Beauchamp – The Plot Thickens

The Rightie blogosmear has gone KARAZEE!

Michael Goldfarb at Murdoch’s WEEKLY STANDARD claims that an anonymous Army source says Private Beauchamp has signed a statement repudiating all of his statements, charges, articles, etc. etc.

The high-fiving throughout the Pajamas Media related blogs who have coordinated with Goldfarb and the WEEKLY STANDARD has been … well, you’d think it was VE Day and VJ Day all rolled into one.

But wait just a minute! Eager to accept the truth of an anonymous source about their three-week-long attack on The New Republic’s anonymous diarist (and his “factuality”), the Righties may have just jumped the gun (if not the shark):

The New Republic has just released THIS statement:

08.07.07

A STATEMENT ON SCOTT THOMAS BEAUCHAMP:

We’ve talked to military personnel directly involved in the events that Scott Thomas Beauchamp described, and they corroborated his account as detailed in our statement. When we called Army spokesman Major Steven F. Lamb and asked about an anonymously sourced allegation that Beauchamp had recanted his articles in a sworn statement, he told us, “I have no knowledge of that.” He added, “If someone is speaking anonymously [to The Weekly Standard], they are on their own.” When we pressed Lamb for details on the Army investigation, he told us, “We don’t go into the details of how we conduct our investigations.”

–The Editors
posted 2:32 p.m. [EDT]

I guess facts and anonymous sources are only to be questioned if they disagree with you.

Gee, I sure hope this doesn’t boomerang on Goldfarb. I mean, WHO has demonstrated a grander committment to facts and accuracy?

Courage.

Air On A G String (part iii)

It is a peculiarity of my muse that whenever vital information is still in transit, she will not allow me to create. I am invariably dumbfounded by her immense wisdom.

I was writing about the state of writing — the profession — and journalism — the profession — and publishing — the profession. And, in my wordy way, I was telling you that a job in publications these days was less preferable than a job in the domestic textile industry. And I stalked the oeuvre of the working male writer of the post World War II era — men’s magazines that paid the rent in a guilty ‘devil’s bridge’ to provide ‘redeeming social value,’ i.e. to keep the publishers and their employees out of jail. (More the former than the latter).

And I was going to tell you why I’d suddenly decided NOT to attend the Willamette Writers’ Conference this weekend.