Shattered BeauchampDrudge has put up the transcript of a phone call between Scott Beauchamp, TNR editor Franklin Foer, and Peter Scoblic, the executive editor of TNR. The transcript is devastating and raises not only questions about the original stories, but about Foer's efforts to stonewall any investigation, resorting to veiled threats about Beauchamp's wife's continued employment at TNR. Consider these segments:
Foer: Ellie (Beachamp's wife) sent me an email to tell you it's the most important thing in the world for her that you say that you didn't recant... You're obviously in a very uncomfortable position in that your wife's involved in this and I wish she wasn't involved because I, I... trust her, I care for here, I don't want her to get hurt in all of this.
Note what's missing here is that Ellie does not say that it's the most important thing in the world to her that he tell the truth; it's that he does not recant.
And Scoblic notes that Beauchamp will not be able to pursue his supposed desire to become a writer:
Scoblic: What are you going to do after this job? Are you staying in the Army?
Beauchamp: Um, I don't know what I want to do. Um I haven't made up my mind yet what I want to do.
Scoblic: Ah... you're not going to be able to write anymore after this... you know that, right?
Michelle Malkin, as usual, has
the definitive links post. It's interesting to see how the liberal blogosphere is playing this. Over
at Political Animal:
It's hard to judge whether this is damning or not. On August 10, the Army was stonewalling TNR. They didn't get to talk to Beauchamp until nearly a month later. And the fact that after a month of browbeating from his chain of command Beauchamp "just want[ed] it to end" is hardly surprising either. We still don't know whether Beauchamp was telling the truth the first time around when he wrote his pieces for TNR or the second time around when he recanted under pressure from the Army.
He also claims that Drudge did not include the source material; in an update he notes that Drudge did in fact link to the transcripts, but does not revise his "hard to judge" stance.
Labels: Scott Beauchamp, The New Republic
