GMontag's Journal: Tim Rutten of the LA Times is a Retard

Drudge, New Republic battle over 'Baghdad Diarist'
October 27, 2007

In his account, Beauchamp described various ways in which the occupation of Iraq brutalized soldiers in his combat infantry unit. He described the ridicule of a disfigured Iraqi woman, attempts to run over stray dogs with Bradley fighting vehicles and the mistreatment of dead children's remains.

In his own reaccounting, he was not in Iraq when he met the disfigured woman, he was in Kuwait. Actually, not his accounting, but the supposedly by the other soldiers that The New Republic asked to back the story. He NEVER said she was Iraqi.
2.pdf
Also, in the readily available documents, he would not swear uner oath to have seen Bradley IFVs running over dogs or the desecration of human remains.

The writer's identity quickly was revealed and both the New Republic and the Army investigated.

Yes, his identity was revealed by his publisher, The New Republic as was that of his wife who was writing for them at the time, Elspeth Reeve. BTW, the Army was already investigating him for OPSEC violations in his weblog.

The magazine determined that the incident involving the disfigured woman was concocted and corrected that,

Not quite. They minimalized a serious error that undermined the entire premise of the story. Otherwise, you are on track. On the window track that you are licking on the short bus.

but also reported that interviews with Beauchamp's comrades substantiated his version of the other events.

Other than the fact that none of them backed those accounts up under oath. Neither did PV1 Beauchamp. The man has a title, you might try using it in your writing.

The Army's investigators refused to release details of their findings, but said in an e-mail that Beauchamp's "allegations are false, his platoon and company were interviewed, and no one could substantiate the claims he made."

The Congress has restricted what can be released as a part of public law. The parties to the investigation have protection under the law, no matter how much you do not like or understand it and public releases of information are not the data dumps that you might wish.

A report in the Weekly Standard alleged that, as part of the Army investigation, the private also had signed a statement totally disavowing his piece. When the New Republic inquired about such a statement, an Army spokesman denied it existed.

The Weekly Standard spoke out of school, at the time. However, the now illegally released record supports The Weeekly Standard's source. seems to be an unofficial source, subject to LEGAL (ever read that word before?) retribution.

Since then, Beauchamp has remained in Iraq with his unit and the magazine has been unable to communicate with him.

Other than 2 or 3 times as stated by Mr. Franklin Foer and a transcript from a 6 September 2007 telephone conversation. Did you know that you refer to the transcript later in this article? How could you be unaware of a conversation that you write about in this same article? Are you Fairbankising all the way through?

Both the New Republic -- still unable to determine whether its story was true or false -- and bloggers interested in the case -- enraged that the story had "defamed" and "dishonored" the U.S. military -- have filed Freedom of Information Act requests for release of documents produced by the Army's inquiry.

Yep, you got something correct. Funny how the raw, un-redacted version does not look so hot for Mr. Foer and his crew, huh?

The Drudge writer, whoever that may be, then went on to list four documents he or she had obtained. Two were transcripts of a Sept. 7 telephone conference call in which Beauchamp, with at least two military superiors present with him in Iraq, spoke at length with New Republic editor Franklin Foer and the magazine's executive editor Peter Scoblic.

You went through all of that crap when you knew about this!?

Oh, only one person in the room was a true "military superior", his squad leader. The PAO representative, while higher in rank (just by accident, PV1 Beauchamp would have been an SP4 if he could just stay out of trouble) was not in the Private's chain of command.

At a certain point in the conversation, the latter two telephonically included the lawyer the magazine had retained to represent Beauchamp. In the course of this conversation, Beauchamp repeatedly refused to confirm or deny the details of his diarist piece and professed his desire to devote himself entirely to fulfilling his duties as a soldier.

Seems you missed the part where the TNR reps. did the whole mob-movie-like thing hoping nothing bad happened to his wife Elspeth "Ellie" Reeve.

One of the documents is a kind of executive summary of the Army's investigation, concluding that Beauchamp's article was entirely false and recommending that he receive psychiatric treatment. The fourth document, according to Drudge, was "a signed 'Memorandum for Record' in which Beauchamp recants his stories and concedes the facts of the Army's investigation -- that his stories contained 'gross exaggerations and inaccurate allegations of misconduct' by his fellow soldiers." (In fact, signing such a document -- if it exists -- is not an admission of guilt, but merely an acknowledgment that the person under investigation has been shown the contents.)

It was interesting to note that Drudge provided links to the transcripts and report but not to the purported "Memorandum for Record."

Are you talking about the "Memorandum of Concern", a counceling statement, included in 2.pdf, that was signed by LTC (Tim, that means Lieutenant Colonel) George A. Glaze, on 1 September 2007? Or do you mean the "Memorandum for Record", contained in the same .pdf, signed by PV1 (that means Private, E-1) Beauchamp on 1 September 2007 at 2030 hrs? Yes, the latter is just a reciept.

No, he did not overtly "recant" his stories, a PAO was on record said that to Bob Owens some time before the Drudge documents were posted. However, he did swear to a set of facts that shred the basis of his stories. Should not be a big deal for you an the TNR crowd, where Kuwait is as good as Iraq for a "horrors of war" story.

Don't you know any of this? Did you come into this story right after an Anthropology Department keg party? Are you trying to get a TNR job or as a commentor on Ezra Klein's 'blog?

Read the rest yourself. This guy needs modern medication.