More “paranoia,” this time from Charles Krauthammer:
the whole point of that story was to demonstrate how the war had turned an otherwise sensitive soul into a monster. Indeed, in the precious, highly self-conscious literary style of an aspiring writer trying out for a New Yorker gig, Beauchamp follows the terrible tale of his cruelty to the disfigured woman by asking, “Am I a monster?†And answering with satisfaction that the very fact that he could ask this question after (the reader has been led to believe) having been so hardened and brutalized by war, shows that there is a kernel of humanity left in him.
But oh, how much was lost. In the past, you see, he was a sensitive soul with “compassion for those with disabilities.†In a particularly treacly passage, he tells us he once worked in a summer camp with disabled children and in college helped a colleague with cerebral palsy. Then this delicate compassionate youth is transformed into an unfeeling animal by war.
Except that it is now revealed that the mess hall incident happened before he even got to the war. On which point, the whole story  and the whole morality tale it was meant to suggest  collapses.
And it makes the rest of the narrative banal and uninteresting. It’s the story of a disgusting human being, a mocker of the disfigured, who then goes to Iraq, and, as such human beings are wont to do, finds the company of other such human beings who kill dogs for sport, wear the bones of dead children on their heads, and find amusement in mocking the disfigured.
We will soon learn if there actually was a dog killer or a bone wearer. But The New Republic seems not to have understood how the Kuwait “detail†undermines everything. After all, what made the purported story interesting enough to publish? Why did The New Republic run it?
Because it fits perfectly into the most virulent narrative of the antiwar Left. The Iraq war  “George Bush’s war,†as even Hillary Clinton, along with countless others who had actually endorsed the war, now calls it  has not only caused the sorrow and destruction that we read about every day. It has, most perniciously, caused invisible damage  now made visible by the soul-searching of one brave and gifted private: It has perverted and corrupted the young soldiers who went to Iraq, and now return morally ruined. Young soldiers like Scott Thomas Beauchamp.
We already knew from all of America’s armed conflicts  including Iraq  what war can make men do. The only thing we learn from Scott Thomas Beauchamp is what literary ambition can make men say.
And what are we to take away from all this?
That Charles Krauthammer is likely gay as a piccolo.
Yeah, I noticed the way he and Barnes look at each other on Hume’s show. There goes their crediblity. If only they were more like Andrew Sullivan.
I dunno — the Left may change it up and go with “He’s a cripple!“
Piccolos are positively butch compared to the contrabassoons. Absolutely flaming, they are.
Oh, like Matt Drudge! NTTAWWT. Or is there?
I honestly don’t know anymore.
Is the New Republic anti-war? They were pro-war and their last editorial on the subject was pre-war.
I would hesitate to disagree with Dr. Krauthammer, as he has been right about so much lately.
They were pro-war under Beinart, and have been anti-war under Foer.
When I subscribed, they were, in fact, a moderate liberal mag — muscular on foreign policy. Lately, though, they’ve been tacking leftward.
Uh, no. Where did you get the idea that they haven’t editorialized on the war since before the war?
That’s been one of the talking points from the start of the STB kurfuffle — that TNR is pro-war, so clearly they didn’t intend to publish seditious tripe. No mention is allowed of editorial changes…
The editorial in the Kurtz piece was under Beinart. But then here’s one from the Foer era, last November.
– Actually Kondracki is the closet corset wearer on the panel, right down to the sexy affected stutter. Ever notice how he fondles Charles wheelchair control stick? Its also telling that he always narrates the “Who’s Up” segment on the Beltway boys.
TNR has an update for interested parties.
Well, they don’t address the Camp Buehring PAO having told them that melty-face woman is “an urban legend, a myth” and leaving that out. They don’t address their spinning the fact that the Bradley manufacturer’s rep did NOT corroborate Beauchamp’s tale and having read it calls it “highly unlikely, if not impossible”.
It’s not a crime to lie to TNR, and the Army has decided none of this happened, and therefore no one is getting charged. We need to hear from their corroborating witnesses. We need their names. And we need to hear from Beauchamp, who the Army says is free to discuss the matter.
You are not kidding about Krauthammer. When he goes to the clubs I hang at and starts flying around on that wheelchair of his–watch out. He will roll you right down!
Pablo, assuming STB could not sink so low as to be a sock puppet, or arrange for a “Pvt Vandalay” to take calls and write emails in support of his penny-dreadfuls, there are one or two likely candidates named in his blog.
One in particular, whom he names, and describes as a former junkie, a PV2 in his group.
You aren’t kidding about Krauthammer. I’ve seen him go through builings, rounding corners of of sidewalks, knocking over fruit stands, that sort of thing. Once he drove through a fruitstand and came out with a fruity-tutti hat, ala Carmen Miranda. Wore the damn thing all day, I had to help him pick out pieces of brown banana peel out of his thick , fermented-fruit-slathered black hair.
Then there’s the time he deliberately ran over my shoes in Vegas. “In the desert, you see a Manalo Blanik lying on its back, struggling, and you’re not helping — why is that? ” Because, he’s lost his humanity, that’s why. That or he’s some kind of Rep-ubl-icant.
This sentence tells you all you need to know about TNR’s attitude:
Why does it matter what “agendas” anybody has as of now? Aren’t we way past that point? That is a strawman the size of Colossus, an attempt to raise the drippy banner of victimization, “Oh, look what those mean, awful milbloggers and chickenhawk sites are doing to us!”
Yet they continue to cling to their all anonymous all the time “re-reporting” while ignoring the fact that Confederate Yankee has talked to the same Bradley guy they did (and, shockingly, identifies him) and he refutes what TNR says he said. Not to mention an explaination for or, at least, an acknowledgment of conversations that they had with a couple of PAO’s who gave them information contradictory to STB’s.
Foer is playing a shell game, moving the cups as fast as he can.
well, thanks to BBH and SarahW I may need to reevaluate who my favorite “Fox News Contributor” is. Oh who am I kidding? I don’t care about the words that come out of their brains, I just like the nerdy lookin’ guys.
Blah>nik, Blah>nik. Cheezit, these floaters are getting me down. I’m going to have to buy a 60 inch monitor or have my vitreous humor sucked out.
I can give Foer a pass for the human foible of self-delusion; he lacked the sense of what not to believe… but he has to realize by now, that he is being awfully crafty and artful trying to justify the fact that a traveller with a pretty truck didn’t give him the sweet deal on leftover asphalt he was hoping for.
TNR today:
TNR before:
TNR never called for Kerry to authorize release of his military records. Sometimes I guess it’s ok to come to firm conclusions about teh truth even when the military is stonewalling.
God is dead.
TW: Minister hides.
Well, can you blame him? He’s not properly armed, after all.
“I can give Foer a pass for the human foible of self-delusion; he lacked the sense of what not to believe… but he has to realize by now, that he is being awfully crafty and artful trying to justify the fact that a traveller with a pretty truck didn’t give him the sweet deal on leftover asphalt he was hoping for.”
You are assuming that Foer wasn’t a shill. I am not so certain, or forgiving.
Frankie’s front half was completely severed from his rear, which was twitching wildly, and his head was still raised and smiling at the sun as if nothing had happened at all.
BMoe, you can’t con an honest man, and I believe TNR carefully dealt in generalities in order to avoid the chance of any serious discrepancies get in the way of a good story.
My idea of good journalism is to attempt to do your damndest to knock the legs out of any story you really, really want to be true. How many times did TNR fail my test? many, many times over.
Whatever generosity might have been due Foer’s foolishness or guile, is really moot now. He’s in it up to his blinkered eyeballs.
The only thing necessary for TNR to reassess the credibility of STB’s stories is a thorough reading of what he wrote before he went into Iraq. The blog is a dead giveaway, and they don’t need anything more than what they already have. And they certainly haven’t tried very hard to discredit the stories. True stories stand up to tests like that.
So Greedy.
Publishing those stories as fiction would have given everyone cover, and folks would be speculating on how much of a cover the “fiction” was for truth…all they had to do was make sure everybody knew the soldier was really a soldier, serving in Iraq, with stories and names and details slightly altered to protect identities and the innocent.
I wonder if they have an expert to verify those previously unheard of square backed rounds and the notion that the Iraqi Police are the only people in Iraq with Glocks.
“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”
Rob Crawford and Pablo:
The reference to the TNR’s past, w/o mentioning any changes, is typical of the Left’s attempts to use history.
Thus, as we’ve seen by trolls here, if you refer to French problems, the response is “Yeah, but they helped us in the American Revolution!”
During the Cold War, every so often, you’d hear the Left comment about how “The Soviets fought on our side against Hitler.” (That one was especially amusing as a justification for the crimes of the Rosenbergs and the other atomic bomb spies.)
Of course, history is reserved for “proper” use. Soviet cheating on previous arms control agreements? Not enough to justify failing to sign new ones.
North Korean cheating on previous arms control agreements? Not enough to justify Bush failing to negotiate with them now.
History for me (on my terms) but not for thee.
While many of these questions have been formulated by people with ideological agendas, we are too blinded by our own ideological agenda to give a damn about journalistic accuracy.
#16 – Maggie, my wife thinks ‘little Billy Kristol’ is cute, and watches Fox News Sunday to catch him…
hmmm, his voice grates on me, there’s some technical problems there. I generally watch Fox News Sunday to watch Brit Hume unload all the anger he’s pent up for the week on Juan Williams.