Drudge published transcripts yesterday of a phone call between Franklin Foer, editor of The New Republic, TNR executive editor Peter Scoblic and private Scott Beauchamp. The phone call took place on September 7 of this year, but TNR hasn’t reported about it. In fact, when asked about whether they’ll retract Beauchamp’s story, TNR said that the US military wasn’t giving them access to important documents. However, when one reads the transcripts (PDF) one gets the impression that the one responsible for the delay isn’t the US military, it’s Scott Beauchamp. Furthermore, when the guys from TNR tried to pressure Beauchamp into backing his story up with evidence, they said that if he would refuse to stand by his stories, they’d have to retract them and they’d have to say that their stories relied on a person who can’t be trusted.
Beauchamp’s response? “I don’t care…”
Drudge strangely pulled the transcripts a couple of hours after publishing them. As of yet, I don’t know why he did this. I’ve e-mailed him to ask why the transcript was pulled. Thusfar no reponse. If he responds later today, this post will be updated.
Luckily, however, Hot Air has more information about the transcripts. They read, as Allahpundit points out, like a thriller. Foer tried to get Beauchamp to give them the information they needed. He did so by pointing out that if he fails to help them, he’ll be considered a liar by the public. Beauchamp then said that he couldn’t care less what the public thinks. “I just want to not think about this anymore and just basically do my job,” he told TNR.
Scoblic asked: “I mean, let me ask you Scott- do you care if we fully retract not only this piece, but the previous ones?” Again Foer answered: “[A]ll I really care about is the job I’m doing here. I really don’t care about the media at this point.”
In the end, TNR’s employees seems to feel sorry for themselves. Foer says, literally: “You should have told this a month ago and ah… you know- saved us… basically a lot of heartache and pain.”
Furthermore, not only did Foer and Scoblic appeal to Beauchamp’s ambitions - if this is indeed an authentic transcript and it appears it is - they also used his wife against him. They told him that his wife doesn’t want him to retract his stories. Beauchamp’s wife wants him to stand by them, according to Foer. Again Beauchamp couldn’t care less. He says that he’s sorry but that he doesn’t want to write anymore and that he basically wants everything to go away.
What’s more, not only did Foer and Scoblic tell Beauchamp that if he didn’t stand by his stories publicly, neither could they, they also prevented him from talking to the media. When asked, Beauchamp told Foer and Scoblic that he would be interviewed by both Newsweek and the Washington Post. He planned to do so, because he wanted to explain that the army didn’t forbid him to talk to the media; he simply didn’t (and doesn’t) want to do so himself. Foer tells him that he’d rather not have Beauchamp talk to anyone else. “I think you ought to basically talk to us, and let us control the way this story proceeds.” When Beauchamp asked “what are you saying?” Foer answered: “I’m saying that I’d rather you not talk to the Washington Post, Newsweek or whoever else until we put out our final judgment on your pieces.” He told the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz: “given everything we have on the line, we have a right to have this exclusive line of communication with him.”
Meanwhile, it seems that TNR continued to act as if Beauchamp was silenced by the military.
This is all very troubling: if the transcripts are accurate. If accurate, they show that TNR cared more about salvaging its damaged reputation than about the truth. They should’ve reported that they talked to Beauchamp and that he wasn’t willing to stand by his stories, that he had had enough, etc.
Also more at Neocon news. Also at (with many links) Instapundit.
Is Greg Sargent saying that the guys of TNR didn’t tape the conversation themselves? Journalists talk officially to Beauchamp. But they don’t record the conversation? Furthermore, how is that relevant? They were present. It’s not like the conversation took place without them. They should’ve come clean immediately after they ended the conversation.
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Debunked. Again
Ricordate lo “scoop” di questa estate pubblicato da The New Republic? Quello in cui Scott Thiomas Beauchamp, un soldato/scrittore di stanza in Iraq (sposato con una redattrice di TRN) raccontava in prima persona le peggiori nefandezze compiute dai mi…
Greg Sargent provides an object lesson in hypocrisy, thouhgt perhaps not as he intended. He takes a swing at the Army for “leaking” this information when Big Army is “withholding” info from TNR.
Oh, so like if leaks are damaging to the military or US interests or the Bush Administration, they’re good leaks, but when they negatively impact the media or other critics, they’re bad?
I mean, you can cry foul on Army hypocrisy — although any one individual soldier can be the leaker, its not as if the “Army” as a whole leaked these documents.
So where does Sargent stand on leaking that gores the other man’s ox?
Right, that’s okay then. Just so we know who ALL they hypocrites are.
TNR whining about someone in the military leaking information exposing their military leaker as a liar is quite funny.