’t certain was a soldier).

That quote (note that it was in quotation marks) was in the original New York Times article.  Then TNR objected to the quote in an online posting, so the New York Times removed it from their article.  Now, suddenly, the quote is back in.

So two things: First, the Times and TNR were clearly caught red-handed in a bit of CYA.

Second, TNR ran the “Scott Thomas” stories without even knowing for sure if the person writing them was, in fact, a soldier as he claimed.

Whatever else happens in this matter, those two things will be a mark of shame for both TNR and (to a lesser extent) the New York Times.