[Dean's World] Dave Price: TNR: It's The Military's Fault

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Posted by Dave Price:
TNR: It's The Military's Fault
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1186779538.shtml


   More [1]hilarity from Franklin Foer:

     many of these questions have been formulated by people with
     ideological agendas

   TNR, of course, has no ideological agenda, none at all. They're the
   very archetype of neutrality!

     Indeed, we continue to investigate the anecdotes recounted in the
     Baghdad Diarist.

   Yes... "[2]investigate." By which Foer apparently means "ask
   misleading questions of experts, in a biased manner intended only to
   confirm our crazy stories, which we will not even show the experts we
   interview." Intellectual honesty? What's that?

     Although the Army says it has investigated Beauchamp's article and
     has found it to be false, it has refused our--and others'--requests
     to share any information or evidence from its investigation.

   Geez, I can't understand the military's weird insistence on following
   military procedure. So unreasonable. It's not like we're at war, or
   something.

     We once again invite the Army to make public Beauchamp's statements
     and the details of its investigation--and we ask the Army to let us
     (or any other media outlet, for that matter) speak to Beauchamp.
     Unless and until these things happen, we cannot fairly assess any
     of these reports about Beauchamp--and therefore have no reason to
     change our own assessment of Beauchamp's work.

   Well, that's a neat, lawyery trick: insist that the Army do something
   they know the Army cannot do, and claim they are helpless to admit the
   story is fake otherwise. Slick.

     The story is rock-solid... if it turns out the anecdotes are fake,
     that's a story we'd like to break.

   OK, I made that part up. Sure sounds about right, though.

References

   1. http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w070806&s=editorial081007
   2. http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1186682384.shtml