'TNR' Blogger Reveals Himself, But 'Weekly Standard' Not Impressed
Today, the New Republic's Iraq soldier-blogger revealed his true identity—he's Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp, of the Alpha Company, 1/18 Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division. (Questions had been raised as to whether the blogger was actually a soldier, and also whether the gruesome events he described were true.) So that's a huge relief for 'TNR' editor Frank Foer and his new online editor Ben Wasserstein, we're sure! But the Weekly Standard, those fun-loving conservative bastards, aren't letting TNR off the hook quite yet.
It's good to finally know the author's name, but there is nothing here to confirm the events as described by Beauchamp. Right now, we have no reason to believe that his stories are anything other than what we first suspected them to be: a "pastiche of the 'This is no bullshit . . . stories soldiers like to tell."... That Beauchamp chose to reveal himself at this point also seems a bit disingenuous, since the military has already launched an investigation and, courtesy of JD Johannes, we'd already identified his unit four days ago. If we'd gotten that much information, it was only a matter of time before somebody besides his editors started asking him "hard questions."
Oh, snap! They're basically calling a Jukt Micronics on TNR's asses!
A STATEMENT FROM SCOTT THOMAS BEAUCHAMP [TNR]
"Scott Thomas" Revealed [Weekly Standard]